Ecosystem Health Assessment of the Jinghe River Wa

Authors: AnNing Suo YouCai Xiong TianMing Wang DongXia Yue JianPing Ge

Publish Date: 2008/03/22

Volume: 5, Issue: 2, Pages: 127-136

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Abstract

An improved Costanza model was developed to assess the health of the Jinhe River Watershed ecosystem The watershed is located at the center of the Huangtu Plateau in China and has suffered a severe disturbance in the last few decades Three indicators including vigor organization and resilience were calculated respectively by merging groundbased observations with remotely sensed data on a watershed scale Health indices of 12 topographic subwatersheds were calculated using a modified Costanza formula Health evaluated results indicated that subwatersheds in the Huangtu mountain region were relatively healthy ecosystems with scores over 0673 The subwatersheds in the loess mountain and the loess gully regions eg Jinghe Heihe and Honghe regions scored moderately their evaluated value ranged from 0505 to 0606 The two subwatersheds in the loess gully region and all subwatersheds in the loess hilly region scored the lowest less than 050 and were considered unhealthy ecosystems It can be argued that the loess hilly region and the loess gully regions should be in primary consideration for ecological protection and rehabilitation This study provided a possible quantitative model for ecological planning and landscape management with respect to topographic conditions in this areaWe are grateful to the Chinese National Key Project for Basic Scientific Research No 2002BC11507 and the key Technologies R D Program of China No 2004BA508B22 for financial support Our study was also partially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China No 30670321 and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation No 20060400046 All authors contributed equally to this paper

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