Assessment of River Habitat Quality in the Hai River Basin, Northern China

Yuekui Ding, Baoqing Shan and Yu Zhao
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Yuekui Ding: State Key Laboratory on Environmental Aquatic Chemistry, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100085, China
Baoqing Shan: State Key Laboratory on Environmental Aquatic Chemistry, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100085, China
Yu Zhao: State Key Laboratory on Environmental Aquatic Chemistry, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100085, China

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: We applied a river habitat quality (RHQ) assessment method to the Hai River Basin (HRB); an important economic centre in China; to obtain baseline information for water quality improvement; river rehabilitation; and watershed management. The results of the assessment showed that the river habitat in the HRB is seriously degraded. Specifically; 42.41% of the sites; accounting for a river length of 3.31 × 10 4 km; were designated poor and bad. Habitat in the plain areas is seriously deteriorated; and nearly 50% of the sites; accounting for a river length of 1.65 × 10 4 km; had either poor or bad habitats. River habitat degradation was attributable to the limited width of the riparian zone (?5 m); lower coverage of riparian vegetation (?40%); artificial land use patterns (public and industrial land); frequent occurrence of farming on the river banks and high volumes of solid waste (nearly 10 m 3 ); single flow channels; and rare aquatic plants (?1 category). At the regional scale; intensive artificial land use types caused by urbanization had a significant impact on the RHQ in the HRB. RHQ was significantly and negatively correlated with farmland (r = 1.000; p < 0.01) and urban land (r = 0.998; p < 0.05); and was significantly and positively correlated with grassland and woodland (r = 1.000; p < 0.01). Intensive artificial land use; created through urbanization processes; has led to a loss of the riparian zone and its native vegetation; and has disrupted the lateral connectivity of the rivers. The degradation of the already essentially black rivers is exacerbated by poor longitudinal connectivity (index of connectivity is 2.08–16.56); caused by reservoirs and sluices. For river habitat rehabilitation to be successful; land use patterns need to be changed and reservoirs and sluices will have to be regulated.

Keywords: assessment; river habitat quality; Hai River Basin; indicator; scoring system; impact factor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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