Affiliation:
1. College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
2. Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lake of Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
3. Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China
4. Jiangsu Environmental Protection Group Co., Ltd., Nanjing 210036, China
Abstract
Systematic evaluation of water environment carrying capacity (WECC) is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable development, which reflects the water environment comprehensive condition of lake basin under the current economic development scenario. Therefore, taking the Taihu Basin as a case study, a scientific comprehensive evaluation index system of WECC was established based on the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) assessment framework, which included water resources (WR), pollution emission (PE), water quality (WQ), water ecology (WE), and land use (LU) sub-systems. An expert group was invited to determine the weights of each indicator using the group analytic hierarchy process (G-AHP) method, and the indicators in the WR, PE, WQ, WE, and LU sub-systems were 6.5%, 21.8%, 27.9%, 11.1%, and 32.9%, respectively. According to the evaluation results, the WECC index of Taihu Basin increased by 51.4% from 2007 to 2019, but it still slightly exceeded the carrying capacity of the water environment; the water quality and pollution discharge indices had the most significant improvement. Algal blooms are a major factor challenging WECC in the Taihu Basin. Therefore, the overall restoration of the water eco-system must receive more attention in the future.
Subject
Water Science and Technology,Aquatic Science,Geography, Planning and Development,Biochemistry