Exploring the assessment scale for small watersheds in the Han river basin using an integrated ecosystem health index

作者：Chengrong Peng, Junyan Wu, Yong Gao, Yongde Cui, Haoyan Sun, Yintao Jia, Xiong Xiong, Zhengfei Li, Wei Yin · 发表于：Ecological Indicators · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113372 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Land Use and Ecosystem Services、Environmental Quality and Pollution、Soil and Land Suitability Analysis

• A novel segment-based method for river health assessment is developed. • The R-IEHI comprises aquatic life, water quality and hydrologic regime. • The R-IEHI can significantly distinguish different levels of disturbance intensity. • The R-IEHI is applicable to other small watersheds in subtropical regions. The Han River is a crucial water source for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project; however, it also faces a range of ecological and environmental challenges. Currently, there is a lack of comprehensive, index-based assessments that integrate multiple biological groups to evaluate the ecological health of small watersheds. This study selects five representative rivers and develops a comprehensive evaluation index at both the sample scale and the river segment scale. The index incorporates three categories of indicators: aquatic life, water quality and hydrologic regime. To construct the river integrated ecosystem health index (R-IEHI), we first selected multiple biological group indicators, including commonly used evaluation groups such as fish, macrobenthos, and phytoplankton. When constructing the river segment-based assessment index, we first developed the F- S O/E index based on species richness and river segment length. We then combined this with several other group-specific indices to create a simplified comprehensive evaluation index. The calculation of the R-IEHI score involves first normalizing each individual index, followed by a weighted summation. Both the...