Assessment of water environmental carrying capacity in xi an, china

Jun Zhang1, Ya-ni Geng1, Qi Zhou1, Ya-qian Zhao2

1 Baoji University of Arts and Sciences, Key Laboratory of Disaster Monitoring and Mechanism Simulating of Shaanxi Province, Baoji, 721013 Shaanxi, P.R. China
2 UCD Dooge Centre for Water Resources Research, School of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

Abstract


A comprehensive evaluation methodology for water environmental carrying capacity (WECC) has been proposed. It is based on a new definition of WECC and reasonable evaluation models compared with vector norm method for water resources supply, environmental assimilative capacity, and society supporting capacity. Evaluation index of WECC is determined for Xi an city, depending on characteristics of the water environment in Xi an and selection principles of WECC evaluation index. Three-layer structure model of evaluation factors is established and index weight of a class of factors is calculated based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Thereafter, fuzzy optimization model is adopted to determine each evaluation index weights of WECC. The results show that WECC in Xi an city is improved in recent years, but total status of WECC is still low. The reason may be caused by water resources shortage and negative issues of social rapid development.

Keywords


analytic hierarchy process; evaluation index; fuzzy optimization model; water environmental carrying capacity

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