Abstract
Aquatic ecological carrying capacity is an effective method for analyzing sustainable development in regional water management. In this paper, an integrated approach is employed for assessing the aquatic ecological carrying capacity of Wujin District in the Tai Lake Basin, China. An indicator system is established considering social and economic development as well as ecological resilience perspectives. While calculating the ecological index, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is extracted from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) time-series images, followed by spatial and temporal analysis of vegetation cover. Finally, multi-index assessment of aquatic ecological carrying capacity is carried out for the period 2000 to 2008, including both static and dynamic variables. The results reveal that aquatic ecological carrying capacity presents a slight upward trend in the past decade and the intensity of human activities still exceeded the aquatic ecological carrying capacity in 2008. In terms of human activities, population has decreased, GDP has quadrupled, and fertilizer application and industrial wastewater discharge have declined greatly in the past decade. The indicators representing aquatic ecosystem conditions have the lowest scores, which are primarily attributed to the water eutrophication problem. Yet the terrestrial ecosystem is assessed to be in better condition since topographic backgrounds and landscape diversity are at higher levels. Based on the work carried out, it is suggested that pollutant emission be controlled to improve water quality and agricultural development around Ge Lake (the largest lake in Wujin District) be reduced.
Highlights
Carrying capacity has been applied to describe the importance of the limiting factors of environment on human material progress and to make the calculation and prediction of the upper limits of population or economic growth for a healthy eco-environment [1]
In the 1980s, widespread discussion about the drought problem initiated the employment of carrying capacity in resolving the constraint of water resources from which human society was suffering in China [2,3]
In order to integrate all the definitions of carrying capacity related to water, aquatic ecological carrying capacity was proposed in an attempt to assess the degree of pressure from human activities on ecological resilience
Summary
Carrying capacity has been applied to describe the importance of the limiting factors of environment on human material progress and to make the calculation and prediction of the upper limits of population or economic growth for a healthy eco-environment [1]. Ecological or eco-environmental carrying capacity were highlighted as people became more aware of the need to detect and predict changes in ecosystem functioning in situations where human activities had profoundly affected ecosystems [7,8,9]. Tai Lake region is one of the most densely populated and developed areas in China, situated in the lower reaches of the Yangzi River. During the past twenty years, rapid industrialization and urbanization, combined with a lack of effective management and technical measures, have caused many serious environmental problems such as water eutrophication, organic pollution and destruction of aquatic ecosystems [10,11]. There are seven large- and medium-sized cities (namely, Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, Jiaxing, Huzhou, Changzhou, and Kunshan) and 31 counties in the
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