Comprehensive evaluation of ecosystem quality in the Shule River basin, Northwest China from 2001 to 2010.

Abstract

Shule River Basin is a typical arid inland river basin and ecoenvironment-fragile region. Comprehensive evaluation of ecosystem quality in the Shule River basin is of great significance. The ecosystem productivity index (EPI), the ecosystem stability index (ESI) and the ecosystem bea-ring capacity index (EBCI) were proposed to build a remote sensing comprehensive evaluation mo-del to evaluate the ecosystem quality of Shule River basin during 2001-2010. The results showed that the mean ecosystem quality value in the Shule River basin was 43.21, which was at a relatively low level. The values of EPI, ESI, EBCI were 47.16, 58.09 and 28.52, respectively, indicating that ecosystem carrying capacity in the Shule River basin was poor in the period from 2001 to 2010. However, EPI and EBCI rose by 18.9％ and 20.1％, respectively, but ESI decreased slightly by 9.4%. The ecosystem quality showed a trend of increasing first and then decreasing from 2001 to 2010. The average ecosystem quality values in 2001, 2005 and 2010 were 43.71, 44.80 and 41.13, respectively. The farmland ecosystem quality was better than that of the other ecosystem types, and the water area ecosystem quality was the lowest. Overall, the comprehensive evaluation value of the artificial ecosystem quality was 46.43, which was significantly higher than that of the natural ecosystems.