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Construction and assessment of an indicator system of stream conditions in a typical mountain landscape in Northeast China

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Abstract

Stream ecosystem health assessments are crucial for the effective management of aquatic ecosystem service functions and the assessment of anthropogenic and climatic impacts on aquatic ecosystems. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive assessment methods based on complete ecosystem structures. This study improved an ecological health assessment system, which consists of 13 indicators based on ecosystem structure. The assessment system was applied to 30 streams on Changbai Mountain. The results showed that the comprehensive index of stream health (ISH) in Changbai Mountain was relatively high, and the ISH increased with the elevation gradient. The dominant factors controlling the ecosystem health level were water pH, water flow, vegetation coverage, total phosphorus (TP), and vegetation diversity index. All these results indicated that the damage caused by excessive deforestation and farmland occupation in recent years has not been fully reversed and that human disturbance from tourism may be the main reason for the low stream health at lower elevations. Our results suggest that the key to future work is to increase quantitative research on disturbance sensitivity and to develop economically viable restoration measures.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Taihu Laboratory for Lake Ecosystem Research for their help with the water and sediment chemical analysis.

Funding

This study was funded jointly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 42071118 and 41922005), the Scientific Instrument Developing Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grants No. YJKYYQ20200071), and the NIGLAS foundation (E1SL002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Taihu Laboratory for Lake Ecosystem Research, State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 73 East Beijing Road, Nanjing, 210008, People’s Republic of China

    Baili Dong, Yongqiang Zhou, Kai Peng, Boqiang Qin & Kun Shi

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Baili Dong, Yongqiang Zhou, Kai Peng, Boqiang Qin & Kun Shi

Authors
  1. Baili Dong
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Contributions

Baili Dong: investigation, conceptualisation, data curation, methodology, writing—original draft. Yongqiang Zhou: methodology, validation and editing. Kai Peng: software and methodology. Boqiang Qin: reviewing and editing. Shi Kun: supervision, methodology and editing.

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Correspondence to Kun Shi.

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Dong, B., Zhou, Y., Peng, K. et al. Construction and assessment of an indicator system of stream conditions in a typical mountain landscape in Northeast China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 7889–7901 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31634-x

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