河流健康检测：水可持续发展评估和河流可持续发展指数

Measurements Beyond River Health:Water Sustainability Assessment and River Sustainability Index

水是最重要的资源之一,随着人口和经济增长,水资源短缺和退化对社会经济发展和环境保护构成了日益严重的威胁。为人类各种竞争性用水提供充足的淡水资源已成为更具挑战和关键的问题。维护和恢复河流健康系统已经成为环境和水资源管理的重要目标。为了解这些挑战,实现未来水管理的可持续发展,有必要对河流健康进行综合评估。河流健康评估工具已经发展到测量河道的生态状况和自然资本。基于将河流健康测量延伸至包含水资源的社会经济价值,本文提出一个用于评估河流可持续性的指标框架,讨论了可持续发展指标如何用于评估水可持续性发展的具体问题,介绍了我们所采用的可持续发展评估的过程分析方法,以及由此方法得到的中国黄河下游可持续发展综合指数。该方法提供了一种系统方式,以纳入可持续发展的所有领域,并可生成一套定制指标。本文认为可持续发展指标框架为评估河流的可持续性提供了透明和参与的基础。这种评估为关键问题识别提供了信息和概貌,尤其对支撑政策制定很有帮助。

Water is one of our most critical resources： as populations and economies grow, water scarcity and degradation pose a growing threat to C development and environment protection. It has become more challenging but critical to provide adequate freshwater for the competing needs of human use, whilst at the same time managing the associated long-term consequences and risks in the environment. The maintenance and restoration of healthy river systems have become important objectives of environment and water resources management. Integrated assessment is needed in order to understand these challenges and to manage water towards a sustainable future. Tools for river health assessment have been developed to measure the ecological status and natural capital of the river cour-ses. Extending river health measurements to include socioeconomic values imbedded in water resources, this paper presents an indicator-based framework for assessing river sustainability. We discuss how sustainability indicators are applied to assess the specific concerns of water sustainability. In this paper we introduce our approach using the Process Analysis Method of sustainability assessment, which leads to a Composite River Sustainability Index for the Lower Yellow River in China. This methodology presents a systematic way to incorporate all domains of sustainability, and to generate a tailored indicator set. The paper concludes that a sustainability indicator framework provides a transparent and participatory basis for assessing river sustainability. Such assessments provide the information and overview that are needed for identifying critical issues, and are especially helpful in underpinning policy development.