Progress on Theories and Methods of Watershed Eco-health Assessment
流域生态健康评价理论与方法研究进展

Watershed ecosystem is a social-economic-natural complex ecosystem. Watershed eco-health assessment can help watershed layout, protection and comprehensive management, and can provide basis for decision-making. In this paper, the concept and characteristics of watershed eco-health are introduced, and the history, current condition and research scale of watershed eco-health assessment are put forward. The assessment should be carried out from broad temporal-spatial scales. This research summarizes methods of watershed eco-health assessment in the past years both at home and abroad. There are two main methods: one is biological assessment and the other is indices assessment. It should be careful in selecting bio-indicator species because the sensitivity and reliability of species need to be considered simultaneously. The indices should include six categories: bio-assessment, water condition assessment, hydrological assessment, habitat assessment, social-economic assessment and human health assessment. Every category has some relative indices. Because of the complexity of watershed ecosystem, the measures of watershed eco-health indices are difficult sometimes. The measurement methods should be further developed. Ecosystem restoration is needed for those unhealthy watershed ecosystems and methods of it are introduced. Watershed eco-health assessment is a developing theory system and there are some problems that should be further discussed in this field. Last, these problems and research trends in future are pointed out.