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cje ›› 2012, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (5): 1288-1295.

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Assessment of river habitat quality in Yixing district of Taihu Lake basin.

LIU Hua, CAI Ying, YU Meng-qiu, GONG Lei-ting, AN Shu-qing**   

  1. (School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China)
  • Online:2012-05-10 Published:2012-05-10

Abstract: In this paper, an assessment system including ten indices of river habitat quality for three different habitats (channel, bank, and riparian habitats) was established to assess the habitat quality and compare its spatial difference at 42 sites of Yixing district in Taihu Lake basin, and analyzed the differences of the river habitat parameters under different land use types as well as the correlation between river habitat quality index and eutrophication. The scores of the river habitat quality index at the study sites ranged from 29 to 79. 31.0% of the sites had a poor or very poor habitat quality, and 57.1% had a fair habitat quality, indicating the obvious habitat degradation in the whole district. The river habitat quality was better in southern hilly area than in vast plain river area. There existed significant differences in the river habitat quality under different land use types, being much better in woodland than in farmland and construction land. The river habitat quality index had significant negative correlation with eutrophication, suggesting the considerable contribution of water quality to river habitat quality.

Key words: Yellow River watersheds, ecosystem, vegetation net primary productivity, climate factors, correlation.