Evaluation of the Water Resource Carrying Capacity on the North Slope of the Tianshan Mountains, Northwest China

Abstract

Water resource carrying capacity (WRCC) is essential for characterizing the harmony between humans and water resources in an area. Investigation of the WRCC is useful for guiding the sustainable development of a region. The northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains is an important area for the economic development of Xinjiang, China. In recent years, the supply of water in the area barely satisfies the demand. To quantitatively evaluate the WRCC, data for four indicators including the water resources, social and economic development, and ecological environment of the area were utilized. The comprehensive weighting method, which combines the entropy and analytic hierarchy processes, was used to assess these indicators. A fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model was employed to evaluate the urban WRCC of the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountain for 2018. The results showed urban WRCC values varying between good and moderate for the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains, and this indicates that the study area is in a loadable state. Although the water supply can meet the development of cities on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains to a certain extent at this stage, because it is located in the arid region of western China, the shortage and uneven distribution of water resources are one of the biggest limiting factors for the future development of this region. The findings of the present study provide a basis for the development, rational allocation, and sustainable utilization of urban water resources on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains.

Analysis of Carrying Capacity and Obstacle Factors of Water Resources in Longnan City, China, Based on Driving–Pressure–State–Response and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution Models

“…Gulishengmu et al [15] evaluated the water resource carrying capacity of Northwest Oasis using GRA-TOPSIS. Zhi et al [16] adopted the methods of entropy weight and analytic hierarchy process to determine indicator weights and evaluated the water resource carrying capacity of the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. Wang et al [17] analyzed the changing trend of water resource carrying capacity in Changchun City based on system dynamics and the improved fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method.…”

Characteristics of Land-Use Carbon Emissions and Carbon Balance Zoning in the Economic Belt on the Northern Slope of Tianshan

“…With the construction and development of the Silk Road economic belt, NST was considered as an economic core area in China, and its ecological and environmental issue received significant attention in academic fields. The urban agglomeration of NST is the area with the highest level of urbanization, the densest population with abundant gross domestic product (GDP), and the most concentrated industries in Xinjiang [46]. Moreover, in the future, this area will become a strategic core region of economic development.…”

“…Accordingly, UA is also a key contributor for the reduction in reginal CEs. For sustainable development and high-quality growth of UAs in China, it is imperative to conduct researches on CEs [46]. Several studies focused on CE investigations in various typical areas in the country [35,41]; however, studies on CEs from newly developing UAs are rare.…”

Multi-Level Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation for Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Xuzhou City, China

“…Following previous studies [58,59], these indexes were classified into three grades (V 1 , V 2 , V 3 ) in this work, as shown in Table 1. V 1 means a strong WRCC, i.e., a strong capacity for sustainable development, indicating that current water resources support socioeconomic development.…”