Identifying and validating freshwater ecoregions in Jinan City, China

Abstract

s u m m a r yFreshwater ecoregion is currently widely used by biologists, conservators and resource managers. Most of ecoregion delineations are developed at the basin scale and are not fully adapted in a practical manner because operational water resources management is primarily conducted by political administrative departments. In this study, an ecoregion delineation framework was proposed to classify three-level ecoregions in Jinan City with geographic information systems and cluster analysis. The first level ecoregion was composed of three watersheds (a part of the Yellow River, Xiaoqing River and Tuhaimajia River) plus the urban area, which was primarily determined on the basis of the city administrative divisions and river watersheds. The classification of the second level ecoregion is primarily based on the spatial heterogeneity of land use. The third level ecoregion was delineated for each second level ecoregion by using the cluster analysis on water quality. At the same time, administrative boundaries were used to rectify the boundaries of each ecoregion in this study to facilitate the administration of each ecoregion. Furthermore, ecological health assessment (IBI) based on fish communities were employed to validate the freshwater ecoregion. The results demonstrated that 73.3% of ecoregions were in line with the distribution of fish IBI, indicating that the freshwater ecoregions are acceptable for future water resources management.

Linking hydrologic, physical and chemical habitat environments for the potential assessment of fish community rehabilitation in a developing city

“…Policymakers and stakeholders are aware of the need to rehabilitate the aquatic ecosystems in Jinan City. To facilitate research program on rehabilitating these aquatic ecosystems, the entire city was divided into four eco-regions (Yu et al, 2014) and 48 routine monitoring stations distributed evenly on typical rivers were set up ( Fig. 1).…”

“…In the research of Yu et al (2014) three-level eco-regions were classified with geographic information system (ArcGIS) and spatial autocorrelation analysis. Meanwhile the first-level eco-region mainly take as basis the characteristics of the city administrative divisions and river watersheds.…”

Heterogeneity of aquatic ecosystems in a developing city for construction of civilized freshwater ecology, China

“…The Xiaoqing River, which crosses through the urban area (Eco‐region II in Figure ), is important for the urban district, domestic life, and industrial development in Jinan. The Tuhaimajia River, which is in the alluvial plains of northern Jinan, is considered the main water resource for irrigation, because it flows through densely populated areas with a large amount of farmland (Yu, Xu, Liu, Dou, & Xu, ).…”

“…Yu et al () classified three levels of eco‐regions with a geographic information system (ArcGIS) and spatial autocorrelation analysis. Among them, the first‐level eco‐region was primarily based on the characteristics of the urban administrative divisions and river watersheds.…”

“…The Tuhaimajia River, which is in the alluvial plains of northern Jinan, is considered the main water resource for irrigation, because it flows through densely populated areas with a large amount of farmland (Yu, Xu, Liu, Dou, & Xu, 2015). Yu et al (2015) classified three levels of eco-regions with a geographic information system (ArcGIS) and spatial autocorrelation analysis. Among them, the first-level eco-region was primarily based on the characteristics of the urban administrative divisions and river watersheds.…”