Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Assessment and prediction of the water ecological carrying capacity in

Changzhou city, China
Jiuhe Bu a, Chunhui Li a, *, Xuan Wang a, Yuan Zhang b, Zhongwen Yang b
a
Key Laboratory for Water and Sediment Sciences of the Ministry of Education, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China
b
Laboratory of Aquatic Ecological Conservation and Restoration, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: With rapid economic development and population growth, pressure on the urban ecological environ-
Received 28 March 2020 ment is becoming intense, and the ecological environment carrying capacity is becoming an important
Received in revised form issue. In this study, an index system combining the system dynamics (SD) and analytic hierarchy process
27 August 2020
(AHP) methods was constructed to assess the water ecological carrying capacity (WECC) of Changzhou
Accepted 28 August 2020
Available online 6 September 2020
city. In particular, the construction of the aquatic habitat and aquatic organism indexes were constructed
and showed that water ecology health should be monitored along with the economy and population,
Handling editor. Bin Chen which were focused in the past. Scientific research has neglected the internal spatial heterogeneity in
administrative regions. Therefore, the SD and AHP models were applied to simulate the WECC of
Keywords: administrative regions and control units from 2010 to 2016. The simulation results show that the WECC
Water ecological carrying capacity of Liyang and Jintan counties reached a safe carrying capacity state, while the urban districts were in a
System dynamics (SD) critically overloaded state. In addition, the MIKE11 model was adopted to simulate the WECC under
Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) different inflow and the river connectivity index scenarios, and the optimal parameters for improving the
MIKE11
WECC were obtained when the inflow recharge was 10 m3/s and the river connectivity index exceeded
60%. The prediction results from the optimized WECC showed that the WECC of all administrative areas
and control units in Changzhou city reached the safe carrying capacity state. The results provide insights
for improving the WECC of Changzhou city.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction six subsystems (industry, agriculture, population, water supply,

Rapid economic expansion and accelerated urbanization pro-
cess have increased the demand for resources in cities beyond the
ecological capacity of cities (Zhu et al., 2009). The excessive waste
of water resources, pollution of the water environment by industry,
agriculture, and urban areas, and large-scale construction of sluices
have led to the disappearance of certain aquatic organisms (Hansen
€ nig et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2019). Thus, the water
et al., 2018; Ko
ecological carrying capacity (WECC) of an area must be investigated
to support the socioeconomic development.
Since the concept of carrying capacity was first proposed by
Odum (Odum et al., 1971), the focus of research shifted from pop-
ulation quantity to social economy. Currently, most studies focus
only on the economy and population when the index system of
WECC is constructed. For instance, Y. Wang et al. (2018) constructed
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: chunhuili@bnu.edu.cn (C. Li).
water ecology, and water pollution) to study the WECC in the
Bosten Lake basin. Zhou et al. (2017) studied the WECC through the
construction of population, economy and water environment sub-
systems. However, the contributions of the local biology, vegetation
and other ecological health indicators have not been considered.
Therefore, a reasonable evaluation index system must be estab-
lished to evaluate the WECC of a given study area (Y. Wang et al.,
2018; Yang et al., 2019; Zhu et al., 2019). In this study, the aquatic
habitat and aquatic organism indexes were incorporated into the
evaluation index system of the WECC.
To date, scholars have different understanding about the index
system of the WECC and established extensive assessment
methods, such as a neural network method (Iliadis and Maris,
2007), system dynamics method (H. Wang et al., 2018) and prin-
cipal component analysis (Zhang et al., 2019a). However, scholars
focused only on the WECC assessment method have not revealed
the internal driving mechanism of the WECC. For example, the
neural network method has the advantages of nonlinear pattern
recognition and a disadvantages in terms of quantifying the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123988
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al.
simulation results. The principal component analysis method has
certain fuzziness and cannot clearly express the results, and it can
only be used to evaluate areas without high requirements for re-
sults. To overcome the shortcomings of these methods, system
dynamics (SD) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) models were
combined to assess and predict the WECC. Such a method could
provide a dynamic evaluation of as well as feedback for the specific
reasons for the deterioration of the WECC. Furthermore, a scenario
simulation based on the MIKE11 model can provide dynamic
optimal parameters for the evaluation model of the WECC.
Recently, scientific research has tended to focus on the WECC of
an administrative region (Yang et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2014) and
ignored the different requirements of the ecological units within a
district. For example, Shi et al. (2017) believed that aquatic
ecological function units are important for the WECC, which in-
dicates that research on the ecological functional units of the study
area should be strengthened. Changzhou city is located in the water
ecological function area of Taihu Lake; however, the water envi-
ronment is seriously damaged and restricts economic development
in the area. To promote economic development, to improve the
water ecological environment and reflect the spatial difference and
distribution rules of the watershed water ecosystem, different
water ecological function control units are required by the gov-
ernment to restore the water ecological environment. To coordinate
the development between economy and ecology, Changzhou city
was selected as the research area of the control units.
The main objective of the present study is to improve and pre-
dict the WECC of the control units in Changzhou city. In this study, a
new assessment method of WECC was proposed and an evaluation
index system of the WECC based on water resources, the water
environment and water ecology subsystems was established. In
addition, the SD, AHP and MIKE11 models were coupled to simulate
and predict the WECC and identify the causes of poor WECC con-
ditions. The proposed model contains (i) indicator weights calcu-
lated by the AHP method and WECC evaluations and predictions for
the administrative regions and control units by the SD model; (ii)
optimal parameters of the SD model for two reasonable scenarios
determined by the MIKE11 model; and (iii) improvements to the
WECC of the control units based on the ecological restoration
scheme. Fig. 1 shows a flow chart of the methodology in the study.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
In this study, Changzhou city (31.15
-32.07
N, 119.13
-120.20
E)
was selected as an example. This city is located in the Taihu Lake
region of Jiangsu Province, China (Fig. 2a) (Zhou et al., 2017). This
area contains six regions, including Liyang and Jintan counties, and
four urban districts, i.e., Xinbei, Wujin, Zhonglou and Tianning. The
six subregions are divided into 16 control units (Fig. 2b), including
two ecological level I units, four ecological level II units, eight
ecological level III units, and two ecological level Ⅳ units. Liyang
County contains I-02, III-06, and III-05; Jintan County contains I-01,
II-01, and III-04; Wujin District contains II-09, III-20, III-12, II-07, III-
09, and II-02; Xinbei District contains III-08, and III-03; Tianning
District contains Ⅳ-03; and Zhonglou District contains Ⅳ-02. Level
I units should be fully protected, and 90% of the rivers are better
than the water quality threshold of Grade III of the Chinese Surface
Water Environmental Quality Standard (CSWEQS) (GB3838-2002);
level II units should be partially protected and 85% of the rivers are
better than the water quality threshold of Grade III of the CSWEQS;
level III units should be partially ecologically restored and 80% of
the rivers are better than the water quality threshold of Grade III of
the CSWEQS; level Ⅳ units should be fully ecologically restored,
2
Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988
and 50% of the rivers are better than the water quality threshold of
Grade III of the CSWEQS. Changzhou city has an area of 4372.15 km2
and contains a large amount of water resources. The total water
resources of the city amounted to 6.511 billion m3 in 2016 and
include the surface water resources (annual streamflow) and the
groundwater resources. The Total surface water is 6.062 billion m3,
and the total groundwater resources is 0.449 billion m3. In addition,
the average annual precipitation is 1091.6 mm. With economic
development, water pollution in this city has become more serious;
thus, Changzhou is a typical pollution-induced water shortage city.
2.2. Data availability and processing
Population, GDP, acreage, and fertilizer application data were
collected from the Changzhou Statistical Yearbook (2010e2016).
Total water consumption and total water resources data were ob-
tained from the Changzhou Water Resources Bulletin (2010e2016),
and industrial pollution emissions, agricultural pollution emissions,
and urban pollution emissions data were obtained from Changzhou
Institute of Environmental Sciences. The urban districts of
Changzhou city include 19 rivers, 14 sluice gates and 10 water
quality monitoring stations. Historical discharge and river level
data were acquired through the Changzhou Hydrological Bureau.
Water quality data were obtained from the water quality moni-
toring stations. Hydrology and water quality data were collected at
8 a.m. every day from January to July in 2019. Forest grass coverage
and the water area index data were obtained from the Natural
Resources Department of Jiangsu Province (2010e2016). Planktonic
algae and macrobenthic data were acquired by monitoring by our
group and were collected in May and November each year from
2010 to 2016.
2.3. Methods
2.3.1. WECC index system with AHP
Research on the WECC indicates that it encompasses a large
complex system. Therefore, it is important to establish a scientific
and reasonable index system (Wu and Hu, 2020). Moreover, the
evaluation indicators of the WECC should be applied to multiple
areas, and the indicators should reflect socioeconomic develop-
ment and environmental impacts. The WECC system studied here
was classified into three subsystems (Zhang et al., 2019b), namely,
water resources, water environment and water ecology (Table 1),
and the WECC was classified based on the following states: optimal
carrying capacity, safe carrying capacity, critical overloaded, over-
load, and severely overloaded states (Table 2). Among all sub-
systems of the WECC, (1) the water resources subsystem is used to
estimate the supply capability of local water resources (Yang et al.,
2019). Water resource shortage is one of the important factors
limiting economic development. Therefore, the structure of the
water resources is divided into four parts: water resources per
capita, water consumption per 10,000 RMB of GDP, water resource
development utilization and total water used to control the red-line
compliance rate (Table 1). (2) The water environment describes the
quality of human life and the output level of the pollution load
(Kılkış, 2016). The point sources and non-point sources are the
primary pollutants. Hence, the structure of the water environment
is divided into four parts: industrial pollution intensity, agriculture
pollution intensity, urban pollution intensity and water environ-
mental quality indexes (Table 1). (3) The water ecology directly
reflects the supporting impacts of urban sustainable development
and ecosystem services (Simons et al., 2019). And the structure of
the water ecology is divided into seven parts: forest grass coverage
index, water area index, river connectivity index, ecological base
flow support rate, river and lake comprehensive index, algal
J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the coupling calculation of the SD, AHP and MIKE11 models.

Fig. 2. Location of the study area (a) and distribution of the control units (b) and main rivers and sluice gates in the urban districts (c).

integrity index, and macrobenthic integrity index (Table 1). frequently solved by the AHP method (Baffoe, 2018). Therefore, the
Complex decision-making problems with multiple targets are AHP was used to determine the weights of the evaluation index.

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J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

Table 1
Indicator system of the WECC.

Object hierarchy Rule hierarchy Weight Index hierarchy Weight

WECC Water Resources Endowment of water resources 0.5 Water resources per capita (A1-1) 1
(A) (A1)
Water utilization index (A2) 0.5 Water consumption per 10,000 RMB of GDP (A2-1) 0.3
Water resource development utilization (A2-2) 0.2
Total water used to control the red line compliance rate (A2-3) 0.5

Water Water environment pollution index 0.4 Industrial pollution intensity index Industrial COD emission intensity (B1-1-1) 0.1
environment (B) (B1) (B1-1) Industrial NH3eN emission intensity (B1-1-2) 0.1
Industrial TN emission intensity (B1-1-3) 0.1
Industrial TP emission intensity (B1-1-4) 0.1
Agriculture pollution intensity Chemical fertilizer application per unit of arable 0.06
index (B1-2) land (B1-2-1)
Agricultural COD emission intensity (B1-2-2) 0.06
Agricultural NH3eN emission intensity (B1-2-3) 0.06
Agricultural TN emission intensity (B1-2-4) 0.06
Agricultural TP emission intensity (B1-2-5) 0.06
Urban pollution intensity index (B1- Urban sewage COD emission intensity (B1-3-1) 0.075
3) Urban sewage NH3eN emission intensity (B1-3-2) 0.075
Urban sewage TN emission intensity (B1-3-3) 0.075
Urban sewage TP emission intensity (B1-3-4) 0.075
Water environment purification 0.6 Water environmental quality index (B2-1) 1
index (B2)

Water ecology (C) Aquatic habitat index (C1) 0.5 Forest grass coverage index (C1-1) 0.2
Water area index (C1-2) 0.25
River connectivity index (C1-3) 0.25
Ecological base flow support rate (C1-4) 0.3
Aquatic organisms index (C2) 0.5 River and Lake Comprehensive index (C2-1) 0.4
Algal integrity index (C2-2) 0.25
Macrobenthic integrity index (C2-3) 0.35

Table 2
Classification criteria of the WECC.

Score [0, 20] (20, 40] (40, 60] (60, 80] (80, 100]

State severely overloaded overloaded critical overloaded safe carrying capacity optimal carrying capacity

The evaluation indicator of the WECC is a combination of the object,
the rule and the index hierarchies. The object hierarchy is the WECC
index. The rule hierarchy is composed of three systems: water re-
sources, water environment, and aquatic ecology. The index hier-
archy is composed of the resource utilization index, the water
environment pollution index, the water environment purification
index, the aquatic habitat index, and the aquatic organism index
(Table 1). The AHP was applied to determine the weight of each
evaluation index (Table 1). Moreover, the weight of the index hi-
erarchy relative to the object hierarchy is defined by Eq. (1) (Tian
et al., 2013):
Oi ¼ Rj  Hj;i
where Oi is the weight of the index hierarchy relative to the object
hierarchy; Rj is the weight of the rule hierarchy relative to the ob-
ject hierarchy; and Hj;i is the index hierarchy relative to the rule
hierarchy. In addition, i ¼ 1; 2; …; 25, while j ¼ 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6.
2.3.2. SD model
The SD model is applied to research the feedback and behavior
among the system elements. After half a century of development
(Vincenot et al., 2011), the depth and breadth of SD have attained
great progress (Bouloiz et al., 2013; Qin et al., 2019). Because SD
deconstructs a system and establishes the correlation between
various elements, the model forms an effective feedback approach.
In this paper, SD was applied to simulate the long-term behavior of
the water resources, water environment, water ecology, to predict
the future changes of the WECC.
The evaluation index is the core of the SD method, and the
quantitative relationship between indexes is described by the flow
chart. Therefore, the flow chart includes differential equations, and
the flow equation is given in Eq. (2).
ðt X X 
LðtÞ ¼ L0 þ Xi  Xo dt (2)
0
where LðtÞ is the value of the level variable L at a time t; L0 is the
initial value; Xi is the input flow; and X0 is the output flow. The
above equation indicates that the t of the level variable is equal to
(1) its initial value plus the accumulation of the net inflow over the
time period ½o; t. The level variable formula of evaluation indexes
can be found in Appendix.
In this study, VENSIM PLE software (ventana systems, inc.) is
selected to calculate the SD model. The spatial boundary of VENSIM
is composed of the districts and counties of Changzhou city, which
is divided into six boundary constraint conditions, namely, the
Liyang and Jintan counties, and the Xinbei, Wujin, Zhonglou and
Tianning districts. The time boundary of the model is set from 2010
to 2040, the period of the error test is from 2010 to 2016, and the
period of prediction is from 2017 to 2040. In addition the time step
of the model is set as 1 year, and the running time of the model is 30
years.
2.3.3. MIKE11 model
The MIKE11 model is a water quality hydrodynamic model that
is mainly applied for water quality assessments of rivers and
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J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

reservoirs, analyses of sudden environmental pollution accidents, Hangzhou, Desheng, Zaogang, and Xinmeng rivers. The down-
calculations of the water environmental capacity, ecological dis- stream boundary conditions were the water level boundaries of the
patching, and water resource allocation, and analyses of the water lower boundaries of the Beijing-Hangzhou, Wujin and Taige rivers.
environment. Therefore, the MIKE11 model is widely adopted in the In addition, there are 8 point sources of pollution as internal
water environment management process. In this study, the hy- boundaries. In the time series file, the model period is from 14:00
drodynamic module (HD) (Eq. (3)) and convection diffusion module on February 13 to 14:00 on June 8, 2019. The water level under the
(AD) (Eq. (4)) in the MIKE11 model were selected to analyze im- initial conditions of the hydrodynamic parameter file is set to
provements of the water environment under the different river constant, which is determined via trial and error, and the flow rate
connectivity scenarios. is set as 0. The initial value of the bed roughness affects the accuracy
The HD module is composed of the mass conservation contin- of the hydrodynamic model calculations, and the Manning coeffi-
uous equation and the energy conservation momentum equation. cient is initially set as n ¼ 0.03.
The difference scheme adopts the 6-point Abbott-Lonescu scheme, The AD module parameter file is mainly composed of water
and the numerical calculation adopts the catch-up method. The quality components, diffusion coefficients, attenuation coefficients,
equation is as follows: and initial values. Based on the water quality monitoring data of
urban districts, ammonia nitrogen was selected as the simulation
vA vQ component, and the attenuation coefficient in the model is the
þ ¼ q
vt vx calibration parameter. Generally, the diffusion coefficient of rivers
ranges from 1 to 20 m2/s. When the initial conditions were defined,
! the average value of the monitored water quality indicators was
vQ v Q2 vh Q
þ a þ gL þg 2 ¼ 0 (3) used as the initial value. The diffusion coefficient was 10 m2/s, and
vt vx A vx X AR the initial value was 0.96 mg/L. The attenuation coefficient reflects
the effect of hydrological changes on pollutants. A reasonable
where x is the distance coordinate (m); t is the time coordinate (s); attenuation coefficient is vital to guarantee the accuracy of the
A is the cross-sectional area of the river (m2); Q is the response to model. Ammonia nitrogen (NH3eN) is selected as the simulated
the flow along the river section (m3/s); q is the lateral inflow flow pollutant in this study, the attenuation coefficient K is 0.1/d, and the
per unit length, in which the inflow is positive and the outflow is time step of the model is 1 min.
negative (m3/s); L is the momentum correction coefficient
(dimensionless); g is the acceleration of gravity (m/s2); h is the
water level (m); and x is the Chezy coefficient.
2.3.4. Quantitative evaluation of the WECC
The governing equation of the AD module is a one-dimensional
convection-diffusion equation, and the hydrodynamic conditions
were calculated by coupling the HD module are calculated. The 2.3.4.1. Data normalization. Due to the different units of the eval-
basic equation is as follows: uation indicators, these indicators must be normalized to quantify
the WECC. In addition, the indicators were normalized to get the
 
vAC vQC v vC individual score (Zhang et al., 2014). According to the authentic
þ  AD ¼  AKC þ S (4)
vt vx vx vx value of the evaluation index and the criteria of the scoring table
(Table 4, Table 5, Table 6), the score of the evaluation index was
where C is the pollutant concentration (mg/L), D is the longitudinal calculated by the relative equation. The range of the evaluation
diffusion coefficient (m/s), K is the degradation coefficient (1/d), indicators is 0e100.
and S is the source concentration (mg/L). There are three types of evaluation indicators, and the scoring
A total of 19 rivers (Table 3) and 14 structures (Table 3) were methods are as follows.
constructed in the MIKE11 model of the urban districts of
Changzhou city (Fig. 2c). The upstream boundary conditions were 1. For the index level with a fixed value, the median value is
the discharge boundaries of the upper boundaries of the Beijing- directly calculated and Eq. (5) is applied:

Table 3
Rivers and Structures in MIKE11 model.

Serial number River name Structures

1 Beitang river Beitang river Sluice gate

2 Biandan river Biandan river Sluice gate
3 Cailing river e
4 Caoqiao river Caoqiao river Sluice gate
5 Desheng river Desheng river Sluice gate
6 Dingtang river Dingtang river Sluice gate
7 Guan river e
8 Hexi river Hexi river Sluice gate
9 Nan river Nan river Sluice gate
10 Sanshan river e
11 Taige river Taige river Sluice gate (upstream) and Yapu Sluice gate (downstream)
12 Wujin river Wujin river Sluice gate
13 Wuyi river e
14 Xiheng river e
15 Xili river Xili river Sluice gate
16 Xinmeng river Xinmeng river Sluice gate
17 Zaogang river Zaogang river Sluice gate
18 Newzaogang river e
19 Beijing-Hangzhou Canal Beijing-Hangzhou Canal Sluice gate

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J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

Table 4
Water resource assessment index grades and assignment criteria.

Index hierarchy units Index level and score Reference

Level Level Two Level Level Level

One Three Four Five

80e100 60e80 40e60 20e40 0e20

Water resources per capita (A1-1) m3/person >3000 2000 2000 1000 <500 Hanasaki et al., 2018; Shiklomanov, 2000
e3000 e1000 e500
Water consumption per 10,000 m3/10,000 <20 20e80 80e140 140e200 >200 Expert consultation
RMB of GDP (A2-1) RMB
Water resource development % <10 10e20 20e30 30e40 40 Technical Guidelines for Watershed ecological health
utilization (A2-2) Assessment, 2013
Total water used to control % >90 80e90 70e80 50e70 <50 Zhang et al. (2017)
the red-line compliance rate
(A2-3)

Table 5
Water environment assessment index grades and assignment criteria.

Index hierarchy Units Index level and score Reference

Level Level Level Level Level

One Two Three Four Five

80e100 60e80 40e60 2040 0e20

Industrial COD emission intensity (B1-1-1) kg/10000 1 2e1 3e2 4e3 4 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
RMB e1996)
Industrial NH3eN emission intensity (B1-1-2) kg/10000 <0.1 0.2e0.1 0.3e0.2 0.4e0.3 0.4 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
RMB e1996)
Industrial TN emission intensity (B1-1-3) kg/10000 <0.15 0.15 0.45e0.3 0.45 0.6 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
RMB e0.3 e0.6 e1996)
Industrial TP emission intensity (B1-1-4) kg/10000 <0.05 0.1 0.15e0.1 0.2 0.2 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
RMB e0.05 e0.15 e1996)
Chemical fertilizer application per unit of arable kg/hm2 <400 400 500e600 600 700 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
land (B1-2-1) e500 e700 e1996)
Agricultural COD emission intensity (B1-2-2) kg/hm2 20 20e40 40e60 60e80 80 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
e1996)
2
Agricultural NH3eN emission intensity (B1-2-3) kg/hm 2 2e4 4e6 6e8 8 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
e1996)
2
Agricultural TN emission intensity (B1-2-4) kg/hm 12 12e24 24e36 36e48 48 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
e1996)
Agricultural TP emission intensity (B1-2-5) kg/hm2 2 2e4 4e6 6e8 8 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
e1996)
Urban sewage COD emission intensity (B1-3-1) kg/10000 1.5 3e1.5 4.5e3 6e4.5 6 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
RMB e1996)
Urban sewage NH3eN emission intensity (B1-3-2) kg/10000 0.2 0.3e0.2 0.4e0.3 0.5e0.6 0.6 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
RMB e1996)
Urban sewage TN emission intensity (B1-3-3) kg/10000 0.25 0.5 0.75e0.5 1e0.75 1 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
RMB e0.25 e1996)
Urban sewage TP emission intensity (B1-3-4) kg/10000 0.05 0.15 0.25 0.35 0.35 Integrated wastewater discharge Standard (GB 8978
RMB e0.05 e0.15 e0.25 e1996)
Water environmental quality index (B2-1) % 100 95e100 90e95 85e90 <85 Expert consultation;
Environmental quality standards for surface water
(GB3838-2002)

Table 6
Water ecology assessment index grades and assignment criteria.

Index hierarchy units Index level and score Reference

Level Level Level Level Level

One Two Three Four Five

80e100 60e80 40e60 20e40 0e20

Forest grass coverage index (C1-1) % >80 60e80 40e60 20e40 <20 Expert consultation
Water area index (C1-2) % >0.5 0.4e0.3 0.3e0.2 0.2e0.1 <0.1 Expert consultation
River connectivity index (C1-3) e >100 90e80 80e70 70e60 60 Xiong et al. (2010)
Ecological base flow support rate (C1-4) % 100 90e100 80e90 70e80 <70 Guo et al. (2013)
River and lake comprehensive index % 80e100 60e80 40e60 20e40 0e20 Technical Guidelines for Watershed ecological health Assessment,
(C2-1) 2013
Algal integrity index (C2-2) % 80e100 60e80 40e60 20e40 0e20 Technical Guidelines for Watershed ecological health Assessment,
2013
Macrobenthic integrity index (C2-3) % 80e100 60e80 40e60 20e40 0e20 Technical Guidelines for Watershed ecological health Assessment,
2013

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J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

the object hierarchy; B is the score value of the water environ-

1 mental carrying capacity in the object hierarchy; and C is the score
Vi ¼ ðV þ Vih Þ (5)
2 il of the water ecological carrying capacity in the object hierarchy.
Note that according to the different scales of the WECC, the WECC
2. When the index level increases with an increasing grade, the index is divided into five types (Table .2).
two cases below should be considered when assigning values,
and Eqs. (6) and (7) are applied: 2.3.5. Scenario management
The regulatory variable in the SD model is the key factor for
The value is below the highest index determining the model results. Therefore, in this study, the MIKE11
model was adopted to simulate the river connectivity index and
 
Vih  Vil water environmental quality index under different connectivity
Vi ¼ Vil þ  ðIi  Iil Þ; Ii 2 Iil ; Iih (6) index and different inflow scenarios (Fig. 1).
Iih  Iil
Fifteen sluice gates were used as control structures in the
The value is above the highest index (when Vi > 100 and Vi ¼ MIKE11 model. These structures were operated based on values of
100): the control rules (water levels) and river connectivity index simu-
lation scenarios. There are four groups of inflow scenarios (Table 7)
ðIi  Iil Þ
Vi ¼ 80 þ  10; Ii 2ðIil ; þ ∞Þ (7) in this scheme, and the water quality conditions under the different
Iil inflow conditions were simulated to obtain the optimal inflow
value of water quality improvement. Then the three river connec-
tivity index scenarios (Table 8) were simulated under the optimal
inflow conditions. To ensure the flood discharge and sail security,
3. When the index level decreases with increasing grade, the
the main river course should be kept unobstructed. Therefore,
following two cases should be considered when assigning
when the scheduling logic sequence was set, the sluice gates of the
values, and Eqs. (8) and (9) are applied:
Beijing-Hangzhou, Biandan, Wuyi, Taige, Xili, Zaogang, Desheng
and Xinmeng rivers should remain fully open.
The value is below the highest index:
When the river connectivity index simulation scenario was 1,
Vih  Vil the sluice gates were fully open. Under the river connectivity index
Vi ¼ Vil þ ðI  Ii Þ; Ii 2ðIil ; Iih  (8) simulation scenario 2, the sluice gates of the Dingtang, Beitang,
Iih  Iil ih
Hexi, Nan and Caqiao rivers were closed. Under the river connec-
The value is above the highest index (When Vi < 0 and Vi ¼ tivity index simulation scenario 3, the sluice gates of the Dingtang,
0): Beitang, Hexi, Nan, Caqiao, Wujin and Yapu rivers were closed.
Because the warning level of sluice gates of the Wujin River and
ðIi  Iil Þ Yapu is 3.5 m, the boundary control logic of the upstream sluice was
Vi ¼ 20   10; Ii 2ðIil ; þ ∞Þ (9)
Iil set as 3.5 m.

where Vi is the score of evaluation indicator I; Vil is the lowest 2.3.6. Model verification
standard score of the category of evaluation indicator i; Vih is the
highest standard score of the category of evaluation indicator i; Ii is (1) SD model verification
the original data of evaluation index I; Iil is the lowest limit of the
classification of the original data Ii ; and Iih is the highest limit of the To guarantee the accuracy of the SD model, historical data from
grade of the original data Ii . 2010 to 2016 were fed into the model. As shown in Fig. 3, the
maximum relative error between the simulated and observed
values was 5.52%, which indicated that the simulated value fell
2.3.4.2. Calculation of the WECC. After all the evaluation indicators
within the acceptable range. Therefore, the results of the SD model
are standardized, the scores of evaluation indicators are weighted
can reflect the WECC of Changzhou city.
and summed to reflect the WECC. The WECC is obtained by Eq.
(10e12).
(2) MIKE11 model verification
X
n
Fij ¼ wijk  Pijk (10) The parameters of the model were calibrated via trial and error.
k¼1 According to the water level simulation of the Yapu sluice gate and
Wujin sluice gate (Fig. 4), the range of the simulated and observed
where Fij is the score of j-index in the rule hierarchy, wijk is the values was 3.0e3.5 m, which was lower than the warning level. The
weight of i-index in the Index hierarchy, and Pijk is the score of the root mean square error (RMSE), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient
item k of the index hierarchy. (NSE) and relative error (RE) are used to assess the accuracy of a
model. In this study, the NSE was used to evaluate the accuracy of
X
m
the model (Eq. (13)). According to the simulation results of the
Zi ¼ wij  Fij (11)
j¼1

Table 7
where Zi is the score of the object hierarchy, and wij is the weight of River inflow simulation scenarios.
j-index in the rule hierarchy.
Scenario Inflow discharge (m3/s) River connectivity index

ðA þ B þ CÞ 1 0 100%
WECC ¼ (12) 2 10 100%
3
3 20 100%
4 30 100%
where A is the score value of the water resource carrying capacity in
7
J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

Table 8 2010 to 2016, respectively. Despite the high growth rates of the
River connectivity index simulation scenario. WECC, these districts were still in the critical overloaded state.
Scenario River connectivity index Sluice gate closing number Fig. 5 shows the WECC of the control units from 2010 to 2016.
1 100% 0
The WECC of control units I-02, III-06, III-05, I-01, II-01, and II-02
2 60% 5 gradually improved after 2010 and reached the safe carrying ca-
3 40% 7 pacity state in 2016. Although the WECC of control units III-04, III-
20, II-07, III-08, III-03, and II-09 indicated the critical overloaded
state, the score gradually recovered over the past 7 years. The re-
MIKE11 model, NSE ¼ 0.957 was obtained. The results of the error sults indicate that control units II-07 and II-09 should be paid
test indicated that the model was reliable and provided a good closely monitored.
foundation for the simulations. According to the above analysis, the WECC of Liyang county was
upgraded from the critical overloaded state to the safe carrying
PN
t¼1 ðyt  y t ðqÞÞ
b 2 capacity state in 2016, and the WECC of control units II-01 and I-01
NSEðqÞ ¼ 1  PN 2
(13) in Jintan county had also reached the safe carrying capacity state.
t¼1 ðyt  yÞ
However, the urban districts (Tianning, Zhonglou, Wujin and Xin-
bei districts) were still in the critically overloaded state. The results
where yt is the observed value, by t ðqÞ is simulated value, y is the
indicate that control unit Ⅳ-02 should be monitored because the
average observed value, and N is the length of the data sequence.
WECC was overloaded from 2010 to 2014. Therefore, to improve the
WECC, water resource exploitation should be reduced and water-
3. Results and discussion
saving measures and water reuse technology investments should
be increased to improve the utilization efficiency of water resources
3.1. WECC of the Changzhou city
(Fu et al., 2016). Moreover, the government should formulate plans
to upgrade industry, improve the water environment quality,
Based on the simulation of the WECC of Changzhou city
expand the riparian belt vegetation green area, and ensure river
(2010e2016), the WECC of Liyang county increased by almost
connectivity to provide a good living environment for aquatic or-
18.65% from 2010 to 2016 as shown in Fig. 3. The WECC of Jintan
ganisms (Willem et al., 2019).
county was 49.37 in 2010 and gradually began to increase in 2013
and reached the safe carrying capacity state in 2016. In 2010, the
WECC of the Zhonglou and Tianning districts was below 40. From 3.2. Simulation results of water environment quality under the
2010 to 2016, the overloaded state shifted to the critical overloaded different scenarios
state. Although the overall trend showed an increase, an
improvement effect was not notable, with the WECC of two dis- 3.2.1. Different inflow scenarios
tricts only increasing by 9.91% and 6%, respectively. In 2010, the The total phosphorus (TP) and chemical oxygen demand (COD)
WECC of the Wujin and Xinbei districts were 42.73 and 40.94, concentrations of the urban districts met the water quality
respectively, and it began to decrease in 2011 and then slowly threshold of Grade III of the Chinese Surface Water Environmental
increased in 2013, with growth rates of 18.63% and 33.17% from Quality Standard (GB3838-2002). Thus, the NH3eN concentration

Fig. 3. Simulation value and relative error of the WECC of Changzhou city from 2010 to 2016.

8
J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

attenuation inflow requirements and guarantee normal water ex-

change cycle. Then, the pollutants would experience a certain de-
gree of attenuation in the flow process. When the inflows were 20
and 30 m3/s, although the water quality of the river network
improved, the water exchange cycle was greatly shortened. As a
result, endogenous pollution could not be degraded by increased
diffusion. Under river inflow of simulation scenario 2 (Table 7), the
score of water environmental quality index in the urban river
network was the highest.

3.2.2. River connectivity index scenarios

From the inflow scenario simulation, it was evident that when
the inflow was 10 m3/s, the water environment quality of the river
network was the best. Therefore, the inflow of the river connec-
tivity index simulation scenarios (Table 8) was 10 m3/s. Then, the
NH3eN concentration was simulated at the Wujin sluice (Fig. 6 c)
and Yapu sluice (Fig. 6 d). When the river connectivity index was
100%, the average NH3eN concentration at the Wujin and Yapu
sluices was 0.247 and 0.373 mg/L, respectively. When the river
connectivity index was 60%, the NH3eN concentration at the Wujin
sluice was 0.24 mg/L at the Yapu sluice was 0.366 mg/L. When the
river connectivity index was 40%, the NH3eN concentration at the
Wujin and Yapu sluices was 0.281 and 0.408 mg/L, respectively.
When the river connectivity index was 100%, although the
NH3eN concentration was slightly higher than that under the 60%
scenario, the concentration was only decreased by 2.83% at the
Wujin sluice and 1.88% at the Yapu sluice. Therefore, the difference
of scenarios 1 and 2 (Table 8) was not notable. When scenario 2 was
compared with scenario 3 (Table 8), the NH3eN concentration was
reduced at the Wujin and Yapu sluices by 14.59% and 10.29%,
respectively. Which was likely because the hydrodynamic condi-
tions of the river network were poor when the river connectivity
index was low (Medina et al., 2011), and such conditions led to an
increase in the NH3eN concentration. However, when the river
connectivity index reached the threshold of the hydrodynamic
conditions, sluice gates did not drastically improve the water
environment quality. Therefore, a river connectivity index of 60%
not only guaranteed navigation but also improved the water envi-
ronment quality within a certain range of the river connectivity
index.

Fig. 4. Observed and simulated water level (Wujin sluice gate and Yapu sluice gate). 3.3. Forecast of the WECC under optimal scenarios

According to the simulation results of the inflow and river

was simulated at the Wujin sluice (Fig. 6 a) and Yapu sluice (Fig. 6 b)
connectivity index scenarios, when the inflow was 10 m3/s and the
under the different inflow scenarios.
river connectivity index was 60%, the score of the water environ-
When the inflow of the river network was 0 m3/s, the average
ment quality index was the highest. However, the NH3eN con-
NH3eN concentration at the Wujin and Yapu sluice reached 1.1 and
centration under the 60% river connectivity index scenario was only
1.3 mg/L, respectively, which was primarily because of the lack an
2% higher than that under the 100% river connectivity index sce-
external clean water source for ecological water supplement in the
nario. In addition, when the river connectivity index was 100%, the
urban districts (Su et al., 2014). These conditions prevented the
NH3eN concentration of the urban districts met the water quality
hydrodynamic force in river channels. Internal pollution discharge
threshold of Grade II of the Chinese Surface Water Environmental
in river networks also played a major role in pollution. When the
Quality Standard. Therefore, the score of the water environmental
inflow of the river network and the sluices was 20 and 30 m3/s, the
quality index and river connectivity index were 100.
value range of the NH3eN concentration was 0.3e0.4 mg/L. The
The simulation results under the optimal scenario (Fig. 6)
water quality of the river network in the urban districts improved
showed that the model is able to predict the WECC from 2020 to
substantially, because of the main source of water was the Yangtze
2040. The WECC of each county and district in Changzhou city
River, which has a NH3eN concentration of approximately 0.2 mg/L.
reached the safe carrying capacity state (Fig. 7). The WECC of Jintan
Moreover the inflow increased the hydrodynamic conditions of the
county and Wujin district showed a downward trend, but still
river network, which led to the degradation of pollutants (Zhang
reached the safe carrying capacity state. The WECC of Liyang county
et al., 2012). When the inflow of the river network was 10 m3/s,
increased greatly and approached the optimal carrying capacity
the value range of the NH3eN concentration was 0.25e0.2 mg/L.
state in the future. The WECC of the Xinbei, Tianning and Zhonglou
Therefore, the water environment of the river network was the best
districts remained stable from 2020 to 2040 and met the safe car-
under the river inflow scenarios (10 m3/s). Which was primarily
rying capacity state. As shown in Fig. 5(8), all control units in
because an inflow of 10 m3/s could meet the pollutant diffusion
Changzhou city reached the safe carrying capacity state, and the
9
J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

Fig. 5. WECC of the control units.

Fig. 6. NH3eN concentration in the river inflow (a,b) and river connectivity index (c,d) simulation scenarios.

10
J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988

(2) Moreover, the feedback consequences of SD showed that the

water environmental quality index was the main factor for the low
score of the WECC. Therefore, the MIKE11 model was used to
determine the optimal parameter of SD under two different
designed scenarios. The different scenarios highlighted that the
score of the water environmental quality index was highest under
the scenarios with an inflow of 10 m3/s and the river connectivity
index of 60%e100%. (3) Specifically, WECC of every control unit in
Changzhou from 2020 to 2040 achieved the safe carrying capacity
under the optimal scenario. The WECC of Jintan and Liyang counties
reached 70.18 and 75.33, the WECC of the Tianning, Wujin, Xinbei
and Zhonglou districts reached 60.83, 68.33, 62.14 and 60.08.
Hence, Tianning and Zhonglou districts should be monitored,
especially the population and urban sewage of the two districts.
However, the combination of the AHP, MIKE11 and SD models still
had limitations. For example, the MIKE11 model can only be
applied to hydrodynamic, and water quality, the types of scenarios
were limited. Furthermore, when the key factors of the WECC are
monitored with a watchful eye, the WECC can be reasonably
Fig. 7. Forecast of the WECC in Changzhou city.
regulated in the future.

WECC of control units III-05, I-02, III-06, I-01, II-01, II-02 and II-09 Author contribution
approached the optimal carrying capacity state. The WECC of
control unit III-04 showed a tendency to reach the optimal carrying Jiuhe Bu: Methodology, Software, Writing - original draft.
capacity state. The control units III-03, III-08, Ⅳ-02, II-07, III-09, III- Chunhui Li: Design, Data Formal analysis analysis and revision.
12, III-20 and Ⅳ-03 should be monitored because their WECC Xuan Wang: Simulation and Formal analysis analysis. Yuan Zhang:
values were close to the threshold of the safe carrying capacity Data, Writing - review & editing. Zhongwen Yang: Writing - review
state. The spatial distribution showed that the population density & editing, Supervision. All authors have read and agreed to the
of control unit Ⅳ-02 was high; the urban domestic sewage in this published version of the manuscript.
area may have a greater impact on the WECC. Control units III-03,
III-08 and Ⅳ-03 were located near important industrial bases, and
Declaration of competing interest
the WECC of these areas was more likely to be affected by the in-
dustrial pollution index. Control units II-07, III-09 and III-12 were
The authors declare that they have no known competing
mainly located near farmland and lakes. Therefore, the WECC of the
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
region was subject to the water environmental quality, agricultural
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper
pollution and ecological health indicators. Finally, the WECC of the
whole study area cannot be used to represent the control units, and
the internal connections and differences between the whole region Acknowledgement
and the partial areas should be considered comprehensively (Li
et al., 2016; Zhou et al., 2017). This research was funded by National Key Research and Devel-
opment Program (2017YFC0404505) and the National Water
Pollution Control and Treatment Science and Technology Major
4. Conclusions Project (2017ZX07301-001). We would like to extend special
thanks to the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their valu-
In this paper, the SD and AHP were combined to establish an able comments in greatly improving the quality of this research.
evaluation model of the WECC in Changzhou city. The evaluation
index system contained water resources, water environment and
Appendix
water ecology. Furthermore, two scenarios were formulated to
simulate the dynamic trend of the WECC by MIKE11. According to
The main equation of the basic index of the WECC.
analyze the different simulation results, the optimal scenario was
chosen to improve the WECC. The results allowed us to draw the
following main conclusions. Water resources (A)
The economy, society and population are the current objects of
assessment under the index system of the WECC. To devise a more
reasonable assessment system, comprehensive indicators of the
WECC were established, including industry, agriculture, popula- Water resources per capita ¼ Total water resources in the assess-
tion, economy, water resources, environment and biology in the ment area / Total population of the assessment area (A1-1)
study area. Then, the SD and AHP methods were applied to simulate
the WECC of the region and control units. The results showed that Water consumption per 10,000 RMB of the GDP ¼ Total water
(1) the growth rate of the WECC in the administrative units of consumption in the assessment area / GDP of the assessment
Changzhou city was 6%e31.7% from 2010 to 2016. Thus, the WECC area (A2-1)
of Changzhou city from 2010 to 2016 cannot meet the safe carrying
capacity state. The WECC of control units Ⅳ-03, III-09, and III-12 Water resource development utilization ¼ Total water consumption
were in the overloaded state, and control unit Ⅳ-02 was in the in the assessment area / Average amount of water resources in the
seriously overloaded state; thus, they were key areas for recovery. assessment area (A2-2)
11
J. Bu, C. Li, X. Wang et al.
Total water used to control the red line compliance rate ¼ Number
of counties whose total water amount in the evaluation area rea-
ches the standard / Number of counties included in the assessment
area (A2-3)
Water environment (B)
Industrial chemical oxygen demand (COD) emission in-
tensity ¼ Industrial COD discharge in the assessment area / Value
added by the industry in the assessment area (B1-1-1)
Industrial ammonia-nitrogen (NH3eN) emission intensity ¼ In-
dustrial NH3eN discharge in the assessment area / Value added by
the industry in the assessment area (B1-1-2)
Industrial total nitrogen (TN) emission intensity ¼ Industrial TN
discharge in the assessment area / Value added by the industry in
the assessment area (B1-1-3)
Industrial total phosphorus (TP) emission intensity ¼ Industrial TP
discharge in the assessment area / Value added by the industry in
the assessment area (B1-1-4)
Chemical fertilizer application per unit of arable land ¼ Total
amount of fertilizer applied in the assessment area / Cultivated area
in the assessment area (B1-2-1)
Agricultural COD emission intensity ¼ Agricultural COD emissions
in the assessment area / Total assessment area (B1-2-2)
Agricultural NH3eN emission intensity ¼ Agricultural NH3eN
emissions in the assessment area / Total assessment area (B1-2-3)
Agricultural TN emission intensity ¼ Agricultural TN emissions in
the assessment area / Total assessment area (B1-2-4)
Agricultural TP emission intensity ¼ Agricultural TP emissions in
the assessment area / Total assessment area (B1-2-5)
Urban sewage COD emission intensity ¼ Urban sewage COD emis-
sion in the assessment area / Value added of the tertiary indus-
try (B1-3-1)
Urban sewage NH3eN emission intensity ¼ Urban sewage NH3eN
emission in the assessment area / Value added of the tertiary
industry (B1-3-2)
Urban sewage TN emission intensity ¼ Urban sewage TN emission
in the assessment area / Value added of the tertiary industry(B1-3-
3)
Urban sewage TP emission intensity ¼ Urban sewage TP emission in
the assessment area / Value added of the tertiary industry(B1-3-4)
Water environmental quality index ¼ Frequency of water environ-
ment monitoring reaching the standard rate in the assessment
area (B2-1)
12
Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123988
Water ecology (C)
Forest grass coverage index ¼ Area of the total vegetation cover in
the assessment area / Total assessment area (C1-1)
Water area index ¼ Area of the total water cover in the assessment
area / Total assessment area (C1-2)
River connectivity index ¼ 1-Number of closed sluice gates / Total
number of sluice gates (C1-3)
Ecological base flow support rate ¼ Average inflow discharge over
the last ten years  10% (C1-4)
River and lake comprehensive index ¼ (2 - DO /
5) þ NH3  N þ CODMn / 6 þ TP / 0.2 þ TN (C2-1)
where DO is the concentration of dissolved oxygen, NH3eN is the
concentration of ammonia-nitrogen, CODMn is the concentration of
the chemical oxygen demand, TN is the concentration of the total
nitrogen, and TP is the concentration of the total phosphorus.
Algal integrity index ¼ (biological index (BI) value of the algae
density þ BI value of the classification number of algae þ BP index)
/3 (C2-2)
Berger-Parker (BP) index ¼ Nmax / NT
where Nmax is the number of dominant species and NT is the sum of
the total population of all species.
Macrobenthic integrity index ¼ (BI value of BMWP þ BI value of
classification number of algae þ BP index) / 3 (C2-3)
P
Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP) ¼ ti
where ti is the sensitivity value of macrobenthic family for species i.
 
Oi  Oif
BI ¼    100%
Oin  Oif
where Oi is the observed value, Oif is the 5% quantile of the
observed values, and Oin is the 95% quantile of the observed values.
Applicable to the condition whereby observations gradually
increase.
ðO  Oi Þ
BI ¼  in   100%
Oin  Oif
where Oi the is observed value, and Oif is the 5% quantile of the
observed values, Oin is the 95% quantile of the observed values.
Applicable to the condition whereby observation gradually
decrease.
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