River Health: Concept, Assessment Method and Direction
Disturbance from irrational anthropogenic socio-economic activity has influenced river ecosystem seriously and intensive attention has been paid on issues concerning river health. Various understanding on river health concept is generalized and the difference between them is distinguished in detail, the development process, advantage and disadvantage of river health assessment methods, including biological monitoring and integrated indicator are introduced. Furthermore, Some suggestion on research direction of river health assessment, including assessment standard establishment, river's sensitivity on disturbance, ecological process indicator and health assessment on watershed scale is put forward in the paper.