Study On The Ecosystem Based Environmental Damage Assessment Of River Pollution

We are in an age where we are continuously suffering from environmental damages that occur from a seemingly endless stream of environmental accidents, mishaps and incidences. In China, a crucial issue has been how to manage these incidences, or better yet, how to prevent them. This paper clarifies the definition of environmental damage and summarizes the3basic steps for environmental damage assessment:Exposure Analysis, Damage Quantification and Damage Monetization. Facing the serious situation of river pollution, this paper then proposes an environment-based damage assessment method for river ecosystems.According to the trend of assessing environmental damage on a system level, this study assessed environmental damages from an Ecosystem Service perspective, and developed a river ecology concept model to describe a mechanism for generating ecosystem services. Based on the ecological concept model, this study chose the ecosystem function of providing services as a system-level indicator to present environmental damage of river ecosystem.For the purpose of Damage Quantification, this paper constructs an indicator system for damage assessment of river pollution, by identifying the ecosystem components that contribute to generating the ecosystem function that provides services. To simplify the service generating mechanism, this paper attributes different weights to each indicator to characterize the magnitude of contributions. Therefore, with Exposure Analysis to characterize damages for each indicator, river pollution damage can be quantified on the ecosystem level.To monetize the damage, this paper provides a method to design a technical solution to restore the function of providing services of river ecosystem. Based on the cost of recovery measures, the damage can be monetized by replacement cost approach.