Research On Ecological Performance Evaluation Of Urban Wetland Park

Urban Wetland Parks(UWPs)are of remarkable importance to restore and reasonably utilize of the urban wetlands,further maintain urban wetland ecosystems as well as biodiversity.As the awareness of urban wetland restoration and protection increases,the construction of urban wetland parks in China has ushered its stage of rapid development.While urban wetlands are effectively protected,it is equally paramount to ensure the health and stability of their ecosystems and to enhance the ecological benefits and construction quality.On this basis,this research aims to disentangle ways to measure the ecological benefits and values generated by the construction of urban wetland parks when pursuing the sustainable development of UWPs.Meanwhile,ecological performance could reflect the state of biological and ecosystem development,indicating the conservation effect of ecosystems together with the ecological value they generate.As a result,quantifying the level of ecological performance of urban wetland parks will aid us to effectively assess their ecological benefits,so as to provide a scientific reference for the implementation and management of ecological protection in wetland parks.On the basis of the construction objectives of urban wetland parks,their functional positioning and the composition of their ecological elements,this paper constructs an ecological performance evaluation system for UWPs that combines both ecosystem health state and ecosystem service values,and establishes an ecological performance evaluation model,among which the Fuzzy Matter-element Model and Entropy-weighting Method(EWM)are employed and empirically tested.Consequently,an empirical case study was conducted in Suzhou Huqiu Wetland Park combined with an in-depth evaluation of its comprehensive ecological performance level and the differences in ecological performance level of each functional area,further examined the main limiting factors affecting its ecological performance level,and proposed construction optimization strategies in a targeted manner.The main research contents and conclusions run as follows:(1)Combining the construction objectives,functional positioning and ecological characteristics of UWPs,an index system of ecological performance evaluation covering 17 evaluation indexes such as water quality,soil quality and biodiversity is well-established at the levels of ecosystem health and ecosystem service value.Furthermore,the ecological performance evaluation model is constructed by adopting Fuzzy Matter-element Model and Entropy-Weighting Method(EWM).Moreover,the ecological performance rating method and the calculation method of ecological performance index of UWPs are provided as well.(2)According to the evidence currently available from evaluating the comprehensive ecological performance of the Huqiu Wetland Park,it seems fair to suggest that it is a superior one,which infers that the Huqiu Wetland Park is at a significantly high ecological performance level,the ecosystem in the wetland park is functioning well and enjoys a high value of ecosystem services.All these results reveal the highly-effective construction of the Huqiu Wetland Park and its considerable ecological effectiveness.(3)The ecological performance levels of 10 functional areas in Huqiu Wetland Park were evaluated separately,and these results provide confirmatory evidence that the majority of the functional areas were rated as Excellent or Good in ecological performance,among which,the Lotus Culture Area and the Fishing Family-style Area were the two functional ones with the favorable ecological performance in the park.Additionally,the Water Recreation Area and the Eastern Urban Service Area were rated as the ones with the lowest ecological performance.Apart from these,index affiliation is introduced here in this paper to investigate the key index factors affecting the ecological performance of each functional area,for instance,soil nutrient status is the main factor limiting the ecological performance of most functional areas in the park,followed by water quality and wetland diversity as secondary.Through elaborating the environmental characteristics of Huqiu Wetland Park,the study further probed into the main reasons for the poor soil nutrients and poor water quality in some functional areas,so as to provide relevant reference for the targeted improvement of the ecological performance of the park.(4)On the basis of the results and analysis of the ecological performance evaluation of Huqiu Wetland Park,this paper puts forward targeted optimization strategies regarding the construction of Huqiu Wetland Park in terms of water environment,soil quality improvement,biodiversity conservation,scientific research and cultural tourism function enhancement respectively,with an attempt to provide reference for the ecological construction and development of urban wetland parks.