Impact of Modern Human Activities on the Songhua River’s Health in Heilongjiang Province

Fen HOU, Fengxiang LI, Qixing ZHOU

Abstract


The Songhua River is the largest river in Heilongjiang province. During the past decades, intense human activities had extensive effects on the river. Protecting the Songhua River requires diagnosing threats on a large scale. Here we conducted the first comprehensive survey on the rivers’ health throughout the Heilongjiang province, investigating into land use of riversides, modern industries along riversides and other human factors. The results showed that water quality, habitat quality and biological assemblages of the Songhua River are facing deterioration. Farmland, sand dredging operations and tourism depending on water resource may be the main factors which lead to the unhealthy state. This study will be helpful for developing riparian zone restoration plans, or adopting both biological and engineering measures to minimize the degradation of the Songhua River.


Keywords


Songhua River; Modern human activities; River health; Influence of tourist attractions; Heilongjiang province

Full Text:

PDF

References


Barbour, M. T., Gerritsen, J., Snyder, B., & Stribling, J. (1999). Rapid bioassessment protocols for use in streams and wadeable rivers. USEPA, Washington.

Bennett, S. J., & Simon, A. (2004). Riparian vegetation and fluvial geomorphology. American Geophysical Union.

Benstead, J. P, .& Leigh, D. S. (2012). An expanded role for river networks. Nature Geoscience, 5(10), 678-679.

Benstead, J. P., March, J. G., Pringle, C. M., & Scatena, F. N. (1999). Effects of a low-head dam and water abstraction on migratory tropical stream biota. Ecological Applications, 9(2), 656-668.

Bråthen, S. J. (2011). River restoration and habitat improvements in the sub-arctic river Bognelva–effects on anadromous fish.

Braskerud, B. (2002). Factors affecting nitrogen retention in small constructed wetlands treating agricultural non-point source pollution. Ecological Engineering, 18(3), 351-370.

Clerici, N., & Vogt, P. (2013). Ranking European regions as providers of structural riparian corridors for conservation and management purposes. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 21, 477-483.

Diana, M., Allan, J. D., & Infante, D. (2006). The influence of physical habitat and land use on stream fish assemblages in southeastern Michigan (pp.359-374). American Fisheries Society Symposium.

Dosskey, M. G., Vidon, P., Gurwick, N. P., Allan, C. J., Duval, T. P., & Lowrance, R. (2010). The role of riparian vegetation in protecting and improving chemical water quality in streams1. Wiley Online Library.

Everard, M., & Powell, A. (2002). Rivers as living systems. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 12(4), 329-337.

Falcini, F., Khan, N. S., Macelloni, L., Horton, B. P., Lutken, C. B., McKee, K. L., …Volpe, G. (2012). Linking the historic 2011 Mississippi River flood to coastal wetland sedimentation. Nature Geoscience, 5(11), 803-807.

Gregory, S. V., Swanson, F. J., McKee, W. A., & Cummins, K. W. (1991). An ecosystem perspective of riparian zones (pp. 540-551). BioScience.

Guo, J., Liu, X., Zhang, Y., Shen, J., Han, W., Zhang, W.,… Zhang, F. (2010). Significant acidification in major Chinese croplands. Science, 327(5968), 1008-1010.

Gurnell, A. (2012). Fluvial Geomorphology: Wood and river landscapes. Nature Geoscience, 5(2), 93-94.

Hunolt, A., Brantley, E., Howe, J., Wright, A., & Wood, C. (2013). Comparison of native woody species for use as live stakes in streambank stabilization in the southeastern United States. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 68(5), 384-391.

Jia, Y., & Chen, Y. (2013). River health assessment in a large river: Bioindicators of fish population. Ecological Indicators, 26, 24-32.

Kamp, U., Binder, W., & Hölzl, K. (2007). River habitat monitoring and assessment in Germany. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 127(1-3), 209-226.

Karr, J. R. (1999). Defining and measuring river health. Freshwater Biology, 41(2), 221-234.

Kim, T. G., Grigalunas, T. A., & Han, K.-N. (2008). The economic costs to fisheries because of marine sand mining in Ongjin Korea: Concepts, methods, and illustrative results. Ecological Economics, 65(3), 498-507.

Lekka, E., Kagalou, I., Lazaridou-Dimitriadou, M., Albanis, T., Dakos, V., Lambropoulou, D., & Sakkas, V. (2004). Assessment of the water and habitat quality of a Mediterranean river (Kalamas, Epirus, Hellas), in accordance with the EU Water Framework Directive. Acta Hydrochimica et Hydrobiologica, 32(3), 175-188.

Li, Y., Xu, L., & Li, S. (2009). Water quality analysis of the Songhua River Basin using multivariate techniques. J Water Resour Prot, 1(2), 110-121.

Li, Z., Yang, M., Li, D., Qi, R., Liu, H., Sun, J., & Qu, J. (2008). Nitrobenzene biodegradation ability of microbial communities in water and sediments along the Songhua River after a nitrobenzene pollution event. Journal of Environmental Sciences, 20(7), 778-786.

Liu, X., Zhang, Y., Han, W., Tang, A., Shen, J., Cui, Z., …Christie, P. (2013). Enhanced nitrogen deposition over China. Nature, 494(7438), 459-462.

Luo, X.-L., Zeng, E.Y., Ji, R.-Y., & Wang, C.-P. (2007). Effects of in-channel sand excavation on the hydrology of the Pearl River Delta, China. Journal of Hydrology, 343(3), 230-239.

Majumder, M., & Jana, B. K. (2013). Estimation of groundwater quality from surface water quality variables of a tropical river basin by Neurogenetic models, application of nature based algorithm in natural resource management (pp.205-218). Springer.

Munné, A., Prat, N., Sola, C., Bonada, N., & Rieradevall, M. (2003). A simple field method for assessing the ecological quality of riparian habitat in rivers and streams: QBR index. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 13(2), 147-163.

Nairn, R., Johnson, J. A., Hardin, D., & Michel, J. (2004). A biological and physical monitoring program to evaluate long-term impacts from sand dredging operations in the United States outer continental shelf. Journal of Coastal Research, 126-137.

Palmer, M. A. (2010). Water resources: Beyond infrastructure. Nature, 467(7315), 534-535.

Raven, P., Holmes, N., Naura, M., & Dawson, F. (2000). Using river habitat survey for environmental assessment and catchment planning in the UK. Springer.

Raven, P. J., Holmes, N. T., Vaughan, I. P., Dawson, F. H., & Scarlett, P. (2010). Benchmarking habitat quality: Observations using River Habitat Survey on near-natural streams and rivers in northern and western Europe. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 20(S1), S13-S30.

Sun, X., Zhou, Q., & Ren, W. (2013). Herbicide occurrence in riparian soils and its transporting risk in the Songhua River Basin, China. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 33(4), 777-785.

Sun, X., Zhou, Q., Ren, W., Li, X., & Ren, L. (2011). Spatial and temporal distribution of acetochlor in sediments and riparian soils of the Songhua River basin in northeastern China. Journal of Environmental Sciences, 23(10), 1684-1690.

Vörösmarty, C. J., McIntyre, P., Gessner, M. O., Dudgeon, D., Prusevich, A., Green, P., … Liermann, C. R. (2010). Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity. Nature, 467(7315), 555-561.

Vitousek, P. M., Naylor, R., Crews, T., David, M., Drinkwater, L., Holland, E., … Matson, P. (2009). Nutrient imbalances in agricultural development. Science, 324(5934), 1519.

Wang, L., Infante, D., Lyons, J., Stewart, J., & Cooper, A. (2011). Effects of dams in river networks on fish assemblages in non-impoundment sections of rivers in Michigan and Wisconsin, USA. River Research and Applications, 27(4), 473-487.

Wilson, H. F., & Xenopoulos, M. A. (2008). Effects of agricultural land use on the composition of fluvial dissolved organic matter. Nature Geoscience, 2(1), 37-41.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/6417

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c)




Share us to:   


Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

  • Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

  • Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.


We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases:
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

 Articles published in Management Science and Engineering are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

 MANAGEMENT SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING Editorial Office

Address:1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.

Telephone: 1-514-558 6138
Http://www.cscanada.net Http://www.cscanada.org

Copyright © 2010 Canadian Research & Development Centre of Sciences and Cultures