Abstract
Water is a crucial resource for sustainable development in cites. Water carrying capacity is a vital part of the carrying capacity of various natural resources in the sustainable development of a region. Appropriately assessing water environment carrying capacity (WECC) is crucial for wise water resources management and economic and social progress advancement. This study developed a WECC evaluation index system for Suzhou, a representative city in southeastern China facing water quality challenges, with the city being an example to study the WECC in the Yangtze River Delta region. By employing principal component analysis (PCA), 20 WECC-related variables were selected from the water and environment, human society, and socio-economic system as the local WECC evaluation indicators. These indicators were weighted by PCA analysis and the entropy method, resulting in overall scores. Evaluating the data from 2001 to 2021, this study showed that the overall WECC score has increased over time. Factors such as rapid urbanization, population growth, economic and social development, and a shortage of water supply have strained the WECC in Suzhou. As an important industrial development zone in the Yangtze River Delta, the city faces significant environmental pollution and water resources problems. The results show that the primary influencing factors are total water resources, surface water resources, water consumption, urbanization rate, water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP, industrial value-added water consumption, and chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions of GDP. The findings of this study help to plan the city's future development and thereby contribute to urban sustainability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
The data will be available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
Chai N, Zhou W (2022) The DPSIRM - Grey cloud clustering method for evaluating the water environment carrying capacity of Yangtze River economic Belt. Ecol Ind 136:108722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108722
Chen Y, Lu H, Li J, Yang Y, Xia J (2020) Multi-criteria decision making and fairness evaluation of water ecological carrying capacity for inter-regional green development. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28(6):6470–6490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10946-2
Chen S, He Y, Tan Q, Hu K, Zhang T, Zhang S (2022) Comprehensive assessment of water environmental carrying capacity for sustainable watershed development. J Environ Manage 303:114065. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114065
Ding L, K-lun C, S-gao C, Wang X (2015) Water ecological carrying capacity of urban lakes in the context of rapid urbanization: A case study of east lake in Wuhan. Phys Chem Earth A/B/C 89–90:104–113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2015.08.004
El-Fadel M, Zeinati M, Jamali D (2001) Water resources management in Lebanon: institutional capacity and policy options. Water Policy 3(5):425–448. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1366-7017(01)00079-4
Fang H, Gan S, Xue C (2019) Evaluation of regional water resources carrying capacity based on binary index method and reduction index method. Water Sci Eng 12(4):263–273. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wse.2019.12.008
Jia Z, Cai Y, Chen Y, Zeng W (2018) Regionalization of water environmental carrying capacity for supporting the sustainable water resources management and development in China. Resour Conserv Recycl 134:282–293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.03.030
Li S, Ma J, Bi Y (2021) Study on the Spatial Relationship between Green Space and Surface Runoff in Suzhou City. IOP Conf 668(1):012002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/668/1/012002
Li Q, Guo Q, Zhou M, Xia Q, Quan M (2022) Analysis on the Mechanism and Influencing Factors of the Coordinated Development of Economy and Environment in China’s Resource-Based Cities. Sustainability 14(5):2929. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052929
Lu Y, Xu H, Wang Y, Yang Y (2017) Evaluation of water environmental carrying capacity of city in Huaihe River Basin based on the AHP method: A case in Huai’an City. Water Resour Ind 18:71–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wri.2017.10.001
Magri A, Berezowska-Azzag E (2019) New tool for assessing urban water carrying capacity (WCC) in the planning of development programs in the region of Oran, Algeria. Sustain Cities Soc 48:101316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.10.040
Naimi-Ait-Aoudia M, Berezowska-Azzag E (2014) Algiers carrying capacity with respect to per capita domestic water use. Sustain Cities Soc 13:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2014.03.006
Peng T, Deng H (2020) Comprehensive evaluation on water resource carrying capacity in karst areas using cloud model with combination weighting method: a case study of Guiyang, southwest China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27(29):37057–37073. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09499-1
Peng T, Deng H, Lin Y, Jin Z (2021) Assessment on water resources carrying capacity in karst areas by using an innovative DPESBRM concept model and cloud model. Sci Total Environ 767:144353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144353
Salem N, Hussein S (2019) Data Dimensional Reduction and principal components analysis. Procedia Comput Sci 163:292–299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2019.12.111
Sawunyama T, Senzanje A, Mhizha A (2006) Estimation of small reservoir storage capacities in Limpopo River Basin using geographical information systems (GIS) and remotely sensed surface areas: Case of Mzingwane catchment. Phys Chem Earth A/B/C 31(15–16):935–943. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2006.08.008
Song W, Pang Y (2021) Research on narrow and generalized water environment carrying capacity, economic benefit of Lake Okeechobee, USA. Ecol Eng 173:106420. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2021.106420
Song X, Kong F, Zhan C (2010) Assessment of Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China. Water Resour Manage 25(3):857–873. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-010-9730-9
Sun X, Guo C, Cui J (2020) Research on evaluation method of water resources carrying capacity based on improved TOPSIS model. La Houille Blanche 106(5):68–74. https://doi.org/10.1051/lhb/2020040
Wang Y, Zhou X, Engel B (2018) Water environment carrying capacity in Bosten Lake basin. J Clean Prod 199:574–583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.202
Wang G, Xiao C, Qi Z, Meng F, Liang X (2021a) Development tendency analysis for the water resource carrying capacity based on system dynamics model and the improved fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method in the Changchun city, China. Ecol Ind 122:107232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107232
Wang X, Liu L, Zhang S (2021b) Integrated model framework for the evaluation and prediction of the water environmental carrying capacity in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Ecol Ind 130:108083. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108083
Wang P, Wei Y, Zhong F, Song X, Wang B, Wang Q (2022a) Evaluation of agricultural water resources carrying capacity and its influencing factors: A case study of townships in the arid region of Northwest China. Agriculture 12(5):700. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12050700
Wang T, Jian S, Wang J, Yan D (2022b) Research on water resources carrying capacity evaluation based on innovative RCC method. Ecol Ind 139:108876. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108876
Wang X, Liu L, Zhang S, Gao C (2022c) Dynamic simulation and comprehensive evaluation of the water resources carrying capacity in Guangzhou city, China. Ecol Indic 135:108528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108528
Wu L, Su X, Ma X, Kang Y, Jiang Y (2018) Integrated modeling framework for evaluating and predicting the water resources carrying capacity in a continental river basin of Northwest China. J Clean Prod 204:366–379. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.08.319
Xu Z, Xiao S, Du C, Deng Q, Yan B, Zeng Z, Liu X (2020) Temporal variation of water environment carrying capacity in a highly urbanized region of China. Water 12(12):3362. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123362
Yang J, Lei K, Khu S, Qiao F, Liu Q (2015) Assessment of water ecological carrying capacity using an indicator-based method applied to Tieling City. China. Water Supply 15(5):940–947. https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2015.051
Yang S, Ren L, Gou L (2022) An Empirical Study on the Environmental Carrying Capacity of Marine Resources Based on the Entropy-Weight TOPSIS Model. J Coast Res 38(5). https://doi.org/10.2112/jcoastres-d-21-00160.1
Zhang J, Zhang C, Shi W, Fu Y (2019) Quantitative evaluation and optimized utilization of water resources-water environment carrying capacity based on nature-based solutions. J Hydrol 568:96–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.10.059
Zhao Y, Wang Y, Wang Y (2021) Comprehensive evaluation and influencing factors of urban agglomeration water resources carrying capacity. J Clean Prod 288:125097. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125097
Zhou X, Ruan X, Pan Z, Zhu X, Sun H (2010) Application of factor analysis in the assessment of groundwater quality. AIP Conf Proc. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3529317
Zhou K (2022) Comprehensive evaluation on water resources carrying capacity based on improved AGA-AHP method. App Water Sci 12(5). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-022-01626-2
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to appreciate the support from Suzhou Municipal Water Bureau in terms of data, and by Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University via the research fund (KSF-E-17, REF-20-02-03).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
J. Chen: Data collection, Investigtation, Methodology, Analysis, Validation, Writing - Original Draft. X.Tang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, J., Tang, X. Towards Sustainable Cities: Studying Evaluation Index of Water Environment Carrying Capacity. Water Resour Manage 37, 5919–5938 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-023-03635-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-023-03635-5