Ecosystem health assessment at county-scale using the pressure-state-response framework on the loess plateau, China

Abstract

Assessing ecosystem health is helpful to determine reasonable eco-environmental restoration and resource management strategies. Based on a pressure-state-response (PSR) framework, a set of comprehensive indicators including natural, social and economic aspects was proposed and applied for assessing the ecosystem health of Yuanzhou County, Loess Plateau, Ningxia Province, China. The basic data used to calculate the values of the assessment indicators include Landsat TM image and socio-economic data, and remote sensing (RS) and the geographic information system (GIS) were used to process image data. The results showed that the ecosystem health conditions of most townships in Yuanzhou County were at the moderately healthy level, three townships were at the healthy level, and only two townships were at the unhelathy level; the areas (percentage) at the unhealthy, moderately healthy and healthy levels were 443.91 km2 (12.66%), 2438.75 km2 (69.54%) and 624.50 km2 (17.81%), respectively. The results could provide useful information for local residents and the government to take measures to improve the health conditions of their township ecosystem.