Water ecological function zoning in Heihe River Basin, Northwest China

Rapid urbanization coupled with increase in population growth rate in recent years has accelerated economic pressure on the ecological environment leading to a gradual deterioration of global and regional environment. This has particularly resulted into water contamination and shortage of water resources thus posing a great threat to human survival. How to guaranteeing sustainable use of basin water resources has attracted more and more attentions. The Heihe River Basin is the secondary longest river inland China and the significantly water source of Hexi Corridor, the problem of water pollution, ecological environment deterioration and the shortage of water has seriously threatened the ecological system of the Heihe River Basin. In this study, through depicting the characteristics of natural environment, human activities, water ecosystem services and other factors in Heihe River Basin we delineated the water ecological function in Heihe River using the principal components analysis and the K-means clustering method. In the study, Heihe River Basin is divided into 3 primary level areas and 8 secondary level sub-areas. Water ecological characteristics analysis showed that the spatial distribution of the water ecological function of Heihe River Basin was not uniform, which are mainly showed in three aspects, function of windproof and sand fixation, function of soil erosion prevention and function of water sources conservation. The results of this study can provide effective and scientific theoretical references for the integrated water sources management and the ecological function optimization of the Heihe River Basin.