Integrative fuzzy hierarchical model for river health assessment: A case study of Yong River in Ningbo City, China

Due to the increasingly serious ecological degradation of river systems, the river health research has attracted more and more attention of the researchers and decision-makers. This paper aims to integrate the fuzzy assessment method with analytic hierarchy process to establish the integrative fuzzy hierarchical assessment model, thus combing qualitative analysis and quantitative assessment and overcoming the disadvantages of subjectivity of the previous evaluation methods. The results show that the proposed assessment method is able to reveal how the river system is disturbed by human activities. Finally, the integrative fuzzy hierarchical method is validated and applied to the case study of Yong River in Ningbo City, China. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.