Research On The Division Method Of ZheXi Watershed Ecological Function Protected Critical Area

Watershed ecological function protected critical area is the spatial characteristics of thewater ecological system, land ecological system structure, process based on river basinscale space. The referred critical area is the geographical unit extracted from the basin,in order to maintain the integrity of the ecological system. The unit has an essential partof ecological function, such as the habitats which are urgent need to, protect or theregion which have lost productivity because of overdevelopment. Once the critical areais destroyed or couldn’t get the effective restoration, watershed ecosystem will be out ofbalance, some individual ecological function will be lost and never restored, even leadto extinction of rare species. And, it may will affect human production, at worst, it willcause damage to human being’s health.In this paper, the critical area division method was put forward according to thecharacters and protection objectives of watershed ecological function protected criticalarea. Taken ZheXi watershed as a case study, the ecological function protected criticalarea was delimited. And according to the characteristics of its critical area, thecorresponding management protection scheme was put forward.The process of building the division method of watershed ecological functionprotected critical area is that the appropriate model was selected to build the indicatorsystem to assess watershed ecological function quality by RS/GIS, watershed ecologicalfunction is evaluated from two aspects including the importance of the ecologicalfunction and eco-environment sensitivity; finally, the critical area can be delimited bythe results of the assessment. ZheXi watershed is taken as an example, ZheXicharacteristics was identified, and five indexes was selected from the indicator systemto assess its functional importance of water conservation, soil conservation andbiodiversity conservation, and also assess soil erosion sensitivity, construction landscale. Finally the watershed was divided into extremely critical area (926.10km2) andsecondary critical area (1158.12km2), they were accounted for34.45%of ZheXIwatershed area. According to the critical area of common problems, the management ofthe general protection was put forward, including strict admittance of industrydevelopment, formulating corresponding protection policy; Coordination andadministration department, guiding the masses to participate in the protection;Strengthen the monitoring capability, improving efficiency; Establishing ecological compensation mechanism, alleviating the pressure of the ecological environment. Alsoaccording to the characteristics of each critical area, the management of the specificprotection was also put forward, including water conservation, sensitive and serious soilerosion, biodiversity conservation and water source protection zone.In this article, the division method of watershed ecological function protection criticalarea had been built. As a case study, the connotation, features and protection purposes ofZheXi watershed ecological function protected critical area were comprehensivelyinterpreted. While the ZheXi ecological function critical area was accurately andobjectively divided. It can provide a scientific basis for the protection and managementof ZheXi watershed. The study of all the above work can provide the reference for otherwatershed.