Accepted Manuscript

Water ecological carrying capacity of urban lakes in the context of rapid urban-
ization: a case study of East Lake in Wuhan

Lei Ding, Kun-lun Chen, Sheng-gao Cheng, Xu Wang

PII: S1474-7065(15)00090-X
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2015.08.004
Reference: JPCE 2394

To appear in: Physics and Chemistry of the Earth

Received Date: 7 December 2014

Revised Date: 2 August 2015
Accepted Date: 5 August 2015

Please cite this article as: Ding, L., Chen, K-l., Cheng, S-g., Wang, X., Water ecological carrying capacity of urban
lakes in the context of rapid urbanization: a case study of East Lake in Wuhan, Physics and Chemistry of the
Earth (2015), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2015.08.004

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 Water ecological carrying capacity of urban lakes in the context of rapid

urbanization: a case study of East Lake in Wuhan

＊
Lei Ding1, Kun-lun Chen2, Sheng-gao Cheng1, Xu Wang3
1. School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
2. Faculty of Resources and Environmental Science, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China
3. School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China

Corresponding author: Xu. Wang

School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, 388 Lumo Road, Wuhan 430074, China
Tel: (+86) 027 67885047
E-mail: jorrywangxu@hotmail.com

Abstract: With the excessive development of social economy, water scarcity and water
environment deterioration become a common phenomenon in metropolis. As a crucial component
of urban water environment system, urban lake is mainly influenced by social economic system
and tourism system. In this paper, a framework for quantitatively evaluating development
sustainability of urban lake was established by a multi-objective model that represented water
ecological carrying capacity (WECC). And nine key indicators including population, irrigation
area, tourist quantity, the average number of hotel daily reception, TP, TN, CODMn, BOD5 were
chosen from urban social-economy system and natural resilience aspects, with their index weight
was determined by using the structure entropy weight method. Then, we took Wuhan East Lake,
the largest urban lake in China as a case study, and selected five time sections including 2002,
2004, 2007, 2009 and 2012 to synthetically evaluate and comparatively analyze the dynamic
change of WECC. The results showed that: firstly, the water ecological carrying capacity values of
the East Lake in five time sections were 1.17, 1.07, 1.64, 1.53 and 2.01 respectively, which all
exceeded 1 and increased fluctuation. The rapid growth of population and GDP lead to sharply
increasing demand for water quantity. However, a large amount of the domestic sewage and
industrial waste led by economic development increases pressure on ecological environment of
urban lakes. Secondly, the carrying capacity of the East Lake for tourist activities was still low.
The value in 2012 was only 0.22, keeping at a slowly increasing phase, which indicates that the
East Lake has large opportunity and space for developing the water resource carrying capacity and
could make further efforts to attract tourists. Moreover, the WECC of the East Lake was mainly
affected by rapid social and economic development and water environment damage caused by
organic pollutants. From the view of urban water sustainable management, we must deeply
recognize the reality that water shortages and the limited carrying capacity, and dynamic
assessment of WECC provides an early warning approach and control direction of water
environment. For the East Lake, it is the primary target to mitigate the carrying capacity of
social-economy, especially for prevention of lake area encroachment shrinking and domestic
wastewater discharge.

Key words: Urban Lake; Water ecological carrying capacity; Water environmental carrying
capacity; Water quality carrying capacity; Rapid urbanization; East Lake in Wuhan
1. Introduction
Urban lake is very important for city sustainable development and its ecosystems stability.
However, with the rapid development of social economy, the urban water environment and
ecosystem had become increasingly serious owing to disordered urban construction and massive
discharge of pollutants. Urban lakes, especially the scenic area in metropolis such as the West
Lake in Hangzhou, the East Lake in Wuhan, the XuanWu Lake in Nanjing and the Slender West
Lake in Yangzhou, are not only under the pressure of sewage discharge brought by rapid
urbanization and industrialization, but also influenced by the water environment pressure which
caused by intensive tourist activities. Moreover, in terms of the water resource quantity, with the
acceleration of urban construction, the urban lakes area of erosion is intensifying, local water
shortage and water tension are haunting the city residents' life (Bichai and Smeets, 2015).
Therefore, it is much more important to ensure the sustainable development and the security of the
water ecosystem in a city (Gober et al., 2011; McDonald et al., 2011), including the aims of water
quality reaching the functional standard, water resource quantity balance between supply and
demand, water ecosystem healthy and stable. For this, water ecological carrying capacity is an
ideal model and approach for analysis.
Water ecological carrying capacity is derived from water resource carrying capacity and
water environmental carrying capacity (Wang et al., 2011). In recent years, water ecological and
environmental carrying capacity of urban lakes has become a hot issue in the water science
research and environment science research (Naimi and Berezowska, 2014). Generally, water
environmental carrying capacity is the threshold or the maximum size of its supporting population,
economic and social sustainable development when the function of the water in a certain
watershed or region and its ability of self-maintenance and self-regulation can be normally
developed (Li et al., 2011; Yan et al., 2011; Hardin 1976). In the previous researches, more
scholars pay attention to water resources carrying capacity (Joardar, 1998; Han et al., 2010; Du et
al., 2011; Song et al., 2011), but ignoring that both water resources quantity and water quality are
the important aspects to reflect water ecological carrying capacity, and lack of some systematic
summary. In reality, judging from the specific research contents, most scholars incorporated water
carrying capacity into sustainable development. For instance, Falkemnark and Lundqvist (1998)
discussed water carrying capacity and evaluated the efficiency of water usage in the whole world,
then analyzed the sustainable consumption of the present water resource and the decisive effect of
regional water resource on carrying capacity. Hoeskstra and other researchers (2005; 2008) made
indicative judgments on carrying capacity of water resources in different regions, and they thought
that international virtual water trade was an effective way to solve water shortage and relieve the
pressure of ecological environment. In China, great number of researches also focused on the
water resources carrying capacity as, due to the increasingly serious of water resources shortage
and water environment deterioration (Liu et al., 2011; Li and Jin, 2009; Feng et al., 2008a), and
gradually lay emphasis on the study of water environmental carrying capacity (Zhu et al., 2010;
Yang et al., 2015), these fundamental studies have provided important basis for China’s
sustainable water management and socio-economic development. In addition, considering from
the region scale of the research, we could find that there are main issues on water carrying
capacity in the comprehensive urban scale (Naimi and Berezowska, 2014; Wang et al., 2014b; Xu
et al., 2011; Feng et al., 2008b) and watershed scale (Zhu et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2013), while
some researches focused on the environment carrying capacity in the special regions such as
islands (Ni et al., 2012) and lagoons (Byron et al., 2011). However, there is a lack of the research
on evaluating water ecological carrying capacity based on a certain urban lake. Compared with
national scale (Wang et al., 2015), urban scale and watershed scale, the exploring of WECC on a
certain urban lake scale can provide some more specific suggestions and more practical
sustainable development measures. Finally, from the point of quantitative evaluation methods,
they included two aspects. One is to evaluate water carrying capacity based on comprehensive
evaluation method (Gong and Jin, 2009; Meng et al., 2009; Du et al., 2011), and the other is
systematic dynamics and optimized model in a specified status (Feng et al., 2008b; Mirchi et al.,
2012; Zhang et al., 2014a). Considering the evaluation of water ecological carrying capacity is a
complex system, which always contains numerous factors, complex feedback relationship and
huge overlapped data. What’s more, WECC is dynamically affected by the coupling of
social-economic changes with changes in the water environment. Hence, it is urged to reasonably
simplify the evaluation system of water ecological carrying capacity and determine the variable
parameters scientifically, so as to lay foundations for subsequent researches (Duan et al., 2010).
In short, the goal of this paper is to explore the method of dynamic assessment and its
potential application for the study of the water ecological carrying capacity of urban lakes in the
context of rapid urbanization, and the multi-objective indicator system comprise two subsidiary
system, including water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) and water quality carrying capacity
(WQCC). After that, a Structure Entropy Weight method is used to calculate the weights of nine
selected indicators for the assessment, and take the East Lake in Wuhan as an example with
analyzing the effect of social and economic development and tourist economic activities on water
environment of urban lake. It provides a valuable reference for appropriately utilizing water
resources and improving water environment quality of urban lakes.

2. Materials and methods

2.1 Study area
This paper takes the East Lake, the largest urban lake in China, as the research region to
analyze the water ecological carrying capacity. The East Lake is located in the east of Wuhan
(Fig.1), the capital city of Hubei Province. It is a typical shallow lake with medium size in the
middle and lower section of Yangtze River (Ge et al, 2014), divided into several distinct water
bodies. The total scenic area of East Lake covers 82 km2, which consisting of 32.5 km2 of water
area with the water level reached 19.65 meters (Chen and Wang, 2009). The average depth of the
East Lake is about 2.21 meters, while the deepest can reach 4.75 meters (Yang T et al., 2007), and
it can be reserved water of 86,480,000 cubic meters. And more importantly, the East Lake plays an
important role in industrial and agricultural production, daily life, aquaculture and tourism. In
recent years, a lot of entertainment projects appeared around the East Lake with the intensified
development of the East Lake scenic. And the regional social economy was sharply increasing
(Qiu et al, 2001; Liu et al, 2014). Moreover, the scale of urban construction surrounding the East
Lake was continuously extending and the population became denser (Zhang et al, 2014b).
Therefore, the East Lake scenic area faces serious environmental problems such as lake
eutrophication caused by the large domestic sewage, oily waste from catering industry and the
discharge of industrial and agricultural waste (Gan and Guo, 2004; Gu et al, 2008; Yang Y.Y., et al,
2014). The tourism and economic development is not in harmony with the environmental
protection on some level and appears obvious dislocation.

Fig. 1 Location of the East Lake in Wuhan, China

For hundreds of years, the East Lake was modeled by nature from a low-lying land to an area
rich in water, to an inland lake. At the end of 19 th century, the Hu-guang viceroy, Zhangzhidong
started to embank for preventing flood, and pumped the water dry as field. After then, the East
Lake was separated from the sand lake and became a lake adjusting by artificial control (Gu et al,
2008). In recent decades, with the rapid development of urbanization in Wuhan, the East Lake was
turned from a lake near outer suburbs into an urban lake within a city. It developed from a wild
lake to a scenic spot, which had brought both positive and negative effects (Fig. 2). The positive
effects include these aspects such as promoting the construction step to make Wuhan become a
landscape garden city, optimizing Wuhan's urban ecological environmental condition, creating an
elegant cultural atmosphere so as to promote urban culture grade. It also provides much space for
enriching scenic touring system level of the scenic area, as well as the various visiting projects
supplied by changeable shoreline in the scenic areas. Meanwhile, the negative effects mainly
include traffic pressure (a lot of cross-border traffic reduces the whole quality of the scenic areas),
ecological pressure (the urban production and living damages the ecological environment of the
scenic areas), pressure from the organization of landscape (excessive visiting affects the beauty of
the scenic areas and tourists’ comfort) (Dan et al, 2014). Hence, how to reasonably define and
evaluate the changes of water ecological carrying capacity has an important role in guiding the
regional water resources management and sustainable socio-economic development.

Fig. 2 The analysis of positive effects and negative effects on the urban lakes
2.2 Water Ecological Carrying Capacity model of the Urban Lake
2.2.1 Conceptual model for WECC of urban lake
As we all know, the concept of carrying capacity originated from ecology and had given rise
to a series of concepts now used in sustainability assessments (Wang and Xu, 2015). As one of the
important and emerging carrying capacity concepts, Water Ecological Carrying Capacity (WECC)
means the capacity to support the largest population and economic scale, which meets the demand
of natural ecological systems for water and under the premise of measure up the certain
environmental capacity (Wang et al., 2011; Zuo et al., 2014). As a systematic concept, WECC
should comprise many aspects, such as the water resources subsystem, environment subsystem
and social economic subsystem. Previous studies have shown that water ecological carrying
capacity mainly includes water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) and water quality carrying
capacity (WQCC) (Wang et al, 2004; Huang et al, 2013). Similarly, WECC of urban lake is a
comprehensive concept of ecological and social economic property mainly includes WRCC and
WQCC. In practical terms, WRCC refers to the socio-economic indicators which could be carried
by water resources. While WQCC includes three aspects, such as the socio-economic indicators,
tourism activity indicators and pollutants indicators which could be carried by water quality. The
research made by Wang et al (2004) showed that WQCC should based on the fact that there are no
eutrophication, no salinization and the organic contamination meeting ecological water demand of
lake. Therefore, this paper establishes the synthetically conceptual model for the urban lake’s
WECC, including water ecological system and social-economic system (Fig. 3), and mainly
embodied through water resources quantity and water quality.

Fig.3 Synthetically conceptual for the relationship between water ecological carrying
capacity and ecological system & socio-economic system

2.2.2 Indicators system for evaluating the WECC of urban lake

According to the conceptual model of WECC mentioned above, WECC is comprehensively
taking ecological demand and environmental demand for water into consideration, which means
the social economy and tourism activity indicators that could be carried by water resources
quantity and water quality (Song et al, 2011; Wang et al., 2014a). The detailed indicators can be
represented by social indicators (regional population), economic indicators (GDP and irrigation
areas) (Zhao et al, 2008; Wang et al, 2014a), tourism activity indicators (the number of tourists
and tourism revenue) (Saveriades, 2000; Simon et al., 2004), tourism development degree
indicators (the hotel reception number) and pollutants indicators (eutrophication and organic
pollution) (Kang and Xu, 2012; Huang et al., 2013). At last, this paper establishes the
multi-objective model of WECC based on these indicators (Table 1).
2.2.3 Mathematical model for WECC of urban lake
Based on the actual feature of water environment in East Lake scenic area, this paper chooses
population, GDP, irrigation area, tourists number and hotel reception number per day as the
indicators for evaluating the WRCC. The water pollution was mainly eutrophication and organic
pollution from domestic sewage, catering industry pollutants and farmland irrigation backwater
(Gan and Guo, 2004). According to the results of previous study (Chen and Wang, 2009) and
Wuhan Environment Communiqués, the mainly indicators exceeded standard were TP, TN, BOD5
and CODMn, in which TP and TN are the indicators reflecting the lake’s eutrophication level, and
BOD5 and CODMn reflect the condition of organic pollution. Therefore, this study selects these
four indicators to evaluate the WQCC of the East Lake.
The specific calculation process is as follows:
In the first step, Eq. (1) is used to represent the model of the carrying capacity level of each
indicator.

CSi  CCi / CCi ,max (1)

Where CSi is the capacity level of the indicator i, and CCi is the pressure index of the indicator i
which means the actual observation value. CCi,max is the carrying capacity limit value of the
indicator i, which means the largest industrial, agricultural, social and economic pressure and the
intensity of tourism activity that could be carried by the water quantity and the water quality of
urban lake.
In the second step, the model of each subsidiary system is established.
Eq. (2) is used to calculate the carrying capacity level of the water resources quantity’s
subsidiary system.
n
WRCC   CSi Wi (2)
i 1

Where i represents population, GDP, tourists number, and hotel daily reception number per day
respectively; CSi is the carrying capacity level of former five indicators; Wi is the weight value;
WRCC is the carrying capacity level of water resources quantity.
Eq. (3) is used to calculate the carrying capacity level of the water quality’s subsidiary
system.
n
WQCC   CSi Wi (3)
i 1

Where i represent TP, TN, COD and BOD5 respectively; CSi is the carrying capacity level of
former four indicators; Wi is the weight of the former four indicators; WQCC is the carrying
capacity level of water quality.
In the third step, water ecological carrying capacity is the comprehensive expression of
WRCC and WQCC, its formula is

WECC  WRCC  wL  WQCC  wZ (4)

Where WECC is the value of water ecological carrying capacity, wL , wZ are the weights of the

water resources quantity and the water environment carrying capacity respectively (the calculation
process of weights could be found at 2.2.4). When the value of WECC equals to 1, it shows that
the carrying condition is in accordance with the WECC; when WECC is less than 1, it indicates
that the carrying condition is at an acceptable level of the WECC; when the value of WECC
exceeds than 1, it illustrates that the carrying condition is beyond the WECC.
Table 1
Indicator system and its weights of urban lake’s water ecological carrying capacity
Target Subsidiary Limited value
Principal level(weight) Indicator level weight
level system CCi,max
Population in the scenic
The carrying capacity of 0.36 20,250,000
area
the social economy
GDP 0.38 4.324 billion Yuan
(0.26)
Irrigation area 0.26 1.92·104 hm2
WRCC
WEC The annual number of 8,860,000 per
The carrying capacity of 0.5
C of the tourists capita/ per year
tourist activity
urban Average number of 16,310,000 per
(0.38) 0.5
lakes daily guests in the hotel capita/ per day
TP 0.32 0.05 mg/L
The carrying capacity of
TN 0.25 1.0mg/L
WQCC water quality
CODMn 0.27 6.0mg/L
(0.36)
BOD5 0.16 4.0mg/L

2.2.4 Calculation process of indicator weight

To evaluate the indicator weight of water carrying capacity, there are main methods including
the relatively subjective methods like the Delphi method and Analytic Hierarchy Process method
(Awasthi et al, 2011; Zhang et al., 2014) and relatively objective methods such as Factor Analysis
Method (Principle components Analysis) & Entropy Evaluation Method. The former subjective
method have poor objectivity but own strong explanation, by contrast, the latter subjective
methods mostly have higher accuracy but sometimes the datum are discordance with the actual
indicators so as not to give a clear explanation (Gong and Jin, 2009; Li et al., 2014). In order to
avoid these problems such as the overlap of information among the multiple indicators variables
and the subjectivity of people’s confirmation on the weight, this paper uses the Structure Entropy
Weight method to determine the weights of indicator system (Cheng 2008; Hu et al, 2012). It is a
method to ensure the weights coefficient structure combing the qualitative and quantitative
analysis, which typically integrates the Delphi’s expert survey method and fuzzy analysis. And
then get the final weights by dealing with the possible potential deviated data through the
evaluation of the entropy value and blind analysis. The specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Collected opinions of the experts from respective groups by using Delphi method and
forming the typical sort. I represent the qualitative ranking number given by a certain experts after
fully discussing.
Step 2: Quantitatively transformed the typical sort value, and the transformed subordinate
ln(m  I )
function is  (aij )  
ln(m 1)
Where aij is always the evaluation made by expert i to index j; m is the transformed parameter,

and the value is (J+2); bij is the quantitative changed value from aij . Then we obtain the

b1 j  b2 j , , bkj
average recognition degree of these indicators, the formula is b j 
k
Step 3: The blind understanding degree is defined as an uncertainly cognitive by different
experts, namely
Q j （≥0）

max(b1j , b2 j , bkj )  min(b1j , b2 j , bkj )

Qj   bj
2
Step 4: For each factor, the general degree of k experts’ recognition is defined as follows,

x j  b j (1  Q j ) , x j (＞0)

Step 5: Normalization. The vector quantity of evaluation X  ( x1 , x2 , , x j ) has been

obtained from the whole experts in Step 4. The normalization process formula is
xj
j  ,

m
x
i 1 j


Step 6: then get the vector quantity of the weights: W  1 ,  2 , ,  j 。 
According to the above six steps, the indicators weights are obtained after collecting 20
(divide into 4 groups) experts’ opinions and forming the typical sorts. The specialists are mainly
come from the scholars of water environmental science and environmental impact assessment.

2.3 Data Collection

Due to the various types of evaluation indicators, we gathered data from multiple
departments and statics information in this paper. Initially, according to The Reply of General
Office to the Issues About the Types of Functions of Surface Water Environment and the Level of
Protection for Drinking Water Resource of Surface Water in Wuhan (No.74, government letter of
Hubei province[2007]), the water of East Lake will implement the III water standard of Surface
Water Quality Standard (GB3838-2002). Subsequently, we got the water quality data mainly from
The Environmental Communiqué in Wuhan and The Environmental Communiqué of the famous ecological scenic
spots in the East Lake in Wuhan (2002-2012). And the detailed data sources are shown in Table 2.

Table 2
Data sources of each evaluation indicator and its relevant standard limited value
Indicator Data sources Sources of standard limited value
 The Environmental Communiqué in Wuhan①
Water quality The monthly of surface water environment quality① Surface Water Quality Standard
indicators The Environmental Communiqué of the famous ecological (GB3838-2002)
②
scenic spots in the East Lake in Wuhan (2002-2012)
Strategy of the Ecological
The Overall Planning for the East Lake Scenic Areas in Environment Resources Protection
Tourism activity ②
Wuhan 2011-2025 ; in the East Lake 2007-2012;
indicators
Tourism Government Network in Wuhan The Norm of Planning for the
③
Famous Scenic Spots
①
Wuhan Statistical Yearbook (2002-2012) Examining and Accepting
Social economy
National Economic and Social Development Statistics Indicators of National Ecological
indicators
Bulletin of Wuhan(2002-2012) ① Demonstration Zone④
Note：① issued by Environmental Protection Agency in Wuhan; ② issued by the Administrative Committee
of the East Lake Scenic Area; ③ The limited value of daytime tourists (the tourist will stay in the scenic area of
the East Lake for 4 hours on average) can use 30L/per capita·per day and the tourists accommodation can use
500L/per capita· day; ④ The water carrying capacity indicators of population, irrigation area and GDP refer to
Class I water quantity standard of Examining and Accepting Indicators of National Ecological Demonstration
Zone. They are 427 m3/per capita, 4500 m3/hm2 per paddy field, and 200 m3/10000yuan, respectively. The water
volume of the East Lake is calculated according to the average water storage that is 86,480,000 m3 for years.

3 Results and Discussion

3.1 Water quality evolution of the East Lake
To clarify the impact of the water environmental quality on the carrying capacity of urban
lake, firstly, we briefly analyzed the evolution of the water environment quality over the years. It
is so difficult to obtain a large number of continuous data that we only collected limited related
water quality data (TN and TP data absent 1991-2001) for analyzing.
It can be seen clearly that the main pollutants concentration is fluctuating during 1991-2012
(Fig. 4). The organic pollution degree is exceeding the eutrophication pollution degree. Firstly,
during the past 22 years, the variation trends of concentration changes between CODMn and BOD
are similar, which rising until 1992 and declining after 1993, then rebounding from 1995 to 2001,
and followed by a process of fluctuations. Generally, there are 8 years when CODMn exceeded the
standard of "Ⅲ water", with the up-to-standard rate of 63.6%; and there are 9 years when BOD
exceeds the standard, with the up-to-standard rate of 59.1%. Secondly, there are 16 years with the
valid water quality data assessing TN and TP, among which the concentration of TN had large
amplitude of variation, decreasing from 1991 to 1996, then increased to the peak (5.12 mg/L) in
2002, and then tended to decline again, with only 37.5% meeting "Ⅲ water" standard. TP pollution
was become more serious, which were overweighed throughout the 16 years. In short, the main
characteristic of the East Lake’s water environment quality was organic pollution with TP and TN
exceeded the standard.
 Fig. 4 CODMn、BOD5、TN、TP concentration trends from 1991 to 2012

Furthermore, in order to recognize the water quality changes of the East Lake recently a
decade, we arranged the changes of water quality category of the East Lake from 2002 to 2012,
detailed in Table 3, with the data came from Environmental Bulletin of Wuhan (2002-2012) and
Environmental Bulletin of Eco-Tourism Scenic Area of the East Lake in Wuhan (2006-2012). It can
be found out that water quality of East Lake was generally changed from the class inferior Ⅴ to
class Ⅳ, staying at class Ⅳ after 2009, but still far from the water quality standard of class Ⅲ; the
number of exceeded standard water pollution types was reducing year by year, from eight in 2002
to one or two types after 2009. Overall, the water quality showed a trend of improvement, but still
had not met the requirement of water function areas fundamentally.

Table 3
The changes of water quality category of the East Lake, 2002-2012
Water quality
Year Pollution factors of overweight water quality
classes
2002 CODMn、BOD5、TP、TN、COD、ammonia nitrogen、petroleum、fecal coli forms Inferior Ⅴ
2003 CODMn、BOD5、TP、TN、COD、ammonia nitrogen、petroleum、fecal coli forms Inferior Ⅴ
2004 CODMn、BOD5、TP、TN、COD、ammonia nitrogen、petroleum、fecal coli forms Inferior Ⅴ
2005 BOD5、TP、TN、COD、petroleum、fecal coli forms Inferior Ⅴ
2006 CODMn、BOD5、TP、TN、petroleum Ⅴ
2007 CODMn、BOD5、TP、TN、petroleum、fecal coli forms Inferior Ⅴ
2008 CODMn、BOD5、TP、TN、petroleum、ammonia nitrogen Inferior Ⅴ
2009 CODMn、BOD5、TP、TN Ⅳ
2010 TP Ⅳ
2011 TP Ⅳ
2012 TP、CODMn Ⅳ
Note: the date comes from Environmental Bulletin of Wuhan (2002-2012) and Environmental Bulletin of East Lake
Scenic Area in Wuhan (2006-2012)

3.2 Dynamic change of the East Lake WECC

Restricted to the successive time series data, this paper only selects five years (2002, 2004,
2007, 2009 and 2012) as the time sections to analyze. Among them, 2002, 2007 and 2012 are
initial years of the 10th, 11th and 12th Social development of the National Economy Five-year Plans,
respectively, while 2004 and 2009 are the middle years of the Five-year Plans. The corresponding
evaluation results can be taken as important reference to WECC of urban lakes throughout the
study period, and promote the urban water management.
Initially, we obtain the indicators’ carrying degree changes based on the Eq. (1), the result
shows in Fig.5. It can be found that: ① Since 2002, the carrying degree of the each indicator
existed large difference, the four indicators of water quality had been in overloaded condition (TP
always exceeded the standard level), while indicators of the population, irrigation area, tourist
capacity and hotel reception number per day within the scenic area were far from saturation level.
② The carrying capacity of each indicator had big annual difference, and the indicators of
population, GDP, tourist number, and hotel reception capacity was increasing year by year, in
which the GDP index trended to serious overload, revealing that the rapid development of the
regional social economy has brought large pressures and environmental risks to the East Lake. The
four indicators of water quality have large fluctuation, among which TP index had been exceeding
standard all through; TN index had a downward trend year by year, and began to meet the classⅢ
water standard after 2009, while the water carrying degree had reduced to 0.87 in 2012, which
illustrated an overall decline of water capacity for Lake Eutrophication. Meanwhile, CODMn and
BOD5 had a trend of fluctuation, but the overall level of carrying capacity floating around 1, it
meant that the control of organic pollution in the East Lake was not stable enough.

Fig. 5 change of single index water environment carrying degree

Subsequently, we calculate the changes of subsystems’ water ecological carrying degree in

five years based on Eq. (2) and Eq. (3), the result shows in Fig. 6. It can be found that the carrying
capacity indicator of socio-economy grown fastest with the highest carrying degree after 2007, it
indicated that the development of regional agriculture and industry exceeded the water resources
quantity carrying capacity, and the carrying capacity in 2007 and 2012 was exceeded 2.12 times
and 4.74 times, respectively. In addition, the carrying capacity level of the tourism activity had
been low all through and at the slow growth stage. The overall carrying degree in 2012 was only
0.22, showed that the East Lake, as an eco-tourism scenic area, still has a great space of water
carrying capacity for developing tourism. Compared with the total number of tourists in the East
Lake scenic area and its proportion in the total number of tourists in Wuhan from 2001 to 2012
(Fig. 7), it could be further found that the tourists number of the East Lake scenic area showed a
trend of increase but grew relatively slow, especially after 2007. What’s more, the water quality
carrying capacity declined year by year from 2.8856 in 2002 to 1.2057 in 2012, showed that the
East Lake water quality had improved after 2002 in a certain degree, but the overall carrying
degree was still higher than 1, it indicated that the water of East Lake scenic area was still in a
state of pollution. It was still very important to control the eutrophication and organic pollution for
securing water environment in the East Lake scenic area (Chen and Wang, 2009).

Fig. 6 Comparison among social economy, tourism activity and water quality carrying
capacity

Fig. 7 The total number of tourists in the East Lake Scenic Area and its proportion in
Wuhan

Lastly, we obtain the WECC value of the East Lake scenic area in the five time sections
based on above analysis and structure entropy weight values (detailed in Table 1). The results are
1.17, 1.07, 1.64, 1.53 and 2.01 respectively, which all exceeded 1 and increased fluctuation. And
this calculation result coordinates with the actual condition of social economy in the East Lake
scenic area and its surrounding areas. The rapid growth of population and GDP led to the swift
increase of water demand, while the large amount of domestic sewage and industrial waste water
discharge caused by economic development made the lake eutrophication aggravated, and the
ecological environment pressure increased unceasingly as well (Chen and Wang, 2009). In
addition, the water quality carrying capacity and the social economy carrying capacity of water
environment in the East Lake scenic area possess higher contribution and influence. The former
was manifested before 2007, while the latter was manifested after 2007.

3.3 The influencing factors of WECC of the East Lake

3.3.1 Social economy development’s influence on WECC
With the promotion of China reform and opening policy, Wuhan’s secondary industry and
tourism (service industry) had developed rapidly, and then a lot of factories had been set up
around the East Lake scenic area gradually (Zhang et al, 2014b). Consequently they discharged
pollutants easy to pollute water, while fish food and baits discharged into the lake from excessive
fishery breeding, livestock and poultry breeding waste-water discharge increased demand for
water and polluted water quality (Huang et al, 2013). Above analysis also finds that overloading of
GDP index has a great influence on the comprehensive result of WECC in the East Lake. The
simple water resource quantity has been unable to support regional social and economic
development level after 2007, which immediately required building new urban water supply net to
increase water supply. According to the Overall Planning of Wuhan East Lake Scenic Area
(2011-2025), in recent years, due to the increase of the water storage capacity of the East Lake
scenic area, the original East Lake Waterworks has been far from needs of social economic
development of the scenic area and the surrounding areas. And now the daily water in the scenic
area is supplied jointly by Baishazhou Waterworks, Yujiahu Waterworks and Gangdong
Waterworks, with the original East Lake Waterworks and Tuanshan Waterworks transformed into
East Lake pressure station and Tuanshan pressure station respectively, they greatly reduced the
East Lake's water supply pressure. Certainly, in order to improve the utilization efficiency of water
resources, new water-saving facilities should be constructed in the scenic spots for water
conservation (Chen and Wang, 2009). Meanwhile, the East Lake water resource should be made
full use for the relatively low requirements of water quality to irrigate and clean scenic roads.
Social economic growth influences on water ecological carrying capacity also performed in
erosion and occupy the surface lake area (Ban et al., 2014; Zhang et al, 2014b; Cao et al., 2015).
Following the economic development and comprehensive urban construction, lakeside district has
become the focus of the real estate exploitation and tourism activities zone (such as the Happy
Valley project closes to the East Lake in 2012), meanwhile, vigorous municipal construction has
made lots of area in the East Lake become construction land such as Bayi Road transferred from
the scenic land. From the relationship between the East Lake area and the lake’s WECC within
these five years (Fig. 8), it can be seen that they have significant negative correlation relationship.
The WECC of the East Lake increased gradually with the atrophy of the East Lake area, and it
means that the carrying pressure was increasing while water environmental capacity of the lake
was relatively reducing.
 Fig.8 Relationship between the acreage of the East Lake and its WECC level

3.3.2 Wastewater discharge’s influence on WECC

Urban social economic development and tourism activities brought about by the industrial
and agricultural sewage (wastewater) emissions, increasing the carrying capacity of water
pollution and water quality of urban lakes. East Lake’s nitrogen, phosphorus pollutants and
organic pollutants mainly came from its wastewater draining outlet, rainfall and surface runoff,
fishery bait, water entertainment and tourism and sediment release. For example, the progress of
the society leads to the increase of people’s material life level, and also brings about a lot of
household garbage and sewage discharge. A great number of families, schools, shopping malls,
hotels, hospitals and enterprises around the East Lake discharged sewage and garbage seriously
polluted the water quality. And these are the main reasons why the East Lake water has contained
a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus inorganic salts and various kinds of microbiological contaminants
(Gan and Guo, 2004; Gu et al., 2008; Ge et al., 2014).
Based on the survey of Strategy of the Ecological Environment Resources Protection in the
East Lake in 2002, there were totally 47 sewage outlets in the East Lake before intercepting
sewage project, with about 320,000 tons of sewage discharged into the lake every day, mainly
derived from southwest of East Lake, that was along the Yanhu Avenue, East Lake Road, Southern
East Lake Road and northern Zhuodaoquan Road. Since the completed of the East Lake sewage
project during 2003-2004 and three sewage disposal plants (Longwangzui, Shahu and Erlangmiao)
had fully operated, the East Lake scenic area closed 15 sewage outlets and thus reduced the
sewage flowing into lakes by 80%. And on this basis, the discharge of wastewater in the East Lake
began to reduce yearly after 2006, but rebounded in 2012, the discharge of wastewater over the
years listed in Fig. 9. It could be seen that WQCC in the East Lake is not directly related to the
discharge of wastewater, but it is probably related to wastewater discharge standard level and
direct emissions quantity into the lake. Higher total discharge of wastewater in the higher standard
of sewage discharge conditions and less directly into the lake also can keep low water pollutant
concentration. In 2012, the East Lake wastewater discharge and COD emission had a certain
degree of rebound, and the out-of-standard indicators of pollutants were TP and CODMn, which
were less four kinds than the situation in 2007 (overload indicators are COD Mn, BOD5, TP, TN,
petroleum and fecal coli forms), and the WQCC reduced by 41.86% from 2.07385 in 2007 to
1.2057 in 2012.
 Fig. 9 Change of wastewater discharge in the East Lake scenic area, 2006-2012

On the whole, polluting sources control is the key to improve the water quality carrying
capacity of East Lake. The level of controlling point source and non-point source pollution in
essence dominates the sustainable development of the East Lake scenic area. In spite of East Lake
had undergone pollutants intercepting and pollution sources controlling in recent years, and had
improved its condition on the whole, some of its related subsidiary lakes are still serious (Chen
and Wang, 2009).
3.3.3 Tourism activities’ influence on WECC
Tourism activities’ influence on the WECC in the city is mainly showed in water resources
demand in the process of tourism activities and emissions of COD, BOD 5, TP, TN and other water
pollutants (Huang et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2014). According to the analysis above, tourism
activities’ carrying capacity in East Lake was always less than 1 for many years, which reveals
that tourism scale was small and tourism carrying capacity still had an abundant space. However,
it could not be ignored that tourism activities had certain negative effects on the WECC. For
example, with the development of water entertainment, cruise ships (especially petrol yachts)
would aggravate water pollution load in the scenic area and deteriorate endogenous organic
pollution. In this paper, we take the amount of COD generated from tourism activities as a brief
explanation. According to Key Points in Technical Verification Review of National Surface Water
Environmental Capacity (consultative draft in February 2004), urban per capita polluting
coefficient was defined as: COD 60~100 g/per capita per day. This paper adopts the standard of
COD 80 g/per capita per day, and for the majority of tourists only have their lunches by the lake
and are back home in the night, thus the discharge of pollutants are calculated in accordance with
the half of COD reference value, the results showed in table 4. It can be found that from 2007 to
2012, the COD from tourism activities had a certain increase, but its proportion of the COD
emissions in that year was slightly down, and its contribution to basic maintained in one-third,
while in 2007, its concentration close to threshold of "Ⅲ water" standard though not overload. In
the future, with the expansion of tourists scale, the COD emissions brought about by tourism
activities would further enlarge, so we must strengthen the emission control of COD, efficiently
controlled the sewage discharged from restaurant and hotel, implementing standard pollution
discharging, under the condition that TP indicator was the major pollutant in East Lake water
pollution.
Table 4
Estimated COD from tourism activities influence on the WECC of urban lake
COD from tourism Proportion in total COD Carrying capacity of Exceeded
Year
activities (ton) emission COD standard or not
2007 144.1 33.18% 0.868 not
2012 156.34 30.16% 1.1 exceed

4. Conclusions
Water ecological carrying capacity of urban lake is a new concept to meet the demand of the
water ecological system management in the context of rapid urbanization. In this paper we have
established a multi-objective programming model for water ecological carrying capacity of urban
lake, and take the East Lake as an example for specific analysis. We can clear find that
comprehensive values of WECC in the East Lake were 1.17, 1.07, 1.64, 1.53 and 2.01 respectively
in 2002, 2004, 2007, 2009 and 2012, which were all above 1. WECC subsystems differed from
each other greatly, and social economic carrying capacity of water quantity subsystem were
heavily overload, while carrying capacity of tourism activities were on the low level. By the
impact of rapid urbanization, WECC of the East Lake was mainly affected by social economic
development as well as the water quality damage by pollutants emission. Pollution source control
is the key to improve the carrying capacity of urban lakes’ water quality. From the view of urban
water sustainable management, we must deeply recognize the reality that water shortages and the
limited carrying capacity, overloading for a long time will bring serious negative impact on urban
lake ecology and environment.
As a systematic concept, WECC of urban lake represents the carrying capacity changes of
water resource and water environmental quality. It is no doubt that water resource has a close
relationship with water quality. With the excessive development of social economy, water scarcity
and water environment deterioration become a common phenomenon in metropolis. Hence, the
dynamic assessment of WECC provides an early warning approach and control direction of water
management, for the East Lake, it is the primary target to mitigate the carrying capacity of
social-economy, especially for prevention of lake area encroachment shrinking and domestic
wastewater discharge. In short, this study provides a reference point for water
resource-environment management as well as urban policymaking, further similar studies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
Nos. 41401181 and 41401076) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (Grant No.
2013CFB010).

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Highlights
 The synthetically conceptual model of urban lake’s water ecological carrying
capacity (WECC) has been developed.
 Social-economy, tourism activity and water quality were taken into account in the
indicator system.
 Indicators have weighted by using the Structure Entropy Weight method.
 The value of WECC of East Lake was always more than 1, which indicated that
the water quality trended to deteriorate.
 Mitigating the carrying capacity of social-economy is the primary target of water
resources management.