Arid Zone Research ›› 2022, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (6): 1801-1809.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2022.06.10

• Land and Water Resources • Previous Articles     Next Articles

An evaluation of water environmental carrying capacity in Kyrgyzstan based on sustainable development goals

WANG Weilu1(),LIU Tie2,3(),LUO Geping2   

  1. 1. College of Resources & Environment Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, Xinjiang, China
    2. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
    3. Research Center for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
  • Received:2020-04-27 Revised:2020-06-04 Online:2022-11-15 Published:2023-01-17
  • Contact: Tie LIU E-mail:739448479@qq.com;tie.liu@hotmail.com

Abstract:

Kyrgyzstan is an important transportation hub for the countries along The Belt and Road Initiative in China, which is rich in mineral resources, has an underdeveloped economy, has frequent human activities, and has relatively weak ecological environmental protection, resulting in major water environmental problems. Drawing on the evaluation indicators of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, this study uses the entropy and the analytic hierarchy methods to determine the weights of the indicators, analyzes the change trend of the carrying capacity of the water environment in Kyrgyzstan from 2006 to 2020 using the principal component analysis method, and determines the main influencing factors affecting the carrying capacity of the water environment in Kyrgyzstan using the vector model method. The results show that the carrying capacity of the water environment in Kyrgyzstan from 2006 to 2020 shows an overall enhancement trend. The water environment and socio-economic subsystems promote the continuous increase in the carrying capacity of the water environment, while the water ecology and water resource subsystems limit the carrying capacity of the water environment. Population density, water shortage, water body area, and per capita share of renewable water resources are the main influencing factors limiting the water environment’s carrying capacity. Increasing the rate of urbanization, improving the efficiency of water use, reducing the discharge of wastewater, and increasing the rate of wastewater treatment are effective ways to improve the water environment’s carrying capacity in Kyrgyzstan.

Key words: water environmental carrying capacity, sustainable development goals, principal component analysis method, vector modulus method, Kyrgyzstan