Characterization of rivers health status and its assessment

The assessment of rivers health is the foundation of environmental management and ecosystem monitoring. The river's health status can be determined through a holistic appraisal of rivers and their surrounds. Five components of the rivers health include: water quality, aquatic life, physical form, hydrology and streamside zone. Many methods and criteria are available to assess the status of river ecosystem, and this review focuses on RIVPACS, AUSRIVAS, IBI, RCE, ISC, RHS and RHP, which are classified into the predictive model and the multimetrics. Based on the review of the river assessment in various countries, the future development trends are discussed in this paper. There is great need for our country to design an indicator system for rivers health assessment, which can be used to report on environmental condition of rivers, judge the long-term effectiveness of rivers rehabilitation programme and assist the managers in making decisions about rivers management activities.