Network structure analysis for environmental flow toward sustainable water use

AbstractWith the consideration of complex relationship among multi water use activities both in behavior and benefit, ecological network analysis (ENA) as a systems-oriented methodology is introduced to study the sustainability of environmental flow toward sustainable water use. Based on the quantitative measure of sustainability that has been proposed in ENA, the current paper explores the competing relationship between environmental flow and socioeconomic water uses through network structure analysis, from which the sustainable network structure for environmental flow is defined. Through constructions of the sustainable water use network with Beijing from 1999 to 2002 and 2005 to 2007 as case studies, the sustainable network structure value in view of environmental flow for Beijing is decided here. This research can be served as the first attempt to investigate environmental flow and its competitive relationship with the other water use activities in view of network structure. These efforts will lay the foundation for future studies on water allocation, regulation and management