Study of Ecological Water Demand of Rivers in Shenyang City, Northeastern China

The ultimate goal of the protection and restoration of water ecosystem is intended to facilitate the healthiness of ecosystems in rivers and lakes, and the basic premise of river healthiness is to ensure the ecological water demand of rivers. Shenyang City is the economic and cultural center of Northeastern China, and most rivers in the territory of Shenyang City are plagued with the ecology and environment problems such as dry-up of river way, wetland shrinkage and groundwater overdraft. In protection and restoration of water ecosystem, Shenyang City should first study the ecological water demand of rivers. In this paper, we first defined the connotation, composition and calculation method of ecological water demand of rivers and selected eight major rivers in Shenyang City for ecological water demand study and calculation according to the characteristics of the rivers and water resources conditions in Shenyang City. We calculated the basic eco-environmental water demand and consumptive water demand for evaporation and seepage of river ways respectively and thus obtained the total eco-environmental water demand for eight rivers. In total eco-environmental water demand of rivers, consumptive water demand for evaporation and seepage of river ways accounts for 51% and the eco-environmental water demand of rivers accounts for 49%.