[Assessment of aquatic ecosystem health based on principal component analysis with entropy weight: a case study of Wanning Reservoir (Hainan Island, China)].

A new assessment method based on principal component analysis (PCA) and entropy weight for ecosystem health was applied to Wanning Reservoir, Hainan Island, China to investigate whether the new method could solve the overlap in weighting which existed in the traditional entropy weight-based method for ecosystem health. The results showed that, the ecosystem health status of Wanning Reservoir showed an improvement trend overall from 2010 to 2012; the means of ecosystem health comprehensive index (EHCI) in each year were 0.534, 0.617, 0.634 for 2010, 2011 and 2012 respectively, and the ecosystem health status was III (medium), II (good), and II (good), respectively. In addition, the ecosystem health status of the reservoir displayed a weak seasonal variation. The variation of EHCI became smaller recently, showing that Wanning Reservoir tended to be relatively stable. Comparison of the weight of indices in the new and the traditional methods indicated that, the cumulative weight of the four indices (i. e., DO, COD, BOD, and NH(4+)-N) had a stronger correlation of 0.382 for the traditional one than that (0.178) for the new method. It suggested the application of PCA with entropy could avoid the overlap in weighting effectively. In addition, the correlation analysis between the trophic status index and EHCI showed significant negative correlation (P < 0.05), indicating that the new method based on PCA with entropy weight could improve not only the assignment of weighting but also the accuracy of the results. The new method here is suitable for evaluating ecosystem health of the reservoir.