农产品水足迹研究进展

水是人类生产生活的重要资源,科学合理地评价人类活动对水资源的影响是实现水资源可持续利用的重要保障.水足迹概念的提出创新性地将人类活动消耗的水资源区分为绿水、蓝水和灰水,拓展了水资源可持续利用的评价思路.基于虚拟水(VW)的水足迹理论和基于生命周期(LCA)的水足迹理论将水质与水量的概念相结合,成为了农业水资源管理研究的热点内容.基于VW的水足迹理论主要包括绿水足迹、蓝水足迹和灰水足迹的计算,以及水环境可持续性评价,而基于LCA的水足迹理论体现了水资源的消耗和污染及其对环境造成的综合影响.本文详细介绍了这两种水足迹理论的计算方法与环境可持续评价的研究进展,对比分析两种水足迹理论在描述农产品生产用水及其环境影响方面的差异性,并对其研究前景进行了展望.     

中国“水量”和“水质”生态足迹及可持续能力量化方法与实证研究

科学测度水资源和水环境可持续能力，对区域水资源管理具有重要意义。从“水量”和“水质”两个角度，对我国31个省域地区的“水量”及“水质“生态足迹、生态承载力和生态压力指数进行研究。结果表明：(1)2000—2020年，我国水资源生态压力指数均小于1,最高值为2011年的0.86,总体水量供给充足，可持续能力强；万元GDP水量生态足迹呈波动下降趋势，用水效率大幅度提升。(2)2000—2020年，我国水质可持续能力均较强，处于安全和较安全状态，水质生态盈余量约2亿hm²;人均水质承载力约为人均水质生态足迹的2倍，且万元GDP产生的污水量呈下降趋势。(3)人均水量生态足迹和万元GDP水量生态足迹的空间重心均位于甘肃省。水量及水质生态足迹高值区，均主要位于“胡焕庸线”西北部，而承载力高值区，主要位于青藏高原和我国南方地区。(4)我国水量可持续能力处于安全、临界状态和不安全的地区数，分别占55%、6%和39%;水质可持续能力处于安全、临界状态和不安全的地区数，分别占61%、3%和35%;水量及水质可持续能力较强和较弱的地区数之比，约为6∶4。研究揭示了我国水量及水质风险等级...     

Ecosystem Services in Life Cycle Assessment while Encouraging Techno‐Ecological Synergies

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has enabled consideration of environmental impacts beyond the narrow boundary of traditional engineering methods. This reduces the chance of shifting impacts outside the system boundary. However, sustainability also requires that supporting ecosystems are not adversely affected and remain capable of providing goods and services for supporting human activities. Conventional LCA does not account for this role of nature, and its metrics are best for comparing alternatives. These relative metrics do not provide information about absolute environmental sustainability, which requires comparison between the demand and supply of ecosystem services (ES). Techno‐ecological synergy (TES) is a framework to account for ES, and has been demonstrated by application to systems such as buildings and manufacturing activities that have narrow system boundaries. This article develops an approach for techno‐ecological synergy in life cycle assessment (TES‐LCA) by expanding the steps in conventional LCA to incorporate the demand and supply of ecosystem goods and services at multiple spatial scales. This enables calculation of absolute environmental sustainability metrics, and helps identify opportunities for improving a life cycle not just by reducing impacts, but also by restoring and protecting ecosystems. TES‐LCA of a biofuel life cycle demonstrates this approach by considering the ES of carbon sequestration, air quality regulation, and water provisioning. Results show that for the carbon sequestration ecosystem service, farming can be locally sustainable but unsustainable at the global or serviceshed scale. Air quality regulation is unsustainable at all scales, while water provisioning is sustainable at all scales for this study in the eastern part of the United States.     

Indicators to support environmental sustainability of bioenergy systems

Indicators are needed to assess environmental sustainability of bioenergy systems. Effective indicators will help in the quantification of benefits and costs of bioenergy options and resource uses. We identify 19 measurable indicators for soil quality, water quality and quantity, greenhouse gases, biodiversity, air quality, and productivity, building on existing knowledge and on national and international programs that are seeking ways to assess sustainable bioenergy. Together, this suite of indicators is hypothesized to reflect major environmental effects of diverse feedstocks, management practices, and post-production processes. The importance of each indicator is identified. Future research relating to this indicator suite is discussed, including field testing, target establishment, and application to particular bioenergy systems. Coupled with such efforts, we envision that this indicator suite can serve as a basis for the practical evaluation of environmental sustainability in a variety of bioenergy systems.     

Extending the Life Cycle Methodology to Cover Impacts of Land Use Systems on the Water Balance (7 pp)

Goal, Scope and Background Whilst initially designed for industrial production systems, environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) has recently been increasingly applied to agriculture and forestry projects. Several authors suggested that the standard LCA methodology needs to be refined to cover the particularities of agri- and silvicultural production systems. Until now, water quantity received little attention in these methodological revisions, notwithstanding the well-known impact of agriculture and forestry on issues like water availability, drought and flood risk. This paper proposes an add-on to existing LCA methods in the form of an indicator set that integrates water quantity impacts of agri- and silvicultural production. Method First, system boundaries are discussed in order to identify the water flows between the production system and the environment. These flows are attributed to impact categories, linked to environmental burdens and to the areas of protection. Appropriate indicators are selected for each potential burden. Results and Discussion At the present, two input related impact categories deal with water quantity: Abiotic resource depletion and land use. The list of output related impact categories presented by Udo de Haes et al. (1999) does not include water quantity impacts like flood and drought risk. A new impact category “regional water balance” is introduced to cover these risks. Exceedance probabilities are used as indicators for these temporal variations in streamflow. Conclusion and Outlook The method presented in this paper can bring a life cycle assessment closer to real world concerns. The main drawback, however, is the increasing data requirement that might hinder the feasibility of the method. Future research should focus on this problem, for instance by applying a relatively simple numerical model that can calculate the indicator scores from more easily accessible data.     

Development of agri-environmental indicators to assess dairy farm sustainability in Quebec,Eastern Canada

Agri-environmental indicators are commonly used to assess agricultural sustainability. In North America, few are designed to be easily used by dairy farmers. As farmers assume more responsibility for managing natural resources, they play an increasingly important role in assessing sustainable agriculture. This paper describes the development of an indicator-based self-assessment tool for use at the farm level to evaluate dairy farm sustainability from an environmental standpoint. The agri-environmental indicator set was selected by using two participatory processes: the Delphi method and a focus group. The framework for developing the assessment tool consisted of six steps: (1) Defining the concept of environmental sustainability at the farm level; (2) setting up goals and principles for the assessment; (3) identifying potential indicators and selecting candidate indicators; (4) defining reference values, aggregating indicators into components, and establishing relative weights for indicators; (5) testing the candidate indicators on dairy farms, and (6) selecting the final indicator set. Six criteria were used to evaluate either the practicality or usefulness of indicators. Thirteen indicators were chosen, one of which was divided into four sub-indicators. These indicators were aggregated into four components: soil quality, cropping practices, fertilization management, and farmland management. Expert participation was the first validation of the indicator set. A compromise between feasibility, practicality, and relevance of measurement was found among indicators. When applied to 40 farms over two contrasting regions, the indicator set identified scores that differed according to production context. The tool is user-friendly and well-adapted to dairy farming systems.     

Australian water quality guidelines: a new approach for protecting ecosystem health

The Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC) and the Australian Water Resources Council (AWRC) have developed a National Water Quality Management Strategy which seeks to ensure that the nation's water resources are managed on a sustainable basis. An important element of this strategy are the Australian Water Quality Guidelines which focus on the protection of Australian freshwater and marine ecosystems. Here the aim is to protect biodiversity and maintain the ecological integrity of each marine and freshwater resource. Specific guidelines have been formulated in terms of key indicators of quality, with a single reference value or ranges of reference values provided for guidance. For those indicators where ranges are provided, it is the expectation that State environmental and resource management agencies will undertake local, site-specific investigations of their own systems to define the specific levels to be adopted. For the first time, specific and quantitative biological indicators have been introduced; these are species richness, species composition, primary production, and ecosystem function.As Australia progresses towards broader, more holistic, ecologically-based management of the nation's water resources, the present water quality guidelines must be extended to ecosystem or environmental guidelines, where the maintenance of adequate water quality is seen as only one (albeit important) component. Other considerations must include habitat protection, sediment quality, and stream flow maintenance. This increased emphasis on more ecologically-focused management of Australia's inland and coastal waters will present a number of challenges for the three major groups involved: the community, the managers, and the researchers. These challenges are discussed.Based on a paper presented at a Workshop on Biological Assessment of Aquatic Ecosystem Health, Sydney, 1–2 October 1992.     

基于基尼系数的中国水生态分区研究

提出了反映水生态系统空间分布规律和特征差异的水生态分区方案,并与国家现有的水资源分区、生态功能区划、水功能区划等相关区划成果相互衔接,为水资源综合利用、流域生态保护和经济社会发展规划提供实用的自然基础。以我国自然地理特征的空间变异与地域关联为依据,以流域为基本单元,进行水生态区划的初步研究,提出了分区的指标体系、步骤和区划方法,形成了两级的全国水生态分区体系。首先,划分为东部区、中部区、西北区和西南区4个水生态一级区;进行水生态二级区划时选取水资源量、降雨量、人口密度、NDVI作为分区的评价因子,根据洛伦茨曲线和基尼系数对分区合理性进行了检验。验证结果表明,各个水生态二级区的水资源量与降雨量、人口密度和NDVI值之间的基尼系数均不超过0.4,分区方案比较合理,从而形成34个水生态二级区,分布在东部13个,中部10个,西北6个,西南5个。     

城市生态环境需水量研究--理论与方法

生态环境需水量是一个整合的新概念。从降水量概念和水资源量概念两个角度界定了城市生态环境需水量的概念与内涵 ,分析其类型和属性特征 ,建立了城市生态环境需水量的方法体系 ,包括城市分类的指标体系与方法、基于降水量概念和水资源量概念的城市生态环境需水量计算方法与等级划分方案 ,为城市生态环境需水量研究提供理论依据与方法支持     

Assessing water scarcity by simultaneously considering environmental flow requirements,water quantity,and water quality

Water scarcity is a widespread problem in many parts of the world. Most previous methods of water scarcity assessment only considered water quantity, and ignored water quality. In addition, the environmental flow requirement (EFR) was commonly not explicitly considered in the assessment. In this study, we developed an approach to assess water scarcity by considering both water quantity and quality, while at the same time explicitly considering EFR. We applied this quantity–quality-EFR (QQE) approach for the Huangqihai River Basin in Inner Mongolia, China. We found that to keep the river ecosystem health at a “good” level (i.e., suitable for swimming, fishing, and aquaculture), 26% of the total blue water resources should be allocated to meet the EFR. When such a “good” level is maintained, the quantity- and quality-based water scarcity indicators were 1.3 and 14.2, respectively; both were above the threshold of 1.0. The QQE water scarcity indicator thus can be expressed as 1.3(26%)|14.2, indicating that the basin was suffering from scarcity problems related to both water quantity and water quality for a given rate of EFR. The current water consumption has resulted in degradation of the basin's river ecosystems, and the EFR cannot be met in 3 months of a year. To reverse this situation, future policies should aim to reduce water use and pollution discharge, meet the EFR for maintaining healthy river ecosystems, and substantially improve pollution treatment.     

An Entangled Model for Sustainability Indicators

Nowadays the challenge for humanity is to find pathways towards sustainable development. Decision makers require a set of sustainability indicators to know if the sustainability strategies are following those pathways. There are more than one hundred sustainability indicators but they differ on their relative importance according to the size of the locality and change on time. The resources needed to follow these sustainability indicators are scarce and in some instances finite, especially in smaller regions. Therefore strategies to select set of these indicators are useful for decision makers responsible for monitoring sustainability. In this paper we propose a model for the identification and selection of a set of sustainability indicators that adequately represents human systems. In developing this model, we applied evolutionary dynamics in a space where sustainability indicators are fundamental entities interconnected by an interaction matrix. we used a fixed interaction that simulates the current context for the city of Cuernavaca, México as an example. We were able to identify and define relevant sets indicators for the system by using the Pareto principle. In this case we identified a set of sixteen sustainability indicators with more than 80% of the total strength. This set presents resilience to perturbations. For the Tangled Nature framework we provided a manner of treating different contexts (i.e., cities, counties, states, regions, countries, continents or the whole planet), dealing with small dimensions. This model provides decision makers with a valuable tool to select sustainability indicators set for towns, cities, regions, countries, continents or the entire planet according to a coevolutionary framework. The social legitimacy can arise from the fact that each individual indicator must be selected from those that are most important for the subject community.     

A proposal to measure absolute environmental sustainability in life cycle assessment

Environmental monitoring indicates that progress towards the goal of environmental sustainability in many cases is slow, non-existing or negative. Indicators that use environmental carrying capacity references to evaluate whether anthropogenic systems are, or will potentially be, environmentally sustainable are therefore increasingly important. Such absolute indicators exist, but suffer from shortcomings such as incomplete coverage of environmental issues, varying data quality and varying or insufficient spatial resolution. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that life cycle assessment (LCA) can potentially reduce or eliminate these shortcomings.We developed a generic mathematical framework for the use of carrying capacity as environmental sustainability reference in spatially resolved life cycle impact assessment models and applied this framework to the LCA impact category terrestrial acidification. In this application carrying capacity was expressed as acid deposition (eq. mol H⁺ ha⁻¹ year⁻¹) and derived from two complementary pH related thresholds. A geochemical steady-state model was used to calculate a carrying capacity corresponding to these thresholds for 99,515 spatial units worldwide. Carrying capacities were coupled with deposition factors from a global deposition model to calculate characterisation factors (CF), which expresses space integrated occupation of carrying capacity (ha year) per kg emission. Principles for calculating the entitlement to carrying capacity of anthropogenic systems were then outlined, and the logic of considering a studied system environmentally sustainable if its indicator score (carrying capacity occupation) does not exceed its carrying capacity entitlement was demonstrated. The developed CFs and entitlement calculation principles were applied to a case study evaluating emission scenarios for personal residential electricity consumption supplied by production from 45 US coal fired electricity plant.Median values of derived CFs are 0.16–0.19 ha year kg⁻¹ for common acidifying compounds. CFs are generally highest in Northern Europe, Canada and Alaska due to the low carrying capacity of soils in these regions. Differences in indicator scores of the case study emission scenarios are to a larger extent driven by variations in pollution intensities of electricity plants than by spatial variations in CFs. None of the 45 emission scenarios could be considered environmentally sustainable when using the relative contribution to GDP or the grandfathering (proportionality to past emissions) valuation principles to calculating carrying capacity entitlements. It is argued that CFs containing carrying capacity references are complementary to existing CFs in supporting decisions aimed at simultaneously reducing environmental impacts efficiently and maintaining or achieving environmental sustainability.We have demonstrated that LCA indicators can be modified from being relative to being absolute indicators of environmental sustainability. Further research should focus on quantifying uncertainties related to choices in indicator design and on reducing uncertainties effectively.     

The Water Impact Index: a simplified single-indicator approach for water footprinting

Purpose

Along with climate change-related issues, improved water management is recognized as one of the major challenges to sustainability. However, there are still no commonly accepted methods for measuring sustainability of water uses, resulting in a recent proliferation of water footprint methodologies. The Water Impact Index presented in this paper aims to integrate the issues of volume, scarcity and quality into a single indicator to assess the reduction of available water for the environment induced by freshwater uses for human activities.

Methods

The Water Impact Index follows life cycle thinking principles. For each unit process, a volumetric water balance is performed; water flows crossing the boundaries between the techno-sphere and environment are multiplied by a water quality index and a water scarcity index. The methodology is illustrated on the current municipal wastewater management system of Milan (Italy). The Water Impact Index is combined with carbon footprint to introduce multi-impact thinking to decision makers. The Water Impact Index is further compared to results obtained using a set of three life cycle impact indicators related to water, from the ReCiPe life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methodology.

Results and discussion

Onsite water use is the main contribution to the Water Impact Index for both wastewater management schemes. The release of better quality water is the main driver in favour of the scenario including a wastewater treatment plant, while the energy and chemicals consumed for the treatment increase the indirect water footprint and carbon footprint. Results obtained with the three midpoint indicators depict similar tendencies to the Water Impact Index.

Conclusions

This paper presents a simplified single-indicator approach for water footprinting, integrating volume, scarcity and quality issues, representing an initial step toward a better understanding and assessment of the environmental impacts of human activities on water resources. The wastewater treatment plant reduces the Water Impact Index of the wastewater management system. These results are consistent with the profile of the three midpoint indicators related to water from ReCiPe.     

Emergy as a Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicator

Founded in thermodynamics and systems ecology, emergy evaluation is a method to associate a product with its dependencies on all upstream environmental and resource flows using a common unit of energy. Emergy is thus proposed as an indicator of aggregate resource use for life cycle assessment (LCA). An LCA of gold mining, based on an original life cycle inventory of a large gold mine in Peru, is used to demonstrate how emergy can be incorporated as an impact indicator into a process‐based LCA model. The results demonstrate the usefulness of emergy in the LCA context. The adaptation of emergy evaluation, traditionally performed outside of the LCA framework, requires changes to the conventional accounting rules and the incorporation of uncertainty estimations of the emergy conversion factors, or unit emergy values. At the same time, traditional LCA boundaries are extended to incorporate the environmental processes that provide for raw resources, including ores. The total environmental contribution to the product, doré, is dominated by mining and metallurgical processes and not the geological processes forming the gold ore. The measure of environmental contribution to 1 gram (g) of doré is 6.8E + 12 solar‐equivalent Joules (sej) and can be considered accurate within a factor of 2. These results are useful in assessing a process in light of available resources, which is essential to measuring long‐term sustainability. Comparisons are made between emergy and other measures of resource use, and recommendations are made for future incorporation of emergy into LCA that will result in greater consistency with existing life cycle inventory (LCI) databases and other LCA indicators.     

Ecological indicators: Imperative to sustainable forest management

Sustainable forest management (SFM) deals with ecologically sound practices that maintain the forest ecosystem integrity, productivity, resilience and biodiversity. Ecological sustainability ensures continuing function of ecosystems which are considered as ecological life support system. Several attempts have been made world over to develop criteria and indicators, which are specific to various forestry conditions and recognized as appropriate tools for assessing and monitoring progress towards sustainable forest management. In India, the process for measuring forest sustainability has started by evolving national level set of Criteria and indicators in the form of Bhopal–India process. The Bhopal–India process specifies 8 criteria and 43 indicators. The first 4 criteria pertain exclusively to ecology with 21 related indicators. Thus, nearly half of the criteria and indicators pertain to ecological dimensions that largely govern sustainability of forests. Rest of the criteria of the base set pertains to economic and social aspects with related indicators. This provides holistic approach of monitoring the forest resources.     

国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系——以西藏色林错-普若岗日冰川国家公园潜在建设区为例

当前，国内外对于国家公园旅游可持续性的定义及其评估指标尚未形成共识，已有的部分指标存在可操作性较弱、管理成本较高等问题，无法直接应用于中国国家公园旅游可持续性的管理与评估。从三条路径构建国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系：以实际需求为导向，分析国家公园所在区域对旅游可持续性管理评估指标的需求；以国际共识为导向，检验《全球可持续旅游目的地标准》在国家公园的适用性；以实践为导向，梳理世界主要国家及地区国家公园旅游可持续性的管理重点。以色林错-普若岗日冰川国家公园（简称"色-普国家公园"）潜在建设区为例，建立国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系。从经济、社会、文化、生态环境等方面明确了色-普国家公园潜在建设区对管理评估指标体系的需求。经过适用性判定，识别在色-普国家公园潜在建设区具有较强适用性的可持续旅游目的地评估指标。通过频次统计，从经济、社会、文化、生态环境、制度建设等方面遴选世界主要国家及地区国家公园旅游可持续性的重点管理指标。所建立的色-普国家公园潜在建设区旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系包括5个一级指标，15个二级指标，36个三级指标。在此基础上，建议逐步建立健全监测与统计体系，为管理评估指标体系的应用提供支撑。     

基于水量与水质的太湖流域水生态服务供需关系及多情景评估

耦合水量供给与水质净化的水生态服务供需关系的多尺度空间量化评估，有助于刻画和识别丰水区水质性缺水问题，并丰富水生态服务研究。在构建水量供给和水质净化服务供需评估方法的基础上，利用空间分析方法在现状情景基础上分别设置提升用水效率、改善土地管理方式和优化土地利用空间配置三种优化情景，并在栅格、子流域和县域三个尺度上开展基于水量供给和水质净化的水生态服务供需关系的定量评估，分别探讨了不同情景不同尺度下的水生态服务供需变化、空间响应及其机制特征。研究结果表明：(1)太湖流域的水量供需状况显著优于水质供需状况，节水能够有效改善流域内的水量赤字，而减量施肥和优化土地利用配置能够显著改善流域内的水质赤字。(2)多尺度的水量供给与水质净化服务供需解析，有助于精准识别不同尺度下亟需治理的关键区域。(3)水量赤字区主要集中在建设用地分布区域，耕地仍是引致水质赤字的主要原因，但随着尺度的逐渐增大，水质赤字区的建设用地面积也在不断增加。(4)优化土地利用结构方案是解决水质性缺水的最有效方法，但需要突破现有政策尤其是耕地保护政策的刚性约束，故耦合提升用水效率等方法是当前治理太湖流域“水质性缺水”问题首选措施。     

Meta-performance evaluation of sustainability indicators

There are many different kinds of frameworks for evaluating environmental and sustainability performance at the organizational level (profit or not-for-profit, private or public), sectoral level (e.g. industry, transport, agriculture and tourism), and local, regional or country levels. Despite the diversity of methods and tools to measure sustainable development, indicators are one of the approaches most used. However, these tools do not usually include evaluation of the performance measurement instrument itself. The main objective of this research is to develop a conceptual framework to design and assess the effectiveness of the sustainability indicators themselves. To put the proposed tool into practice, a set of key good-practice factors and meta-performance evaluation indicators is proposed for adoption in a national case study—the national sustainable development indicators system, SIDS Portugal, and the usefulness of this methodology is demonstrated. This approach aims to evaluate how appropriate a set of sustainability indicators is and allow an evaluation of overall performance-monitoring activities and results. Stakeholder involvement is an essential component of the proposed framework. The tool developed could support continuous improvement in the performance of ongoing sustainability indicator initiatives, allowing greater guidance, objectivity and transparency in sustainability assessment processes.     

污水处理综合系统环境经济效益评估

污水处理、处理水处理和污泥处理是污水处理综合系统的3个基本单元.本文运用能值分析和新构建的能值指标评估了处理水回用与排放、污泥填埋与堆肥对系统整体性能的影响.该系统的价值包括环境收益和产品输出两方面.前者可通过污水处理前后的环境服务差值计算.由于系统内部物质和能量的转化数据难以获知,产品价值通过新提出的替代价值核算.结果表明： “污水处理+处理水回用+污泥填埋”的竞争力最高,“污水处理+处理水回用+蚯蚓堆肥”的可持续性能最高;处理水回用和蚯蚓堆肥均有助于提高系统可持续性;处理水回用与否应综合考虑处理水水质和当地条件;污泥蚯蚓堆肥的资源化效率还有待提高;改进的能值指标更适宜于污水处理综合系统效益评估.     

Improving real-time forecasting of water quality indicators with combination of process-based models and data assimilation technique

Water quality indicators can be used to characterize the status and quantify and qualify the change of aquatic ecosystems under different disturbance regimes. Although many studies have been done to develop and assess indicators and discuss interactions among them, few studies have focused on how to improve the predicted indicators and explore their variations in receiving water bodies. Accurate and effective predictions of ecological indictors are critical to better understand changes of water quality in aquatic ecosystems, especially for the real-time forecasting. Process-based water quality models can predict the spatiotemporal variations of the water quality indicators and provide useful information for policy-makers on sound management of water resources. Given their inherent constraints, however, such process models alone cannot actually guarantee perfect results since water quality models generally have a large number of parameters and involve many processes which are too complex to be efficiently calibrated. To overcome these limitations and explore a fast and efficient forecasting method for the change of water quality indictors, we proposed a new framework which combines the process-based models and data assimilation technique. Unlike most traditional approaches in which only the model parameters or initial conditions are updated or corrected and the models are run online, this framework allows the information extracted from observations and outputs of process models to be directly used in a data-driven local/modified local model. The results from the data-driven model are then assimilated into the original process model to further improve its forecasting ability. This approach can be efficiently run offline to directly correct and update the output of water quality models. We applied this framework in a real case study in Singapore. Two of the water quality indicators, namely salinity and oxygen were selected and tested against the observations, suggesting that a good performance of improving the model results and reducing computation time can be obtained. This approach is simple and efficient, especially suitable for real-time forecasting systems. Thus, it can enhance forecasting of water quality indictors and thereby facilitate the effective management of water resources.