Defining Urban River Ecosystem Health

This chapter provides some fundamental analyses as research basis. Firstly, river ecosystem health, which is a boarder concept than urban river ecosystem health, is reviewed from two aspects, its conceptual evolution and its relationships with human activities. Then, the characteristics of urban river ecosystem are discussed and compared with river ecosystem, concentrating on its unique characteristic of “urban” and indicating the needs of studying urban river ecosystem for management improvement. Based on the analysis of components of human and urban river system, the definition of Urban River Ecosystem Health (UREH) is finally elucidated. Finally, the UREH protection practices from global perspective are examined, focusing on the protection evolution processes.