Water environmental planning and management at the watershed scale: A case study of Lake Qilu, China

Water environmental planning and management has become essential for guiding the water pollution control activities. Past water pollution control activities have been site specific, with little thought on water quality standard reaching at the watershed scale. Based on the watershed approach, a seven-step methodological framework for water environmental planning and management was developed. The framework was applied to water environmental planning and management of the Lake Qilu watershed in Yunnan Province, China. Results show that the reduction amount of total nitrogen (TN) under the plan is 1,205 tons per year so that the target of environmental capacity can be reached in 2020. Compared with traditional methods, the framework has its prevalence and could be generalized to analogous watersheds.