A new assessment approach for urban ecosystem health basing on maximum information entropy method

Information entropy is introduced to describe the interactions between diverse agents in urban ecosystems. Basing on maximum information entropy method, a holistic structural parameter and its dynamic equation are derived to reflect urban ecosystem health (UEH). In this way, a new UEH assessment model has been proposed. We then apply the model to assess the UEH of Beijing, Dalian, Shanghai, Wuhan, Xiamen and Guangzhou in China. It is shown that the holistic structural parameter, the radar chart, and the associated correlations from the model can reveal the health features of different cities. According to the calculated ranges of the holistic structural parameter, a new UEH assessment grade standard is suggested and applied to the UEH assessment of some typical cities in China. It is demonstrated that the new model and the new assessment grade standard are precise and readily operational, which can be widely used in other urban ecosystems.