Abstract: River health assessment is of great significance to the diagnosis of river water environment and water supply safety in rural areas, which can provide basis for river functional governance and restoration. Here, we constructed a river health evaluation system, adopted improved analytic hierarchy process and CRITIC method for weighting, established a fuzzy matter-element VIKOR model, and evaluated the river health status of Guangdong River. The results showed that the weights of physical structural integrity, biological structural integrity, and chemical structural integrity were 0.25, 0.30, and 0.45, respectively. Water quality indicators were the main factoraffecting the health of the river. The temporal and spatial variations in the health level of the four sampling sections of Guangdong River were substantial. The health level of Minjiazhai section in the dry season was morbid, and the other sections were sub-healthy. The health level of Minjiazhai and Baima village sections was significantly improved in the wet season, which was medium and healthy, respectively. The changes in the other sections were relatively small. Obstacle analysis showed that soil ion exchange was the main source of pollutants in the river during dry season, while agricultural production activities were the main one during wet season. Woodland and grassland had obvious obstruction to pollutants. Hg, As and Pd were the important factors influencing the ecological health of Guangdong River.

Key words: river health, land cover, fuzzy matter-element VIKOR model, obstacle model.