A Treatment Wetland Park Assessment Model for Evaluating Urban Ecosystem Stability using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

The increased impervious and built-up urban areas threat ecosystem stability through major environmental problems, such assurface runoff, flooding, and wildlife habitat resource depletion. Hence, urban ecologists and planners are attempting to enhancethe capacities of wetlands parks in urban ecosystem stabilization. They need an assessment tool to evaluate and quantify theperformance of wetland parks on these issues, hereof this study has developed the Urban Wetland Park (UWP) index assessmentmodel. The research conducted three phases; the requirement study to identify the features of wetland park design, formulatingindex model using Analytical Hierarchy Process method, and model validation using expert input. The UWP model identifiedeighteen features clustered into three criteria and fifteen sub-criteria and then determined the weights of features. For modelvalidation, the UWP model was applied in Putrajaya wetland park. The UWP resulted with grade B (Good) for Putrajaya wetlandpark. It means the Putrajaya wetland park performs well in ecosystem stabilization, although the experts recommended few minorimprovements regarding site selection (WC1.1.= 0.588), multi-cell and multi-stage design (WC1.5.= 0.604), depth proportion(WC1.6.= 0.652), and biodiversity (WC2.1.= 0.691). Study proposed the UWP as a universal decision support tool to help urbanauthorities, urban planners and ecologists to assess the ecosystem stabilization of wetland parks.

Keywords:

Urban Ecology , Treatment Wetland , Wetland Park , Decision Support Tool , Analytical Hierarchy Process