Abstract:

A thematic content analysis has been applied to extract a set of common themes from the definitional literature.The steps were as followed：collection of samples，analysis of identified criteria，coding of definitions，recording of results in the conceptual framework，assessment of reliability and accuracy，and tabulation of results.The sample in this study includes 36 contemporary definitions of river health，all of which were published after 1995.Of the fourteen criteria used for analysis，six were identified as appearing most frequently in the definitional literature，including: maintaining structure integrity，exerting natural ecological function，meeting the demands of society，river ecosystem in good state，goal for river management，building reference condition for river.Based on these six distinct criteria，a definition for river health is presented.River health is a term used to describe the ecological condition of a river in good state，which can be used as a reference condition and the goal for river management.A healthy river is defined as a river，which retains the major ecological feature and natural functioning，and meets the demands of society.After the steps of content analysis，30 literatures were used in this paper to extract the most often used indicators for river health characterization.The results reveal that the indicators are water quality，aquatic life，physical form，bed condition，hydrology and streamside zone.Furthermore，indicators and its standard should be differential according to river function.

Key words: river health, conceptualizing definition, characterizing indicators, content analysis methodology