Objective  The construction of water landscape in urban built-up area is an important ecological project that has the closest relationship with town development and people’s life, as well as having the most obvious effect. In the context of urban ecological construction progressing from high-speed growth to high-quality development in the new era, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to construct a comprehensive benefit evaluation method for the water landscape construction in urban built-up area from a multidisciplinary perspective.

  Method  Based on the analysis of connotation of water landscape construction, this paper takes the water landscape in urban built-up area as the research scope, and puts forward ecological construction, life recreation and production development as the criterion layers for the comprehensive benefit evaluation. Meanwhile, relevant element layers were determined. Typical indicators were selected by the frequency statistics method, theoretical analysis method and expert consultation method, and an evaluation index system of the comprehensive benefit for water landscape construction in urban built-up area was constructed. On this basis, the weights were calculated by the analytic hierarchy process, the single index quantitative evaluation and multi-index comprehensive evaluation were carried out, the results of comprehensive benefit evaluation obtained by multi-criteria integration were graded, and a systematic evaluation method of the comprehensive benefit was formed. Finally, Weifang City was taken as an example for applied research.

  Result  (1) In 2004, the comprehensive benefit score of water landscape construction in the built-up area of Weifang City was 17.11, which provided rare benefit, and all three sub-benefits were at the level of rare benefit. (2) From 2004 to 2012, the comprehensive benefit score increased rapidly, the score of life recreation benefit among the sub-benefits increased most significantly. In 2012, the comprehensive benefit score reached 53.46, which provided moderate benefit, and all three sub-benefits reached the level of moderate benefit. (3) From 2012 to 2018, the growth rate of comprehensive benefit score and scores of sub-benefits slowed down. In 2018, the comprehensive benefit score was 76.54, which provided major benefit. Among the scores of sub-benefits, the scores of life recreation benefit and ecological construction benefit increased rapidly, the score of life recreation benefit was the highest, and all three sub-benefits reached the level of major benefit. (4) From 2004 to 2018, the score of environmental improvement in the ecological construction benefit increased significantly, the scores of cultural load and activity support in the life recreation benefit increased significantly, and the score of economic benefit in the production development benefit increased the most, which were the main factors driving the growth of corresponding sub-benefits.

  Conclusion  The evaluation method proposed in this study can scientifically quantify and compare the comprehensive benefit of water landscape construction in urban built-up area, discover the existing problems in the current construction and clarify future construction directions, providing the necessary evaluation standard and technical reference for the urban water ecological construction in China.