Grading Evaluation of the Structural Connectivity of River System Networks Based on Ecological Functions, and a Case Study of the Baiyangdian Wetland, China

River system network (RSN) connectivity is important to maintain the environmental and ecological functions of wetlands. Quantitative evaluation of connectivity can provide crucial support for efforts to improve wetland connectivity and to restore and protect wetland ecosystems. Most existing evaluation methods uniformly generalise RSN to form an undifferentiated RSN of edges and nodes that is taken as a whole to evaluate the connectivity. However, actual RSNs comprise rivers, canals, ditches, lakes, and ponds, which differ substantially in their structures, morphologies, and attributes. The mix of RSN elements therefore defines grades that give RSNs distinctive characteristics. Moreover, RSNs with different grades perform different ranges of environmental and ecological functions. The existing evaluation methods, which have some limitations, do not account for these characteristics. To account for these differences, we examined the grade characteristics and their impact on environmental and ecological functions. We established a grading system of RSN elements and a grading method of RSN, and constructed the structural connectivity evaluation indicator system for RSNs at different grades. On this basis, we propose a method for grading evaluation of RSN connectivity. We used China’s Baiyangdian Wetland to demonstrate the use of the system and validate the results. The proposed method provided an objective and accurate evaluation of RSN connectivity and clarified the differences in connectivity among RSNs with different grades, thereby providing improved guidance for the development and maintenance of the environmental and ecological functions of RSNs.

Determining hydrological barriers in wetlands with InSAR methods: several iconic cases worldwide

<p>Hydrological connectivity is a critical determinant of wetland functions and ecosystems by controlling the movement of biogeochemical elements within wetlands and the flow of water between their hydrological units. Hydrological barriers exist when this connectivity is impaired, either by man-made infrastructure, agriculture developments, or naturally restricted by soil and ground composition. Determining hydrological barriers in wetlands is challenging due to the costs of high-resolution and large-scale monitoring, but radar observations can become a useful tool for such task. We here use an Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) to identify hydrological barriers in several iconic wetlands worldwide, with particular focus on the Baiyangdian wetland system in Northern China. For the first, we use Sentinel 1A and 1B data covering the period 2016-2019, while for the rest we rely on ALOS PALSAR data. We calculated profiles of water level change across hydrological transects showing high coherence and visualized them in maps. For instance, in the case of the Baiyangdian wetland, we find that of the 70 transects studied, 11% of all transects are permanently disconnected by hydrological barriers across all interferograms and 58% of the transects are conditionally disconnected. The occurrence of hydrological barriers varies between wetlands, with permanent barriers more related to ditches, infrastructure and the specific wetland landscape, and conditional barriers more to low water levels during dry seasons. This study highlights the potential of the application of wetland InSAR to determine hydrological barriers for wetland management and restoration.</p>

Study on water purification with warm and cold season aquatic plants

As a national key protection and restoration project, ecological restoration of Baiyangdian Wetland has an important significance for environmental management. As the research area in Zaozhadian wetland, the purification effect of warm season and cold season aquatic plants was studied under different overflying water qualities. It provides a theoretical and experimental basis for the ecological environment restoration and management of wetlands. The results showed that the warm season and cold season aquatic plants all played important roles on the nitrogen and phosphorus removal and maintained the stable water environmental from the nutrient release from soil. The warm season plant-mixed Myriophyllum spicatum and Ceratophyllum demersum and the cold season plant-Potamogeton crispus L. can be reasonably configurated for the wetland restoration.

Tracking Changing Evidences of Water in Wetland Using the Satellite Long-Term Observations from 1984 to 2017

Wetlands have been degrading and reducing under the influences of human activity and climate change. Landsat long-term observations can help us better track the changing evidences of wetland habitats that would be valuable for guiding the restoration and conservation of wetland. In this study, we demonstrated the results of tracking the changing evidence of wetland habitats using Landsat observations from 1984 to 2017 through the case study of Baiyangdian wetland in China. We extracted the open water and classified the wetland habitats using collected 190 scenes from Landsat observations. As a result, we found that the yearly variations of wetland present phasic changes in three phases: 1988–1998, 1999–2011 and 2013–2017. The landscape of wetland habitats presented during 1989–1999 mostly show us the natural spatial pattern with less human disturbance traces compared to that during 2013–2017. The water environment, moreover, changed for the better after the 2010s, which indicated the encouraging effects of the environmental restoration project implemented from the year 2010. The current landscapes of wetland habitats, however, present lots of linear belts that are blocking the water cycles and ecological channels of aquatic plants and animals in the wetland. The areas in the northwestern wing and around the northeastern edge of the wetland are changing to be drier due to cropping activities and are at risk of wetland loss. These historical changing evidences could be a guideline for planning and designing restoration for the wetland.

Response characteristics of water level dynamic of the Baiyangdian Wetland to climate change and human activities

Water level dynamics of Wetlands are influenced by both climate change and human activities. Understanding the influence characteristics is important for the management of wetland water resources and ecology. Based on the water level dynamic and precipitation of the Baiyangdian Wetland, and the NPI index, the paper analyzes the response characteristics of the water level dynamic to the precipitation, and the teleconnections between the water level dynamic and the NPI by adopting method of wavelet analysis. Results show that climate change plays an important role on the response of the water level dynamic to the precipitation and also to the NPI, and human activities can significantly change the response characteristics. The response time lags of the water level dynamics to the NPI is longer than that of the water level dynamics to the precipitations, which indicates that the wetland precipitation might be partially influenced by the NPI. The knowledge of the response characteristics obtained in the paper is beneficial for water conservancy and control of the wetland, and is favorable for the sustainable development of its eco-environment.