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Degradation and Ecological Restoration of Estuarine Wetlands in China

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Abstract

Estuarine wetlands provide a wide range of ecosystem functions, including carbon storage, biodiversity maintenance, and shoreline protection, and have human recreational value. In recent years, over half of China’s estuarine wetlands have been lost due to natural or anthropogenic stresses. Estuarine wetlands are facing great challenges regarding their protection, restoration and management. China’s 18,436 km of coastline support nearly half of its human population and 45 of its 60 major cities. It sustains over 28,000 species, and processes the outflow from seven of its nine major rivers. Rapid economic development in China is a cause of coastal degradation. In an attempt to mitigate habitat loss, over 1000 coastal restoration projects have been conducted in China in the past few decades. Great achievements have been made in the wetland restoration projects. In the future, biological combined restoration technology will become increasingly popular in China.

摘要

河口湿地提供了广泛的生态系统功能, 包括碳储存、生物多样性维护和海岸线保护, 并具有人类休闲娱乐价值。近年来, 由于自然或人为的压力, 中国超过一半的河口湿地已经消失。河口湿地面临着保护、恢复和管理方面的巨大挑战。中国18,436公里的海岸线承载着近一半的人口, 全国60个主要城市中有45个位于沿海地区, 维持着28,000多种生物物种, 并接纳了九大河流中七条河流的奔流入海。中国经济的快速发展是滨海湿地退化的主要原因之一。为了弥补栖息地的损失, 在过去的几十年里, 中国已经开展了1000多个滨海恢复工程并取得了丰硕的成果。未来生物联合修复技术将在中国日益推广普及。

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all authors for providing valuable research, and we thank all reviewers for their careful and helpful comments.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China (Grant numbers 51809287 and 51909006). Author Shanze Li has received research support by International Academic Talents Foundation from China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research. All authors have received research support from Beijing Normal University.

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Author notes

  1. Shanze Li and Tian Xie contributed equally for this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, Department of Water Ecology and Environment Research, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100038, China

    Shanze Li

  2. School of Environment, State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Tian Xie, Junhong Bai & Baoshan Cui

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  1. Shanze Li
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  2. Tian Xie
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Shanze Li and Tian Xie. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Shanze Li and Tian Xie, and Junhong Bai and Baoshan Cui commented on previous versions of the manuscript. Shanze Li, Tian Xie, Junhong Bai and Baoshan Cui read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Junhong Bai.

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Li, S., Xie, T., Bai, J. et al. Degradation and Ecological Restoration of Estuarine Wetlands in China. Wetlands 42, 90 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-022-01589-9

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