Abstract
Wetland restoration is important to responding to climate change and ensuring ecological security. In terms of the serious wetland loss and limited wetland restoration in China, there is a need to investigate approaches to identifying potential areas for wetland restoration from cropland, in order to support making spatial decisions at a regional scale. Here, we provide an example of integrating remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS) effectively to identify where and how many croplands could be converted into wetlands in the West Songnen Plain (WSNP). The map of potential areas for wetland restoration from croplands generated in this study is expected to help decision makers to implement wetland restoration in the WSNP. Besides the widely highlighted hydrological, topographical, and landscape features, four indicators, namely, flooded area, time under cultivation, human disturbance, and wetland conservation level, were selected to identify the potential areas for wetland restoration—with different priorities—from croplands. Satellite observation revealed that a total of 2753.3 km2 of wetlands have been cultivated into croplands for grain production from 1990 to 2015 in the WSNP. It is estimated that 8882.1 km2 of croplands are suitable for conversion to wetlands, of which 3706 km2 (29.4%) are with high priority, and 44.5% are from dry farmlands. A total of 3284.7 km2 of paddy fields are identified to be potential areas for wetland restoration, of which 1119.6 km2 are high priority, and another 2165.1 km2 are medium priority.
Highlights
Wetlands are valuable to humans due to their notable ecosystem functions and services, such as protecting biodiversity, adjusting hydrology and climate, and providing important habitats, products, and tourism resources [1,2]
We identified the landscape patterns in West Songnen Plain (WSNP), and the wetlands cultivated into croplands during the different periods from 1990 to 2015
Besides the current hydrological, topographical, and landscape features, flooded area, time under cultivation, human disturbance, and wetland conservation levels were selected to identify the potential areas for wetland restoration from croplands with different priorities
Summary
Wetlands are valuable to humans due to their notable ecosystem functions and services, such as protecting biodiversity, adjusting hydrology and climate, and providing important habitats, products, and tourism resources [1,2]. Intensive human activities and climate change worldwide, have led to extensive wetland loss [3,4,5]. Such losses have caused pronounced ecological consequences including floods [6], biodiversity loss [7], coastal damage [8], water quality degradation [9], and carbon sequestration decline [10,11]. Potential restoration areas of freshwater wetlands in the Yellow River Delta in China were identified by assessing habitat suitability [16]. All these studies highlighted the importance of hydrology and terrain conditions for restoring wetlands. There is a need to improve the indicator system for scientific decision support to achieve effective wetland restoration
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