Special Issue "Frontier Research on Sustainable Coastal Wetland Ecosystem"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Social Ecology and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 October 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Baoshan Cui
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Interests: wetland ecology; ecohydrological processes; wetland restoration; wetland diversity; biological conservation
Dr. Tian Xie
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Interests: wetland ecosystem stability; invasion ecology; biological conservation; wetland biodiversity; biogeomorphology
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Qing Wang
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Research and Development Center for Watershed Environmental Eco-Engineering, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai 519085, China
Interests: wetland restoration; wetland vegetation; biogeomorphology; plant life cycle; wetland resilience; ecohydrological processes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Coastal wetlands play important roles in providing ecosystem services such as supporting important species, preventing saline intrusion, conserving biodiversity, moderating microclimate, and promoting nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration. Maintaining healthy and functional coastal wetlands is key to the delivery of these important ecosystem services and achieving sustainable and resilient coastal development. However, multiple stressors from natural and anthropogenic disturbances pose severe threats to coastal wetlands and have often caused its shrinkage, degradation and eventually loss.

Natural disturbances in coastal zones include hurricanes, storms, saline intrusion, sea level rise, fire, invasive species, outbreaks of herbivores and wrack. Moreover, there is a long history of coastal development throughout the world to meet the needs of population and economic growth. The shoreline protection infrastructures including seawalls, revetments, dikes and levees would block land-ocean connectivity and shrink nearshore and intertidal habitats, limit the movement of planktons, benthos, nekton and plant seed dispersal by water, and alter suspended sediment transport processes. Other disturbances such as noise, light, shipping vessels and aquaculture or port sewage discharge are also major contributor for coastal wetland degradation.

The sustainability and resilience of the coastal wetlands hinge on the relevant physical and ecological processes as well as the coupled eco-physical processes such as bio-geomorphological and ecogeomorphological processes. Disturbances, natural or anthropogenic, threaten coastal habitats not only through directly affecting primary and secondary productivity, community composition and distribution, and biodiversity, but also through indirectly affecting natural processes and reducing habitat heterogeneity and connectivity. In addition to the loss of community structure and ecosystem functions, the loss of ecosystem services also degrade the quality of life of coastal communities.

This Special Issue aims to provide an interdisciplinary platform for researchers with varying backgrounds to communicate their latest research progress on the challenges and opportunities the coastal wetlands face to achieve sustainability. Contributions concerning the assessment of the status and evolution of the coastal wetlands under rapid environmental changes, its inherent eco-physical processes and mechanisms, and response and adaptation to natural and anthropogenic impacts, as well as the implications for coastal management and restoration are particularly welcome.  The potential topics includes but not limited to:

  1. Land-use effects on coastal wetlands;
  2. Coastal wetland degradation processes and assessment;
  3. Assessment of ecological service functions in coastal wetlands;
  4. Principles and applications of coastal wetland restoration;
  5. Coastal wetland conservation and management;
  6. Ecological network analysis of coastal wetlands;
  7. Effects of sea-level rise on coastal wetlands;
  8. Coastal wetland soil pollution and assessment;
  9. Ecosystem-based approaches.

Prof. Dr. Baoshan Cui
Dr. Dongdong Shao
Dr. Tian Xie
Dr. Qing Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wetland ecosystems
  • restoration
  • ecohydrological processes
  • ecological service functions
  • biogeochemical processes
  • biogeomorphology

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Spatial Analysis as a Tool for Plant Population Conservation: A Case Study of Tamarix chinensis in the Yellow River Delta, China
Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8291; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158291 - 24 Jul 2021
Viewed by 410
Abstract
Saltcedar (Tamarix chinensis) is undergoing population declination and fragmentation due to climate change and human disturbance. The existing restoration strategies usually focus on improving the environmental conditions based on the environment–saltcedar relationship, while they ignore the role of spatial autocorrelation resulting [...] Read more.
Saltcedar (Tamarix chinensis) is undergoing population declination and fragmentation due to climate change and human disturbance. The existing restoration strategies usually focus on improving the environmental conditions based on the environment–saltcedar relationship, while they ignore the role of spatial autocorrelation resulting from biological interaction and ecological processes. This oversight limits the efficiency and sustainability of the restoration. Here, we explored the spatial pattern of the saltcedar population in the Yellow River Delta, China, and its relationship with environmental factors, incorporating spatial autocorrelation. The plant and soil parameters were extracted by an airborne LiDAR system integrated with fixed soil environment measurements. The environment–saltcedar relationship incorporating spatial autocorrelation was evaluated with different regression models. Results showed that saltcedars aggregated at small scales (2–6 m), resulting from intraspecific facilitation and wind dispersal of seeds, while intraspecific competition was responsible for the random distribution at large scales (>10 m). The long-distance dispersal of seeds through water explained the significant positive spatial autocorrelation of saltcedars at distances up to 125 m. Consequently, resulting from intraspecific facilitation and seed dispersal, aggregation distribution and positive spatial autocorrelation within the saltcedar population improved the adaptability of saltcedar to environmental stress and thereby reduced the impact of environmental factors on the abundance of saltcedar. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontier Research on Sustainable Coastal Wetland Ecosystem)
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