Institution, Legislation and Policy Analysis of China’s Wetland Protection

Wetland protection is a complex issue. In the executive system of wetland preservation, the central government is the main body of policy formulation and implementation. Although China has taken many steps to protect wetlands, there are still some institutional, legal and policy problems in the area of wetland protection. This article presents an analysis of these factors. First, the authors state and analyze the major legal and management problems currently hampering wetland protection in China. Then the authors believe that in the future, new problems of wetland protection will arise. Given the following three major aspects of wetland protection in China： i.e., the policy, law and management systems, this article provides some relevant suggestions in the area of policies and management.

The current status, threats and protection way of Sanjiang Plain wetland, Northeast China

The Sanjiang Plain is a vast area of alluvial floodplains and low hills in northeast Heilongjiang Province. It is the largest tract of wetlands in China and East Asia outside of Siberia. 28 wetland nature reserves exist on the Sanjiang Plain, and three of them have been listed as wetlands of international importance to water bird conservation by the Ramsar Convention Bureau. The wetlands of Sanjiang Plain are noteworthy for its rich biodiversity, but they continue to decline in area and deteriorate in quality currently. The main threats or constrains, immediate cause, root cause and required response are analyzed in this paper, and the four aspects opinion such as improvement of watershed management, enhancement of protection and restoration of habitats and biodiversity, alternative livelihoods of rural residents living in and near natural wetland reserve, and reinforcement of capacity building of natural reserves are brought forward as the effective measures for the Sanjiang Plain wetland protection.

WETLANDS IN CHINA: FEATURE, VALUE AND PROTECTION

The estimated total area of wetland in China is more than 25.9 million hectares including about 11.9 million hectares of marshes and bogs, 9.1 million hectares of lake and about 2.2 million hectares of coastal salt marshes and mudflats. The area of wetland is equivalent to 2.7％ of the land surface. China also has 2.7 million hectares of shallow sea water (less 5m in depth at low tide). Marshes and bogs are equivalent 1.3％ of the land surface. Only three provinces(regions)— Qinghai, Xizang (Tibet)and Heilongjiang— have a larger total area of marsh and bog. According to the structure, type and development of wetland in different river basins, wetland can be classified nine main regions. The experiments indicate that the coefficient of the marsh to regulate flood is similar to that of lakes. Wetlands occupy 17.8％ of the Sanjiang Plain area, the annual carbon contribution is 0.78× 104t. Carbon released from marsh soil return into atmosphere is 3.95× 106t/a. At present there is a sharp contradiction between population growth and natural resources shortage, causing wetland to be exerted with huge pressures and serious threats.

Status Quo of Wetland Resources in Lincang City and Protection Countermeasures

Remote sense image interpretation and on-the-spot verifi cation were applied to investigate wetland resources in Lincang City. The investigation shows that wetland area in the city totals 29,102.61 hm^2, including natural wetland 12,949.86 hm^2, artifi cial wetland 16,152.75 hm^2. Characteristics of the wetland resources in the city are concluded as "diversifi ed wetland types, small wetland area, high proportion of artifi cial wetland, and significant ecological niche. This paper pointed out problems in the wetland protection, such as aggravated pollution of wetland environment, invasion of alien species, and biocenosis changed by hydropower engineering, then gave corresponding protection countermeasures.

Value Assessment of the Lake Hpnghu Wetland and Protection of Its Biodiversity

A wetland ecosystem's value may be considered as the value derived from its natural resources, the value derived from its eco-environment, the value for special protection and values in cultural, research and educational aspects. Lake Honghu, in the heartland of Hubei Province, covers a vast but shallow body of water and surrounding marshlands. It is conducive to farmland irrigation, flooding regulation, adjustment of the local climate and self-purification of the water quality. Because of its benign functions, the native ecosystem of the lake is ecologically sound, and the thriving wildlife in its ecosystem makes it a primordial pool of biodiversity. Besides, it is possible to transform it into a national base for environmental education and an R&D center for freshwater organisms, so that it can play a constructive role in heightening the public's awareness of environmental protection.

PROTECTION AND RATIONAL UTILIZATION OF WETLANDS IN CHINA

This paper highlights the type, distribution and area of wetlands in China, reviews the progress and achievements made in wetland research and expounds the status quo of wetland utilization in China. It also analyses emphatically the problems existing in wetland utilization, points out the importance of wetland protection, and presents suggestions on wetland protection and wetland ecosystem research.

Changes of Urban Wetland Landscape Pattern and Impacts of Urbanization on Wetland in Wuhan City

In this study,remote sensing data of Wuhan City,Hubei Province,China in 1996-2001 were selected to ex-tract wetland landscape information.Several landscape indices were used to evaluate the changes of landscape pattern within the five years,including patch number,patch density,patch fractal dimension,landscape diversity,dominance,evenness,and fragmentation indexes.Then,transformation probabilities of wetland landscapes into non-wetland land-scapes were calculated based on Markov Model,and on these grounds the relationship between changes of wetland landscape pattern and urban construction was analyzed.The results showed that fragmentation degree of all wetland types increased,lake area declined,and dominance of natural wetland decreased.The reasons for these results were mainly because of urban construction.According to the features of abundant wetland in Wuhan City,we suggested that protection of wetland landscape should cooperate with urban construction,which means wetland should become im-portant part of urban landscape.

Landscape planning and ecology construction of wetland comprehensive protected area system in the Sanjiang Plain

Wetland is one of the richest biodiversity areas in the earth. The main purpose of establishing wetland protected area is to protect biodiversity, and the protection of ecosystem diversity and landscape diversity is the key to protect biodiversity. In order to protect regional ecosystem and landscape, it is a good way to establish wetland comprehensive protected area which connected wetland nature reserves by habitat corridors. The Sanjiang Plain as a study area, its landscape evaluation index system on wetland protected area was studied, and some problems on landscape planning and ecology construction were further approached in this paper.It showed that establishing wetland comprehensive protected area is very important to protect regional wetlands, to maintain ecological balance, and to improve the sustainable development of agriculture and industry in this region.

China Hammers Out Effective Steps to Protect Its Wetlands

The Chinese government will step up its efforts to stop the country’s wetlands from shrinking, said Ma Fu, Deputy Director of the State’s Forestry Administration, while announcing the newly drafted the Action Plan for National Wetlands Conservation on November 8th in Beijing.

Identifying and Mapping Wetland-based Ecotourism Areas in the First Meander of the Yellow River:Incorporating Tourist Preferences

We identified and mapped ecotourism areas in the First Meander of the Yellow River （FMYR） by incorporating tourist preferences, and regional division was also conducted. Considering wetland protection and local natural worship, we identiifed available ecotourism areas and used GIS to overlay six layers of the criteria to generate a suitability map of available areas. This process incorporated the opinions of 158 tourists to weight each criterion. Available areas were classiifed into ifve levels of suitability, with class I being the least suitable for ecotourism and class V being the most suitable. Distance from water area was found to be the most important criterion, and presence of forest to be the least important. The results show that a majority of the FMYR is class Ⅱ, Ⅲ or Ⅳ. FMYR was further divided into ifve sub-regions, and it is clear that the particular ecological characteristics and service functions of each sub-region warrant particular development. This study provides useful insights for tourism planners, local managers and visitors.

A database of global wetland validation samples for wetland mapping

A database of global wetland validation samples （GWVS） is the foundation for wetland mapping on a global scale. In this work, a database of GWVS was created based on 25 “wetland-related” keyw ord searches of a total of 3,506 full-text documents downloaded from the Web of Science. Eight hundred and three samples from a total of 68 countries and 14i protected areas were recorded by the GWVS, including samples of marine/coastal wetlands, inland wet- lands and human-made wetlands, at ratios of 53 %, 41% and 6 %, respectively. The results exhibit spatial distribution among Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World, the World Database on Protected Areas and the Database of Global Administrative Areas. Within most of the biomes, protected areas and countries examined, the very low concentration of samples requires more attention in the future. The greatest concentration of samples within a single biome is found in the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest biome, accounting for 27 % of the total samples, while no sample is found in the biome of tropical and subtropical coniferous woodland. Greater efforts are expected to be made to record samples in Oceania, Central Europe, Northern Europe, Northern Africa, Central Africa, Central America, the Caribbean, and midwestern South America. Our data show that it is feasible to map global wetlands using Landsat TM/ ETM＋ at 30-m resolution. The continued improvement of the GWVS sharing platform should be reinforced in the future, making a strong contribution to global wetland mapping and monitoring.

中国湿地保护修复管理经验与未来研究趋势

Wetlands are important natural resources for humans and play an irreplaceable ecological function in the terrestrial ecosystem.To curb the continued loss of wetlands globally,international organizations and many countries have taken a series of major conservation and restoration measures.This work reviews these wetland conservation and restoration measures,interprets China’s wetland conservation and restoration management policies,and proposes that future research on wetland resources in China should be conducted from the aspects of international frontiers and national strategic plans,socioeconomics,and smart services.The results show that the 27 International Wetlands Days from 1997 to 2023 provided new goals and tasks for the protection and management of wetlands.The important topics and outcomes of the 14 Conferences of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Wetlands from 1980 to 2022 provided new directions and new challenges for wetland development.In the future,we should enhance wetland ecological functions,promote sustainable wetland development,and overcome the technical bottleneck of fragile wetland ecosystem restoration.From 1992 to 2022,China embarked on a new phase of wetland protection and restoration.The overall experience of wetland protection and restoration in China has been formed through national strategic deployment,legal policy establishment,and project planning and implementation.The needs to provide for and plan the long-term protection of wetlands at the national level,to innovate restoration and management techniques and application systems,and to effectively address the complex issues of wetland protection and restoration through collaborative division of labor among multiple departments were emphasized.Research on the future trends of wetlands should be directed towards the exploration and practice of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and several international conventions in support of sustainable wetland development.Wetland protection,restoration,and management services should be promoted for national strategic needs and local,high-quality social and economic development.In addition,research on cross-integration and academic innovation should be enhanced for disciplinary development,global supervision,comprehensive assessment,and smart decision making.

A new era of flood control strategies from the perspective of managing the 2020 Yangtze River flood

Flood control of the Yangtze River is an important part of China’s national water security.In July 2020,due to continuous heavy rainfall,the water levels along the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River and major lakes constantly exceeded the warning levels,in which Taihu Lake exceeded its highest safety water level and some stations of Poyang Lake reached their highest water levels in its history.In August 2020,another huge flood occurred in the Minjiang River and the Jialing River in the upper Yangtze River,and some areas of Chongqing Municipality and other cities along the rivers were inundated,resulting in great pressure on flood control and high disaster losses.The 2020 Yangtze River flood has received extensive media coverage and raised concerns on the roles of the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs in flood control.Here we analyze the changes in the pattern of the Yangtze River flood control by comparing the strategies to tackle the three heavy floods occurring in 1954,1998,and 2020.We propose that the overall strategy of the Yangtze River flood control in the new era should adhere to the principle of"Integration of storage and drainage over the entire Yangtze River Basin,with draining floods downstream as the first priority"by using both engineering and non-engineering measures.On the basis of embankments,the engineering measures should use the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs as the major regulatory means,promote the construction of key flood detention areas,keep the floodways clear,and maintain the ecosystem services of wetlands and shoals.In terms of non-engineering measures,we should strengthen adaptive flood risk management under climate change,standardize the use of lands in flood detention areas,give space to floods,and promote the implementation of flood risk maps and flood insurance policies.The ultimate goal of this new flood control system is to enhance the adaptability to frequent floods and increase the resilience to extreme flood disasters.