A Study on Wetland Landscape Pattern and Its Change Process in Huang-Huai-Hai (3H) Area, China

Abstract

Wetland shrinkage and ecological function decline have become huge obstacles to regional and national sustainable development. In this paper, we comparatively analyzed three typical wetland ecosystems in the Huang-Huai-Hai (3H) Area, to clarify the similarities and differences of each pattern and their change process, as well as their intrinsic correlation mechanism. The satellite images were applied to construct the time-series wetland landscape maps in the last 30 years. Then landscape indices and information entropy metric were used to qualify the pattern and its change process respectively. The results showed that, the wetlands in 3H Area reached 32,632.9 km^2 in 2000, with the natural wetlands of 9,817.9 km^2, occupying 2.21 percent of the whole 3H Area, lower than the average national level. In the last 30 years, the wetland area in 3H Area like all typical wetland subsystems decreased significantly, therein, natural wetland shrinking and artificial wetland increasing presented the different processes of wetland components and drive mechanisms, implying a complex ecological response to pattern evolution in 3H Area. The discussion on the driving forces system indicates that it is very necessary for the recovery and reconstruction of wetland system that regulates hydrological process in line with natural rules. It would provide possible measures to regulate and control the wetland ecosystem in 3H Area.

Keywords: Huang-Huai-Hai Area, pattern and process, landscape index, information entropy, remote sensing