Restoring wetlands outside of the seawalls and to provide clean water habitat

Xuechu Chen; Yingying Huang; Hualei Yang; Liping Pan; Danielle C Perry; Ping Xu; Jianwu Tang; Wenhui You; Xiaoyan He; Quan Wen

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137788

Restoring wetlands outside of the seawalls and to provide clean water habitat

Sci Total Environ. 2020 Jun 15:721:137788. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137788. Epub 2020 Mar 6.

Authors

Xuechu Chen¹, Yingying Huang², Hualei Yang³, Liping Pan³, Danielle C Perry⁴, Ping Xu³, Jianwu Tang⁵, Wenhui You³, Xiaoyan He⁶, Quan Wen⁷

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, 500 Dong Chuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China; Yangtze Delta Estuarine Wetland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Ministry of Education & Shanghai Science and Technology Committee, Shanghai, China. Electronic address: xcchen@des.ecnu.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, 500 Dong Chuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China; Technology Innovation Center for Land Spatial Eco-restoration in Metropolitan area, Ministry of Natural Resource, 3663 N. Zhongshan Road, Shanghai, 200062, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, 500 Dong Chuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China.
⁴ College of the Environment and Life Sciences, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, 02881, USA.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, 500 Dong Chuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China; Yangtze Delta Estuarine Wetland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Ministry of Education & Shanghai Science and Technology Committee, Shanghai, China.
⁶ Shanghai Administration Center for Ocean Affairs, Shanghai 200050, China.
⁷ Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Dalian 116203, China.

PMID: 32179355
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137788

Abstract

In this study, we reported a practice at northern Hangzhou Bay, southeast China aimed at restoring coastal wetlands within the intertidal zone outside of the seawalls. The principle idea is protecting the site and helping the marsh establishment by engineering measures, and thereafter, relieving the protections to encourage the self-organization of the restored ecosystem. The results of this implementation showed the marsh reached an average vegetation cover of 70% in the first year. The excess nitrogen was removed by an ecological recirculating treatment system, which was coupled in the wetland. The long-term performance of the wetland suggested that it could resist disturbances such as hurricanes and algal blooms, and provided clean water habitat for aquatic fauna. By presenting the case of Hangzhou Bay, we call for more novel coastal restoration implementations that aim to create new boundaries with engineering features and self-organization, which benefit both human and nature.

Keywords: Clean water habitat; Coastal wetland; Restoration; Seawall; Self-organization.