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: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 11612
Special Issue Editors
Interests: wetland ecology; ecohydrological processes; wetland restoration; wetland diversity; biological conservation
Interests: eco- and environmental-hydraulics; estuarine hydrodynamics; morphodynamics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: wetland restoration; ecohydrological processes; invasion ecology; wetland vegetation; biological conservation; wetland biodiversity; biogeomorphology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: wetland restoration; wetland vegetation; biogeomorphology; plant life cycle; wetland resilience; ecohydrological processes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
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:
- Land-use effects on coastal wetlands;
- Coastal wetland degradation processes and assessment;
- Assessment of ecological service functions in coastal wetlands;
- Principles and applications of coastal wetland restoration;
- Coastal wetland conservation and management;
- Ecological network analysis of coastal wetlands;
- Effects of sea-level rise on coastal wetlands;
- Coastal wetland soil pollution and assessment;
- Ecosystem-based approaches.
Prof. Dr. Baoshan Cui
Dr. Dongdong Shao
Dr. Tian Xie
Dr. Qing Wang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- wetland ecosystems
- restoration
- ecohydrological processes
- ecological service functions
- biogeochemical processes
- biogeomorphology