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Globally, seagrass habitats are decreasing due to both natural and environmental contaminations by human activities, including heavy metal pollution. To expand the global seagrass detection network, this study reports the spatial distributions of Zostera japonica seagrass habitats in the Yellow River Estuary, China. In addition, heavy metal concentrations of Z. japonica tissue, sediment, and surface seawater were analyzed to determine the bioaccumulation and consequent ecological risk to Z. japonica habitats due to the effects of heavy metals. It was found that concentrations of heavy metals were 1.00–2.03 times higher in seagrass-rooted sediment than in adjacent non-seagrass sediment, except for Mn (with a factor of 0.99). Pb and Hg concentrations in sediments exceeded background values more than the other heavy metals, by factors of 1.74 and 1.24, respectively. Metal concentrations in the surrounding seawater were 2.60–4.63 times higher at seagrass sites than at non-seagrass sites, except for Hg (factor of 0.97). Metal concentrations were much higher in seagrass tissues than in the sediment (e.g., bioconcentration factor of Cd is 30.95). Pb concentrations in water may cause the greatest adverse reactions among aquatic organisms, while As, Cr, Hg, Mn and Cu in sediments may occasionally cause negative ecological effects. Z. japonica showed higher bioaccumulation of Cd and Pb in the above-ground tissues. Among other recent studies of seagrasses from other parts of the world, Cd concentrations are similar to the results of the present study, but Pb concentration in present study is higher than in other studies. In conclusion, Pb and As in the surrounding environment present potential risks to the seagrass habitats of the Yellow River Estuary, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Here, we propose an approach to environmental flow assessment that considers spatial pattern variations in potential habitats affected by river discharges and tidal currents in estuaries. The approach comprises four steps: identifying and simulating the distributions of critical environmental factors for habitats of typical species in an estuary; mapping of suitable habitats based on spatial distributions of the Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) and adopting the habitat aggregation index to understand fragmentation of potential suitable habitats; defining variations in water requirements for a certain species using trade-off analysis for different protection objectives; and recommending environmental flows in the estuary considering the compatibility and conflict of freshwater requirements for different species. This approach was tested using a case study in the Yellow River Estuary. Recommended environmental flows were determined by incorporating the requirements of four types of species into the assessments. Greater variability in freshwater inflows could be incorporated into the recommended environmental flows considering the adaptation of potential suitable habitats with variations in the flow regime. Environmental flow allocations should be conducted in conjunction with land use conflict management in estuaries. Based on the results presented here, the proposed approach offers flexible assessment of environmental flow for aquatic ecosystems that may be subject to future change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the speciation of trace metals and their ecological risks to macrobenthic communities in a recovering coastal wetland of China's Yellow River Delta during the freshwater release project. We established 16 sampling sites in three restoration areas and one intertidal reference area, and collected sediments and macrobenthos four times from 2014 to 2015. The instability index for the trace metals showed a moderate risk for Mn and a high risk for Cd. For both Mn and Cd, the carbonate and Fe Mn-bound fractions appear to contribute mostly to the instability and bioavailability indexes, but for Cd, the exchangeable fraction also have a much higher contribution. The bioavailability index indicated higher bioavailability of trace metals in freshwater restoration areas than that in the intertidal area. The single-factor contamination index indicated that most trace metal concentrations in the macrobenthos were in excess of the national standard. The biota-sediment accumulation factor suggested that the macrobenthos accumulated most As, Cd, and Cu. Redundancy analysis showed clear relationships between the macrobenthos and sediment metal concentrations. Our results will help wetland managers to assess the bioaccumulation risks based on metal speciation, and to improve management of these recovering freshwater wetland ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]