Study on Evolution Features and Spatial Distribution Patterns of Coastal Wetlands in North Jiangsu Province, China.

Coastal wetlands in north Jiangsu Province are the most typical mudflat in China, and they lie between estuaries of the Yangtze River and the abandoned Yellow River. This paper primarily aims to examine the evolution features and spatial distribution patterns between 1980 and 2008 in this region by using remote sensing with Landsat TM images and ALOS images in 1980 and 2008, respectively. Results indicate that the total coastal wetland area has decreased by 1273.11 km, that is, by 45.47 km every year, whereas erosion/sedimentation area expanded to approximately 965.14 km with a loss of only about 307.97 km. The study area is subdivided into six coastal sections from north to south and three units from the inland to the sea. The three units, namely, overlap unit (boundary fixed coastal wetland area between 1980 and 2008), changed unit (boundary changed coastal wetland area between 1980 and 2008), and mudflat unit. The area change of pattern change, wetland loss, and habitat evolution account for 38.39 %, 14.97 %, and 20.51 % of the total studied area, respectively. This finding suggested that most pattern change and wetland loss occurred in the overlap unit, whereas habitat evolution mainly occurred in the changed unit. The natural wetlands area was reduced by 354.1 km, whereas the constructed wetlands and non-wetlands expanded by 1061.45 and 253.09 km, respectively. Vegetation communities in the studied area also have distinct regional succession features and spatial patterns. The new integrated model that is based on spatial segmentation and transfer matrix and applied in this paper is proven effective in characterizing the spatial-temporal features of wetlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]