Coastal wetlands support diverse and vital ecosystems central to coastal areas’ biodiversity and economic vitality. However, coastal wetlands are threatened by sea level rise that can lead to flooding and land use changes that alter the way people can live or work in these areas. These impacts are large. Approximately 600 million people live less than 10 meters, approximately 6 miles, above sea level, while 2.4 billion people live within 100 km, or around 60 miles, of the coast.
An international, interdisciplinary research team led by University of Oklahoma professor Xiangming Xiao is using satellite images to measure the changes of coastal wetlands in China from the early 1980s to the present. The research team is also assessing the effects of conservation efforts on preserving and recovering these important ecosystems. Their findings on China's coastal wetlands are now published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Xiao is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, and the director of the Center for Earth Observation and Modeling at OU. Xinxing Wang, a graduate student at Fudan University in China, is the first author of the paper.
Since the 1980s, the coastal zone of China has experienced increased urbanization, industrialization and population growth, combined with increased sea level rise, that has led to significant decreases of wetland areas.
“Because coastal wetlands provide diverse important ecosystem goods and services, their loss has reduced biodiversity, affecting water quality, carbon storage and coastal protection from storm events and increased regional vulnerability to sea level rise which, together, pose threats to human health and coastal sustainability,” Xiao explained.
