Abstract
Four wetland maps for all China have been produced, based on Landsat and CBERS-02B remote sensing data between 1978 and 2008 (1978, 1990, 2000 and 2008). These maps were mainly developed by manual interpretation and validated by substantial field investigation in 2009. Based on these maps, we analyzed the 2008 wetland distribution in China and discussed wetland changes and their drivers over the past 30 years. (i) There were about 324097 km2 of wetlands in 2008, for which inland marshes or swamps were the most common wetland type (35%), with lakes (26%) second. Most of the wetlands were in Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Tibet, occupying about 55% of the national wetland area. (ii) From 1978 to 2008, China’s wetland area continually and significantly decreased, by about 33% based on changes in the wetland map. This was in sharp contrast to the increase in artificial wetlands, which increased by about 122%. Inland marshes accounted for the main loss of total wetlands from 1978 to 2000. From 2000 through 2008, riverine and lacustrine wetlands constituted the main wetland loss. Fortunately however, the rate of wetland loss decreased from 5523 to 831 km2/a. (iii) The change ratio of lost natural wetlands (including inland and coastal wetlands) to non-wetlands has decreased slightly over the past 30 years. From 1978 to 1990, nearly all natural wetlands (98%) lost were transformed into non-wetlands. However, the ratio declined to 86% from 1990 to 2000, and to 77% from 2000 to 2008. (iv) All Chinese provinces were divided into three groups according to patterns of wetland changes, which could relate to the driving forces of such changes. Tibet was completely different from other provinces, as it was one representative example in which there was a net wetland increase, because of global warming and decreased human activity since 1990. Increased economic development caused considerable wetland loss in most eastern provinces, and artificial wetlands increased.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ramsar Convention Secretariat. About the Ramsar Convention: Why conserve wetlands? 2009
Liu H Y. Wetlands Landscape Changes and the Cumulative Effect (in Chinese). Beijng: Science Press, 2005
Liu J G, Diamond J. China’s environment in a globalizing world. Nature, 2005, 435: 1179–1186
Zheng Y M, Zhang H Y, Niu Z G, et al. Protection efficacy of national wetland reserves in Cina. Chin Sci Bull, 2012, 57, doi: 10.1007/s11434-011-4942-9
Niu Z G, Gong P, Cheng X, et al. Geographical characteristics of China’s wetland derived from remote sensing. Sci China Earth Sci, 2009, 52: 723–738
Gong P, Niu Z G, Cheng X, et al. China’s wetland change (1990–2000) determined by remote sensing. Sci China Earth Sci, 2010, 53: 1036–1042
David Cyranoski. Putting China’s wetlands on the map. Nature, 2009, 458: 134
Zhang Z Z, Chao B F, Yang L, et al. An effective filtering for GRACE time-variable gravity: Fan filter. Geophys Res Lett, 2009, 36: doi: 10.1029/2009GL039459
Tang H Y, Zhai P M, Wang Z Y. On change in mean maximum temperature, minimum temperature and diurnal range in China during 1951–2002 (in Chinese). Clim Environ Res, 2005, 10: 728–731
Lin Z Y, Zhao Y X. Spatial characteristics of precipitation temperature changes in Tibetan Plateau. Sci China Earth Sci, 1996, 26: 354–358
Li L, Cun X D, Qin N, et al. Study on temperature variations and its anomaly patterns over Qinghai-Xizang Plateau (in Chinese). Plateau Meteor, 2003, 22: 524–530
Ding Y H, Zhang L. Intercomparison of the time for climate abrupt change between the Tibetan Plateau and other regions in China (in Chinese). Chin J Atmos Sci, 2008, 32: 794–805
He R X, Jin H J, Lü L Z, et al. Recent changes of permafrost and cold regions environments in the northern part of Northeastern China (in Chinese). J Glaciol Geocryol, 2009, 3: 525–531
Zhao L, Liu G Y, Jiao K Q, et al. Variation of the permafrost in the headwaters of the Urumqi River in the Tianshan Mountains since 1991 (in Chinese). J Glaciol Geocryol, 2010, 2: 223–230
Nan Z T, Gao Z S, Li S X, et al. Permafrost changes in the northern limit of permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the last 30 years (in Chinese). Acta Geogr Sin, 2003, 58: 817–823
Jin H J, Li S X. Impacts of climatic change on permafrost and cold regions environments in China (in Chinese). Acta Geogr Sin, 2000, 55: 161–173
Wang S J, Zhang M J, Li Z Q. Glacier changes and its response to climate change in Tianshan in past 50 years (in Chinese). Acta Geogr Sin, 2011, 66: 38–46
Li Z G, Yao T D, Ye Q H, et al. Monitoring glacial variations based on remote sensing in the Luozha region,eastern Himalayas, 1980–2007 (in Chinese). Geogr Res, 2011, 5: 939–952
Yao T D. Glaciers changes and its impact on lakes in southern Tibetan Plateau (in Chinese). Chin Sci Bull, 2010, 55: 1749
Nie Y, Zhang Y L, Liu L. Monitoring of glaciers changes in Qomolangma national nature reserve in recent 30 years (in Chinese). Acta Geogr Sin, 2010, 65: 13–28
Cao B, Pan B T, Gao H S, et al. Glacier variation in the Lenglongling range of eastern Qilian Mountains from 1972 to 2007 (in Chinese). J Glaciol Geocryol, 2010, 32: 242–248
Lu A X, Yao T D, Wang L H, et al. Study on the fluctuations of typical glaciers and lakes in the Tibetan Plateau using remote sensing (in Chinese). J Glaciol Geocryol, 2005, 27: 784–792
Zhang J C, Jiang Q G, Li Y H, et al. Dynamic monitoring and climatic background of lake changes in Tibet based on RS/GIS (in Chinese). J Earth Sci Environ, 2008, 30: 87–94
Wang X W, Cheng X, Li Z, et al. Lake water footprints identification from time-series ICESat/GLAS data. IEEE Geosci Remote Sens, 2011, 9: 1–5
Chen H, Wu S X, Feng X. Spatial and temporal characteristic of cultivated land in Xinjiang (in Chinese). Prog Geog, 2010, 29: 312–318
Zhu H, Jiao G H, Wang Z. Space-time evolution of arable land pattern in Xinjiang in recent 31 years (in Chinese). Agr Res Dry Areas, 2011, 29: 185–190
Li H M, Ma Y S, Bai Y F. An analysis of the impact of climate change on vegetation succession in Qinghai Province. J Glaciol Geocryol, 2010, 32: 414–421
Zhang G S. Research of climate change and its impact on the environment in Qinghai (in Chinese). Dissertation for Master’s Degree. Beijing: China Agricultural University, 2004
Guo X J, Duo H R. Cultivated land dynamics and driving forces in Qinghai Lake basin (in Chinese). Qinghai Agr Forest, 2007, 2: 44–46
Zhang S G, Qiu J J, Chen Y Q, et al. Spatial-temporal changes of arable land resources in China since 1949 (in Chinese). Sci Technol Rev, 2006, 24: 83–85
Zhang G P, Liu J Y, Zhang Z X. Spatial-temporal changes of cropland in China for the past 10 years based on remote sensing. Acta Geogr Sin, 2003, 58: 323–332
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Additional information
This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Rights and permissions
This article is published under an open access license. Please check the 'Copyright Information' section either on this page or in the PDF for details of this license and what re-use is permitted. If your intended use exceeds what is permitted by the license or if you are unable to locate the licence and re-use information, please contact the Rights and Permissions team.
About this article
Cite this article
Niu, Z., Zhang, H., Wang, X. et al. Mapping wetland changes in China between 1978 and 2008. Chin. Sci. Bull. 57, 2813–2823 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-012-5093-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-012-5093-3