Progress in Simulating the Distribution of Potential Wetlands in China by Northeast Geography

Wetlands are ecosystems with unique functions that provide a variety of important ecosystem services. However, climate change and human activities have caused serious losses and degradation of wetlands, and there is an urgent need for scientific planning, effective management, and appropriate restoration of wetlands

Wetlands are ecosystems with unique functions that provide a variety of important ecosystem services. However, climate change and human activities have caused serious losses and degradation of wetlands, and there is an urgent need for scientific planning, effective management, and appropriate restoration of wetlands. Potential wetlands refer to the potential distribution range of wetlands. Conducting simulation of potential wetland distribution can not only provide an important scientific basis for the protection, management, and restoration of wetland resources in China and even globally, but also provide important reference for large-scale remote sensing wetland mapping.

The research team of Wetland Remote Sensing and Geographic Landscape Remote Sensing at Northeast Institute of Geography screened and constructed a potential wetland distribution simulation index system consisting of 30 indicators covering four aspects of hydrology, soil, vegetation, and terrain from the perspective of wetland definition and wetland formation and development. Based on 47093 wetland distribution sample points, they compared and analyzed Random Forest, Support Vector Machine Three machine learning algorithms, XGBoost, were used to map the probability of potential wetland distribution in China. Based on the results of the optimal model, the spatial characteristics of potential wetland distribution in China were further analyzed.

The research results indicate that the potential wetland distribution simulation model based on the RF algorithm has the highest accuracy (AUC=0.851). The potential wetland area in China is 332700 square kilometers, including 39.0%, 31.9%, 17.6%, 4.5%, 3.5%, 2.5% and 1.1% of the potential wetland area in Northeast China, Qinghai Tibet Plateau, Inner Mongolia Xinjiang Plateau, the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and Southeast South China (Figure 1). Based on the overlay analysis of potential wetland distribution data in China and land cover data (ChinaCover) in this study, it is shown that the potential areas for wetland restoration (excluding infrastructure and other occupied areas) are mainly concentrated in the direction of returning farmland to wetlands. The suitable area for returning farmland to wetlands in China is 32800 square kilometers (Figure 2). The results of this study can provide an important scientific basis for national and regional scale wetland restoration planning, and provide data support and ideas for objectively understanding the potential of wetland resources, protecting and reasonably utilizing wetlands in China.

Figure 1: Spatial pattern of potential wetland distribution in China

Figure 2 Spatial distribution of suitable areas for wetland restoration in China

The research findings have recently been published in the internationally important journal "International Journal of DigitalEarth" (CAS Zone 1, IF=5.1). The study was jointly completed by the Special Research Assistant for Xiangxing at the Northeast Institute of Geography (first author), Researcher Mao Dehua (corresponding author), Researcher Wang Zongming, and others. This research was jointly funded by the Free Exploration Project of the Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province (YDZJ202301ZYTS218), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42301430), the Member Project of the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2017277, 2021227), and the International Wetland Research Alliance (ANSO-PA-2020-14).

Paper information: HengxingXiang, YanbiaoXi, DehuaMao *, TianyuanXu, MingWang, FudongYu, KaidongFeng, ZongmingWang, 2023. Modelingpotentialwetlanddistributions in Chinabasedographicbigdata and machinelearningalgorithms InternationalJournal of DigitalEarth, 16 (1): 3706-3724

Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2023.2256723

Northeast Institute of Geography has made progress in the simulation of potential wetland distribution in China -- Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (cas. cn)

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