Simulating the dynamics of sulfur species and zinc in wetland sediments

In situ measurements comparing vertical SO₄²⁻ profiles in vegetated and non-vegetated sediments showed that SO₄²⁻ concentrations in vegetated sediments increased significantly at the beginning of the growing season and then gradually decreased during the rest of the growing season. Throughout the growing season, SO₄²⁻ concentrations remained higher in the vegetated sediments than in the sediments without plants. The higher SO₄²⁻ concentrations in the vegetated sediments indicate that oxygen release from roots and evapotranspiration-induced advection by plants play an important role in the dynamics of sulfur species in sediments. Since the total pool of solid-phase sulfide is relatively large compared to the mass of SO₄²⁻ in the sediments, the gradual decrease of SO₄²⁻ concentrations may result from limitation of the solid-phase sulfide that is in direct contact with or very close to the roots and rhizomes. This would mean that the main pool of solid-phase sulfide and associated trace metals are not affected by the oxygen release from roots, and the associated trace metals will not become bioavailable during the growing season.     

Bird Use of Restoration and Reference Marshes Within the Barn Island Wildlife Management Area, Stonington, Connecticut, USA

/ Tidal marshes have been actively restored in Connecticut for nearly 20 years, but evaluations of these projects are typically based solely on observations of vegetation change. A formerly impounded valley marsh at the Barn Island Wildlife Management Area is a notable exception; previous research at this site has also included assessments of primary productivity, macroinvertebrates, and use by fishes. To determine the effects of marsh restoration on higher trophic levels, we monitored bird use at five sites within the Barn Island complex, including both restoration and reference marshes. Use by summer bird populations within fixed plots was monitored over two years at all sites. Our principal focus was Impoundment One, a previously impounded valley marsh reopened to full tidal exchange in 1982. This restoration site supported a greater abundance of wetland birds than our other sites, indicating that it is at least equivalent to reference marshes within the same system for this ecological function. Moreover, the species richness of birds and their frequency of occurrence at Impoundment One was greater than at 11 other estuarine marshes in southeastern Connecticut surveyed in a related investigation. A second marsh, under restoration for approximately ten years, appears to be developing in a similar fashion. These results complement previous studies on vegetation, macroinvertebrates, and fish use in this system to show that, over time, the reintroduction of tidal flooding can effectively restore important ecological functions to previously impounded tidal marshes.KEY WORDS: Estuarine; Tidal marsh; Wetland birds; Restoration     

“水解酸化—预曝气—人工湿地”处理生活污水的试验研究

试验研究了"水解酸化-预曝气-人工湿地"组合工艺对农村生活污水的处理效果,结果表明系统对COD、BOD5、TN、NH3-N、TP去除率分别为75%~85%8、8%~91%、54%~67%、75%~87%8、8%~94%。该工艺操作简易,处理效果好,符合村镇生活污水处理的需求。     

关于大庆龙凤湿地环境管理问题的思考

大庆龙凤湿地是除香港外国内唯一的城区中的湿地,在城市生态环境保护中具有重要意义。虽然建成自然保护区,并设立保护区管理处,但湿地资源仍受到破坏。剖析大庆龙凤湿地环境管理中问题的产生原因,研究湿地的保护措施及合理开发利用。     

新疆艾比湖周边居民湿地生态系统健康保护意识调查分析

采用问卷调查的方法,试图真实反映艾比湖周边居民对艾比湖湿地生态系统退化的认知及对艾比湖湿地生态系统健康保护意识的强弱.结果表明：（1）艾比湖周边居民对湿地生态系统退化带来的危害有较为清晰地认识,99％被调查者意识到了艾比湖湿地生态系统退化对周边环境会带来不同程度的危害,78.2％调查对象认为艾比湖湿地生态系统的退化主要是由人类活动引发的,通过正规渠道获取艾比湖湿地生态系统退化信息不够通畅;（2）调查对象对艾比湖湿地生态系统退化情况持有较高的关注度,但支持度不高,85.6％的被调查者对退化湿地的生态恢复有支付意愿;（3）65.5％调查对象对艾比湖湿地生态恢复有信心,但对当地政府宣传和保护艾比湖湿地的力度满意度不高,因此政府部门还需进一步加强对艾比湖的宣传和保护力度.     

Modeling estuarine-shelf exchanges in a deltaic estuary: Implications for coastal carbon budgets and hypoxia

The export of wetland-derived materials to the coastal ocean (i.e., the “Outwelling” hypothesis) has received considerable attention over the past several decades. While a number of studies have shown that estuaries export appreciable amounts of nutrients and carbon, few studies have attempted to estimate the importance of estuarine sources for the coastal carbon budgets in river-dominated coastal ecosystems. A novel tidal prism model was developed to examine estuarine-shelf exchanges in the Barataria estuary, a deltaic estuary located in the north-central Gulf of Mexico. This estuary has been the site of a massive wetland loss, and it has been hypothesized that carbon export from the eroding coastal wetlands supports the development of a large hypoxic zone in the coastal Gulf of Mexico. The model results show that the Barataria estuary receives nitrogen through the tidal passes and releases carbon to the coastal ocean. The mean calculated tidal water discharge of 6930 m³ s⁻¹ is equivalent to about 43% of the lower Mississippi River discharge. The annual total organic carbon (TOC) export is 109 million kg, or 57 gC m² yr⁻¹ when prorated to the total water area of the estuary. This carbon export is equivalent to a loss of 0.5 m of wetland soil horizon over an area of 8.4 km², and accounts for about 34% of the observed annual wetland loss in the estuary between 1978 and 2000. Compared to the lower Mississippi River, the Barataria estuary appears to be a very small source of TOC for the northern Gulf of Mexico (2.7% of riverine TOC), and is unlikely to have a significant influence on the development of the Gulf's hypoxia.     

Fish population dynamics in a seasonally varying wetland

Small fishes in seasonally flooded environments such as the Everglades are capable of spreading into newly flooded areas and building up substantial biomass. Passive drift cannot account for the rapidity of observed population expansions. To test the ‘reaction-diffusion’ mechanism for spread of the fish, we estimated their diffusion coefficient and applied a reaction-diffusion model. This mechanism was also too weak to account for the spatial dynamics. Two other hypotheses were tested through modeling. The first—the ‘refuge mechanism’—hypothesizes that small remnant populations of small fishes survive the dry season in small permanent bodies of water (refugia), sites where the water level is otherwise below the surface. The second mechanism, which we call the ‘dynamic ideal free distribution mechanism’ is that consumption by the fish creates a prey density gradient and that fish taxis along this gradient can lead to rapid population expansion in space. We examined the two alternatives and concluded that although refugia may play an important role in recolonization by the fish population during reflooding, only the second, taxis in the direction of the flooding front, seems capable of matching empirical observations. This study has important implications for management of wetlands, as fish biomass is an essential support of higher trophic levels.     

论保护三江平原湿地的意义与措施

20世纪后半叶,三江平原进行了大规模的开发,虽然为国家粮食供应做出了贡献,但大片湿地遭到破坏。现在为拯救中国这块唯一保持原始面貌的淡水湿地,当地政府制定了具体的三江平原湿地保护条例。建立了国家级的自然保护区,保护三江平原湿地终于纳入了政府工作的议事日程,为了加深人们对保护三江平原湿地意义的认识,本文从分析三江平原湿地的自然状况、三江湿地开发对当地生态和经济的影响入手,论述了三江平原湿地保护的重要意义和应采取的具体措施。     

Eco-environmental water demands for the Baiyangdian Wetland

In recent years, the hydrological characters of Baiyangdian Wetland have changed greatly, which, in turn, influence the biotic component, the structure and function of the wetland ecosystem. In order to determine the demands for water resources of ecological wetland system, a method of ecological water level coefficient was suggested to calculate the water resources demands for wetland environment use. This research showed that the minimum coefficient is 0.94 and the optimal coefficient is more than 1.10. According to these two coefficients, the ecological water level and water quantity can be estimated. The results indicate that the amount of the minimal and optimal eco-environmental water requirements are 0.87 × 10⁸ and 2.78 × 10⁸ m³ in average monthly, respectively, with the maximum eco-environmental water requirement in summer and the minimum in winter. The annual change of eco-environment water demand is in according with the climate change and hydrological characters. The method of ecological water level emphasizes that wetland ecosystem adapts to the hydrological conditions, so it can be used in practice well. __________ Translated from Acta Scientiae Circumstantiae, 2005, 25(8): 1,119–1,126 [译自: 环境科学学报]     

Optimizing model for land use/land cover retrieval from remote sensing imagery based on variable precision rough sets

The suitable spectral mode in remote sensing is often desirable to facilitate the inversion of ecological environment and landscape. This paper put forward an optimizing model based on variable precision rough sets (VPRS) for the land cover discrimination in wetland inventory. In the case study of Lake Baiyangdian which has important ecological functions to the northern China, this model is established successfully according to the domain-experts knowledge. The procedure is as follows. First step is data collection, including remote-sensing data (e.g., Landsat-5 TM bands), the digitized relief maps, and statistical yearbooks. Second, the remote sensing imagery (RSI) and relief maps are co-registered into the same resolution. Third, a condition set, including various attributes is derived from spectral bands, band math or ratio indices based on previous studies, at the same time, the decision set is derived from true land types after investigation and validation. Then, the remote sensing decision table (RSDT) is constructed by linking condition set with decision set according to the sequential pixels in RSI. Fourth, we create one forward greedy searching algorithm based on VPRS to handle this RSDT. After adjusting parameters such as β and knowledge granularity diameter (KGD), we obtain the stable optimized results. Comparative experiments and evaluation show that the discrimination or retrieval accuracy of VPRS model is satisfying (overall accuracy: 87.32% and KHAT: 0.84) and better than original data. Moreover, data dimension has been decreased dramatically (from 12 to 3) and key attributes found by the model may be useful for specific retrieval in wetland inventories.