Vulnerability assessment and management planning for the ecological environment in urban wetlands

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113540
• Publication Date: 2021-08-13T23:45:04Z
• Authors: Xiao Yang; Sen Liu; Chao Jia; Yang Liu; Cuicui Yu
• Keywords: China; Conservation of Natural Resources; 15. Life on land; 01 natural sciences; 6. Clean water; 12. Responsible consumption; 13. Climate action; Wetlands; 11. Sustainability; Geographic Information Systems; Cities; City Planning; Ecosystem; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

As a special ecosystem in cities, urban wetland parks have important environmental regulation and social service functions. This paper proposes a new methodology of urban wetland planning and management based on the vulnerability of the ecological environment. The Jixi National Wetland Park (JNWP) was taken as the research area to analyze the ecological, geological and environmental factors that affect urban wetlands. A remote sensing image, digital elevation model, and environmental quality interpolation processing were used to generate the factor layer, and a comprehensive evaluation index system was established. The fuzzy Delphi analytic hierarchy process (FDAHP) method was used to calculate the comprehensive weight of each evaluation factor. A model to evaluate the ecological environment vulnerability of the JNWP was established. Then, an improved k-means clustering algorithm was used to classify the ecological environment of the study area. The ecological environment vulnerability of the wetland was evaluated. The results showed that the vulnerability of the ecological environment in the study area could be divided into five levels, including very low, low, medium, high and very high vulnerability areas. According to the vulnerability level and the results of k-means++ cluster analysis, the JNWP is divided into five areas. The wetland buffer zone is the main factor that determines the distribution of ecological environment vulnerability in urban wetlands. However, cultivated land development and ecological environmental restoration are the main factors that determine the evolution of ecological environment vulnerability in urban wetlands. The FDAHP and geographic information systems (GIS), combined with cluster analysis, are effective methods to evaluate the vulnerability of the ecological environment of urban wetlands, which provides a scientific and accurate methodology for the management and sustainable development of urban wetlands.