Impacts of Intensified Agriculture Developments on Marsh Wetlands

Abstract

A spatiotemporal analysis on the changes in the marsh landscape in the Honghe National Nature Reserve, a Ramsar reserve, and the surrounding farms in the core area of the Sanjiang Plain during the past 30 years was conducted by integrating field survey work with remote sensing techniques. The results indicated that intensified agricultural development had transformed a unique natural marsh landscape into an agricultural landscape during the past 30 years. Ninety percent of the natural marsh wetlands have been lost, and the areas of the other natural landscapes have decreased very rapidly. Most dry farmland had been replaced by paddy fields during the progressive change of the natural landscape to a farm landscape. Attempts of current Chinese institutions in preserving natural wetlands have achieved limited success. Few marsh wetlands have remained healthy, even after the establishment of the nature reserve. Their ecological qualities have been declining in response to the increasing threats to the remaining wetland habitats. Irrigation projects play a key role in such threats. Therefore, the sustainability of the natural wetland ecosystems is being threatened by increased regional agricultural development which reduced the number of wetland ecotypes and damaged the ecological quality.

Perspective Chapter: The Impact of Human Activities on Wetlands’ Provisioning and Cultural Services in Epworth, Zimbabwe

“…It was being affected by illegal dumping of waste being disposed into it for example sewage (human and animal dump) disposal, pesticides and fertiliser thereby affecting water quality. These findings matched those of Luan and Zhou [35], who claim that pesticide and fertiliser runoff, as well as industrial and municipal wastewater discharges, promote eutrophication in practically all Asian rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands.…”

Quantifying changes in multiple ecosystem services during 1992–2012 in the Sanjiang Plain of China

“…In this study, increase in water yield of the region could supply more water for downstream users. Congruence between the three different provisioning services was also found, which could be attributed to technical progresses in agriculture, such as cultivation and application of high-quality breeds, innovation and application of highly effective cultivation technologies, rapid development of agricultural machinery and information agriculture (Chen and Song, 2008;Luan and Zhou, 2013). In comparison, Eaton et al (2008) found congruence between five different regulating services.…”

Restoring and Creating Wetlands for Water Quality Improvement in Agricultural Territories

“…Lessons learned from these and similar experiences around the world should prevent plans for large land transformations that do not take into account the integration of natural systems, particularly wetlands, in agricultural landscapes. However, rural land use and socio-economic developments based on this short-sighted approach with catastrophic and expensive costs for society still continue (e.g., in China; Luan and Zhou 2013), despite the fact that numerous examples exist of how restored and created wetlands can be integrated into both small-scale and large scale socio-economic development plans (Brandeis 2010).…”