We investigated the roles of flooding, salinity, and plant competition in creating a bimodal zonation pattern of the marsh dominant annual plant, Suaeda salsa, along coastal topographic gradients on the Pacific coast of northern China. In two consecutive years, we manipulated salinity and flooding, salinity, and competition for S. salsa seedlings that had been transplanted into the mudflat, the high marsh, and the upland, respectively. S. salsa plants that had been transplanted into the mudflat were completely eliminated in the non-elevated treatments whereas they performed much better in the 10 cm elevated treatments, regardless of salinity treatments. Although the performance of S. salsa transplanted into the high marsh did not differ between the fresh (watered) and the salt (control) treatments, S. salsa seedling emergence in the high marsh was nearly completely inhibited in the salt treatments. In contrast, a large number of S. salsa seedlings did emerge in the fresh treatments. S. salsa transplanted into the upland performed well when neighbors were removed, whereas it appeared to be strongly suppressed when neighbors were present. These data indicated that flooding, salinity, and competition all played a role in determining the zonation pattern of S. salsa. Furthermore, the importance of salinity was found to vary with life-history stage. Based on the results from these field manipulative experiments, we suggest that the marsh plant zonation paradigm may hold true for plant distributions along landscape-scale topographic gradients from mudflats to uplands in general. The relative importance of flooding, salinity, and competition, however, may vary at different elevations within a site and between sites.

Identification of potential restoration areas is significant and important for implementing a sustainable restoration project and maintaining the ecosystem integrity. We established an eco-hydrological approach to identify potential restoration areas of freshwater wetlands that should and can be restored. Our eco-hydrological method identifies potential restoration areas from three dimensions, namely, transverse, longitudinal and vertical directions. The potential restoration areas of freshwater wetlands were determined, Based on transfer matrix analysis between freshwater wetland and other land cover types and bird habitat suitability assessment, we identified the areas that should be restored under the 1989 and 2000 goals were 36112 ha and 37230 ha, respectively. Based on hydrological connectivity and balance between ecological water supply (EWS) and ecological water requirements (EWRs), the area can be restored under the 1989 and 2000 goals were 31165 and 33963 ha, respectively. The approach and results of this study can help in future restoration efforts in the Yellow River Delta and other similar coastal wetlands.

Increasing evidence shows that facilitative interactions between species play an essential role in coastal wetland ecosystems. However, there is a lack of understanding of how such interactions can be used for restoration purposes in saltmarsh ecosystems. We therefore studied the mechanisms of reciprocal facilitative interactions between native annual plants, Suaeda salsa, and burrowing crabs, Helice tientsinensis, in a middle‐elevation saltmarsh (with generally high plant density and moderate tides) in the Yellow River Delta of China. We investigated the relationship between the densities of the plants and crab burrows in different seasons. Then, we tested whether and how saltmarsh plants and crabs indeed facilitate each other in a series of field and laboratory experiments. Finally, we applied the results by creating a field‐scale artificial approach for microtopographic modification to restore a degraded saltmarsh. We found that the density of plant seedlings in spring was positively correlated with the density of crab burrows in the previous autumn; moreover, the density of crab burrows was correlated with the density of plants in summer. The concave–convex surface microtopography created by crabs promoted seed retention and seedling establishment of saltmarsh plants in winter and spring. These plants in turn facilitated crabs by inhibiting predators, providing food and reducing physical stresses for crabs in summer and autumn. The experimental removal of saltmarsh plants decreased crab burrow density, while both transplanting and simulating plants in bare patches promoted crabs. The microtopographic modification, inspired by our new understanding of the interactions between saltmarsh plants and crabs, showed that these degraded saltmarsh ecosystems can be restored by a single ploughing intervention. Synthesis. Our results suggest a reciprocal facilitation between annual plants and burrowing crabs in a middle‐elevation saltmarsh ecosystem. This knowledge yielded new restoration options for degraded coastal saltmarshes through the one‐time ploughing initiation of microtopographic variation, which could promote the re‐establishment of ecosystem engineers and lead to the efficient recovery of pioneer coastal vegetation and associated fauna.

The water discharge and sediment load have been increasingly altered by climate change and human activities in recent decades. For the Pearl River, however, long-term variations in the sediment regime, especially in the last decade, remain poorly known. Here we updated knowledge of the temporal trends in the sediment regime of the Pearl River at annual, seasonal and monthly time scales from the 1950s to 2020. Results show that the annual sediment load and suspended sediment concentration (SSC) exhibited drastically decreased, regardless of water discharge. Compared with previous studies, we also found that sediment load and SSC reached a conspicuous peak in the 1980s, and showed a significant decline starting in the 2000s and 1990s, respectively. In the last decade, however, water discharge and sediment load showed slightly increasing trends. At the seasonal scale, the wet-season water discharge displays a decreasing trend, while the dry-season water discharge is increasing. At the monthly scale, the flood seasons in the North and East Rivers typically occur one month earlier than that in the West River due to the different precipitation regimes. Precipitation was responsible for the long-term change of discharge, while human activities (e.g. dam construction and land use change) exerted different effects on the variations in sediment load among different periods. Changes in the sediment regime have exerted substantial influences on downstream channel morphology and saltwater intrusion in the Greater Bay Area. Our study proposes a watershed-based solution, and provides scientific guidelines for the sustainable development of the Greater Bay Area.