Assessing the Ecosystem Health of Coastal Wetland Vegetation (Suaeda salsa) Using the Pressure State Response Model, a Case of the Liao River Estuary in China

Abstract

Suaeda salsa (S. salsa) is an important ecological barrier and tourism resource in coastal wetland resources, and assessing changes in its health is beneficial for protecting the ecological health of wetlands and increasing finances. The aim was to explore improvements in the degradation of S. salsa communities in the Liao River Estuary National Nature Reserve since a wetland restoration project was carried out in Panjin, Liaoning Province, China, in 2015. In this study, landscape changes in the reserve were assessed based on Sentinel-2 images classification results from 2016 to 2019. A pressure-state-response framework was constructed to assess the annual degradation of S. salsa communities within the wetlands. The assessment results show that the area of S. salsa communities and water bodies decreased annually from 2016 to 2019, and the increased degradation indicators indicate a state of continued degradation. The area of types such as aquaculture ponds and Phragmites australis communities did not change much, while the estuarine mudflats increased year by year. The causes of S. salsa community degradation include anthropogenic impacts from abandoned aquaculture ponds and sluice control systems but also natural impacts from changes in the tidal amplitude and soil properties of the mudflats. The results also indicate that the living conditions of S. salsa in the Liao River estuary wetlands are poor and that anthropogenic disturbance is necessary to restore the original vegetation abundance.

Temporal and Spatial Distribution Changes, Driving Force Analysis and Simulation Prediction of Ecological Vulnerability in Liaoning Province, China

“…Due to different research areas, it is difficult to establish a unification ecological vulnerability evaluation model for the research areas with disparate terrain, climate conditions or other factors. Currently, common models include the pressurestate-response model (PSR) [30] and the exposure-sensitive-adaptive model (ESA) [31]. These models were initially employed for land quality evaluation.…”

“…Liaoning Province is mainly in a state of moderate ecological vulnerability, and the overall vulnerability level is mainly light and medium. Previous studies mainly focus on some areas of Liaoning Province, such as the health evaluation of coastal wetland ecosystems in Liaoning Province [30], and there are also assessments of the ecological sensitivity of Liaoning Province [20]. However, there is no similar assessment of ecological vulnerability for the whole of Liaoning Province.…”

Research on tourism ecological safety evaluation of Huizhou Cultural and ecological reserve based on entropy -TOPSIS

“…The tourism eco-safety refers to the eco-environment and natural sources upon which the tourist area depends are in good balance, and it is a crucial basis for measuring the tourism industry's sustainable development [ 29 , 30 ]. Research content on ecological safety in tourism mainly concentrates on tourist sustainability assessment [ 31 ], the implemen-tation effect of ecological protection policies [ 32 ], tourism environmental carrying ca-pacity [ 33 , 34 ], tourism environmental impact [ 35 , 36 ], and ecological vulnerability of tourism sites [ 26 , 37 ]. When conducting assessment of tourism ecological safety, the in-dicator assessment mode method became the approach chosen by most researchers, mainly including EES model [ 9 ], PSR model presented by UNEC [ 35 , 36 ], and DPSIR model presented by the EEA [ 28 , [38] , [39] , [40] , [41] ] and others to build an ecological safety evalu-ating indicator system.…”

“…Research content on ecological safety in tourism mainly concentrates on tourist sustainability assessment [ 31 ], the implemen-tation effect of ecological protection policies [ 32 ], tourism environmental carrying ca-pacity [ 33 , 34 ], tourism environmental impact [ 35 , 36 ], and ecological vulnerability of tourism sites [ 26 , 37 ]. When conducting assessment of tourism ecological safety, the in-dicator assessment mode method became the approach chosen by most researchers, mainly including EES model [ 9 ], PSR model presented by UNEC [ 35 , 36 ], and DPSIR model presented by the EEA [ 28 , [38] , [39] , [40] , [41] ] and others to build an ecological safety evalu-ating indicator system. Among them, the DPSIR model provides a better idea to com-prehensively and scientifically evaluate the eco-safety status of tourism sites, and rel-evant research results show the model has strong applicability in tourism eco-safety, can accurately identify the specific links that threaten the eco-safety of tourism sites, and effectively characterize the comprehensive and structural nature of its spatial in-ternal state, which has been extensively applied in eco-safety assessment [ 42 ].…”

Spatial Relationships and Impact Effects between Urbanization and Ecosystem Health in Urban Agglomerations along the Belt and Road: A Case Study of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

“…In the past 40 years, ecosystem health has received increased attention from macroecologists worldwide. A wide variety of methods have been reported for measuring regional ecosystem health, such as the pressure–state–response (PSR) [ 5 , 6 ], vigor–organization–resilience (VOR) [ 7 ], and vigor–organization–resilience–services (VORS) models [ 8 ]. Accordingly, a series of studies on ecosystem health have been conducted in urban agglomerations [ 9 ], provincial urban areas [ 10 ], and watersheds [ 11 ].…”