Wetland Landscape Structure and the Spatial-temporal Changes in 50 Years in the Sanjiang Plain
三江平原湿地景观结构的时空变化

The characteristics of wetland landscape structure in watershed in the Naoli River the Sanjiang Plain are exhibited in three aspects. The first one is wetland landscape gradient characteristic in the longitudinal landscape structure of the watershed from the sources area of rivers to the lower reaches, which shows that wetland landscape types were differently distributed according to the topographic gradient and hydrological gradient and formed a wide riparian landscape corridor in the watershed; the second is wetland landscape gradient characteristic in the transverse structure of watershed with perpendicularity rivers in the watershed, which also shows that wetland landscape types are differently distributed in a topographic gradient and hydrological gradient and formed an extensively distributed wetland area in watershed's flood plain; the third is wetland landscape internal structure, which shows that many small mosaics or patches were distributed in the microscopic geomorphic units in the extensive wetland landscapes. The driving forces leading to substantial changes of wetland landscape structure in the watershed were identified as: 1) land reclamation has led to more than 75% of wetlands loss in historical periods and 98% of the lost wetlands direct conversion to agricultural lands in the watershed, which is the major reason for watershed wetland landscape structure changes; 2) drainage ditches construction for agricultural development and dikes construction for flooding prevention after the 1980s has led to wetland loss and fragmentation and landscape structure changes in the watershed; 3) changes in wetland hydrological condition due to agricultural development have led to wetland ecosystem degradation, as a result, almost all the remaining marsh wetlands in the plain were degraded to meadow wetland at present state.