Ecological Indicators (May 2021)
Analysis of the factors affecting the long-term distribution changes of wetlands in the Jing-Jin-Ji region, China
Abstract
Wetlands are important to global ecosystems and are easily affected by changes in climate, soil properties, terrain, and human disturbances. To describe the effects quantitatively, structural equation modeling was applied to detect the impacts of these four latent variables on the distribution of wetlands in the Jing-Jin-Ji region in 1980, 1995, 2005, and 2015. The results of the models show that human disturbance and terrain conditions had negative effects on the distribution of wetlands, and their standard coefficients ranged from −0.084 to −0.011 and from −0.124 to −0.006, respectively. Climate and soil properties were beneficial for wetland distribution, and their standard coefficients ranged from 0.039 to 0.169 and from 0.015 to 0.290, respectively. The modeling results also indicate some differences in indirect influence among the four models, and 9 indirect pathways were detected in the four models. We also found that there was a significant negative correlation between the variation in the influencing factors and their impact on wetlands (p < 0.05), and the correlation coefficient was −0.71. These results indicate that the influence on the distribution of wetlands will change as in climatic conditions and human activities change over the long term, and the results of impact pathways could contribute to the restoration and management of wetlands.
