湿地在流域中处于水陆交错的特殊过渡区域,是地表重要的景观覆盖类型和生态系统。湿地具有独特的水文、土壤和植被特征,在维护区域/流域生态平衡和环境稳定方面发挥巨大作用。湿地景观变化过程主要表现为景观格局和过程在时间和空间尺度上的相互作用过程。该过程对系统的能量流动、物质循环以及物种迁移产生作用,对地理环境也产生巨大环境效应。湿地景观变化与土地利用/覆盖变化紧密相关,与人类活动影响息息相联。至今,人类已把天然的湿地景观格局改变为受人类支配的土地利用格局。自然湿地景观格局的变化过程对湿地生态系统以及其他系统的生物多样性、初级生产力产生显著影响,对局地、区域及全球气候环境、水文环境、生物多样性等方面产生显著而深刻的影响。湿地景观变化是全球变化研究的重要内容,尤其对认识全球气候变化、土地利用/覆盖变化和生物多样性变化的区域响应具有重大意义。

Wetland, located in the terrestrial aquatic transverse zone, is an important landscape and ecosystemWetlands have huge environmental functions in maintaining ecological balance and regional stability due to their particular characteristics in hydrology, soil, and plant, as well as landscape ecological structuresBut over past decades, wetland landscapes have been changed greatly, and these changes have relationship with land use / cover changes as well as human activitiesWetland landscape changes in structure and process have huge impacts on environmental changes caused by the spatial and temporal interaction of wetland natural ecosystem processesUp to now, a natural wetland pattern has been changed to a human dominated land use pattern by human beingsThe processing of wetland changes influenced wetland and other ecosystem in biodiversity, primary productivity, and global biogeochemistry cycle, as well as greenhouse gas contents in the atmosphereWetland change also has clear impacts on climate change, hydrological change, biodiversity change in regional or global scales.