Assessment Of Agricultural Vulnerability

GIS-Based Inundation Model, which analyzes and mappings the loss of agriculture under different SLR scenarios.

Assessment Of Wetland Adaptivity

Sea Level Affecting Marsh Model, which simulates the dynamic process of transformation and migration of wetlands under SLR, in order to analyze the changes of the ecological service value of wetlands.

Risk And Opportunity

The wetland is possible to replace the existing agricultural areas because of the natural transformation and migration. Accordingly, the ecological service value of changing wetland would compensate for the lost value of agriculture, which naturally adapts to the impact of rising sea level. 

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Some basic recommendations are proposed as follows:

1. gradually reducing the dependence on irrigation agriculture and freshwater aquaculture;

2. adjusting and managing sedimentation to stimulate the transformation from agricultural land to tidal flats and salt marsh;

3. recovering mangrove community based on sedimentation of the salt marsh;

4. taking full advantage of natural productions and successive relation of wetlands to establish new agricultural models;

5. implementing multiple methods to utilize new agricultural products to maintain the sustainable operation of wetland and agriculture.

Successional Salty Agriculture System

As the impact of SLR on the coastal environment is an ever-change process, the fixed agricultural landscape planning is difficult to respond to coastal changes to survive and keep working in the future. The concrete coastal hard engineering infrastructures block the dynamic connection between landscape system and marine environment, and simultaneously with greater risk leading to increasing losses. Inspired by the strong adaptative capacity of wetlands to transform under SLR, the design hence improves the ability of transformation to provide agriculture with a motive force compatible with SLR. This coastal wetland-driven agriculture model would turn the risk of inundation into opportunities for future production. With sea level rising, the successional salty agriculture model can create new value of agriculture, ecology, and social culture by forming various agricultural systems, each of which has roles to perform and benefits each other within different submerging regions.

Strategy A: land forming by natural sediment management

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a1) retreating existing farmlands to introduce sedimentation from the Pearl River into the existing agricultural region as sea level rising by disassembling the ridges;

a2) accelerating the siltation of tidal flat by intercepting silt with artificial barriers and the roots of wetland;

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Strategy B: growing by wetland succession

b1) building the frameworks of planting unit on the inundated tidal flats to replace them with salt marsh;

b2) based on the frameworks of planting unit, establishing mangrove planting areas within saltmarsh after salt marsh has silted up to a sufficient height, and gradually replacing salt marsh in the high intertidal zone by limiting the photosynthesis of the spartina with mangrove canopy width, remaining the spartina that grows within the deeper inundated areas;

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Strategy C: farming by rotational aquaculture

c1) reconstructing the frameworks of planting unit into the floating working platforms to harvest the salt marsh growing on the tidal flats for biogas power generation, pharmaceutical industry and feed production, and running aquaculture on the tidal flats where the salt marsh has been harvested; then, harvesting the salt marsh until it grows up again; repeating the above cycle to form a rotation of aquaculture and harvest;

c2) forming the rotation of fishery and mangrove maintaining by developing fishery based on the shelter and nourishment provided by mangrove habitats, and implementing a seasonal fishing ban to scheduling researchers to maintain and study on wetlands;

c3) emerging the tourism into the cycles of the various agricultural activities and utilizing the floating working platforms as accommodations for visitors.

phase 1: toward the tidal flat aquaculture in 2030 when sea level rise by 0.2m;

phase 2: toward the rotational salt marsh aquaculture in 2050 when sea level rise by 0.5m