Assessing urban wetlands dynamics in Wuhan and Nanchang, China

Urban wetlands play a crucial role in sustainable social development. However, current research mainly focuses on specific wetland types, and fine extraction of urban wetlands remains a challenge. This study proposes a fine extraction framework based on hierarchical decision trees and shape features for urban wetlands, using Sentinel-2 remote sensing data to obtain detailed wetland data of Wuhan and Nanchang from 2016 to 2022. Our framework applies random forests to classify land cover, extracts urban fine wetlands by hierarchical decision trees and shape features, and assesses the dynamics of wetlands in the two cities. We also analyzed and discussed the characteristics of urban wetlands in the two cities. The results show that wetland accuracies of Wuhan and Nanchang are greater than 84.5 % and 82.9 %, respectively. The wetland areas of Wuhan in 2016, 2019, and 2022 are 1969.4 km², 1713.8 km², and 1681.1 km², while those in Nanchang are 1405.9 km², 1361.6 km², and 766.9 km². Inland wetlands are the main wetland types in both regions, with lake wetlands accounting for the highest proportion (over 40 %). The urban wetlands in the two cities exhibit different spatial and temporal evolution patterns, with varying change trends of wetland area and the structural proportions of fine wetlands. Besides, Wuhan's urban wetlands are primarily located in the south, while Nanchang's urban wetlands are concentrated in the east, exhibiting higher spatial and temporal dynamics. Analysis suggests that the reduced urban wetlands from 2016 to 2022 are related to fluctuating decreasing precipitation, growing population, and gross domestic product (GDP). Our study provides support for the conservation of urban wetland resources in Wuhan and Nanchang and highlights the need for targeted management strategies.