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Nature-based solutions (NbS) is the concept advocated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), based on China’s unique ecological protection and restoration traditions, natural geospatial patterns, and natural resource features. The development of Chinese NbS solutions will contribute to the implementation of the concept of NbS in China. China has a tradition of afforestation and grassland protection, and the successful experiences are the embodiment of NbS. Therefore, the research on the highlights of ecological restoration of “forest” and “grass” has important inspiration and reference significance for the ecological restoration of seagrass beds. Through the comparison of domestic and foreign research results and case study data, the logical system diagram of countermeasures and suggestions is drawn to improve the correlation and rationality of each recommendation. This paper summarizes the highlights of mangrove and grassland ecological restoration, and points out that there are disadvantages in domestic seagrass bed ecological restoration in terms of policy and public participation, capital investment and technical means, but there are also advantages in the utilization of subtidal space resources and carbon sink under the condition of the seagrass fast growth rate and no change in the nature of tidal flats. The paper puts forward 15 suggestions for promoting the ecological restoration of seagrass beds in China: carry out seagrass bed online monitoring and survey of suitable seagrass places, strengthen the publicity of NbS and seagrass beds, strengthen supervision and law enforcement and coordination, establish reasonable reward and subsidy policies, establish Chinese seagrass professional societies and non-governmental organizations, facilitate public participation, try experiment of climate change adaptation, etc.

Mangroves are one of the world's most productive and ecologically important ecosystems, and they are threatened by the widespread invasion of Spartina alterniflora Loisel in China. As few studies have examined the spatial pattern differences of S. alterniflora invasion and the nearby mangroves in different latitudes, we chose the Zhangjiang Estuary and the Dandou Sea, two representative mangrove–salt marsh ecotones in the north and south of the Tropic of Cancer, as the study areas for comparison. The object-based image analysis and visual interpretation methods were combined to construct fine-scale mangrove and S. alterniflora maps using high-resolution satellite imagery from 2005 to 2019. We applied spatial analysis, centroid migration, and landscape indexes to analyze the spatio–temporal distribution changes of mangroves and S. alterniflora in these two ecotones over time. We used the landscape expansion index to investigate the S. alterniflora invasion process and expansion patterns. The annual change rates of mangrove and S. alterniflora areas in the Zhangjiang Estuary showed a continuous growth trend. However, the mangrove areas in the Dandou Sea showed a fluctuating trend of increasing, decreasing, and then increasing again, while S. alterniflora areas kept rising from 2005 to 2019. Spartina alterniflora showed larger annual change rates compared with mangroves, indicating rapid S. alterniflora invasion in the intertidal zones. The opposite centroid migration directions of mangroves and S. alterniflora and the decreasing distances between the mangrove and S. alterniflora centroids indirectly revealed the fierce competition between mangroves and S. alterniflora for habitat resources. Both regions saw a decrease in mangrove patch integrality and connectivity. The integrality of mangrove patches in the Zhangjiang Estuary was always higher than those in the Dandou Sea. We observed the growth stage (2011–2014) and outbreak stage (2014–2019) of S. alterniflora expansion in the Zhangjiang Estuary and the outbreak stage (2005–2009) and plateau stage (2009–2019) of S. alterniflora expansion in the Dandou Sea. The expansion pattern of S. alterniflora varies in time and place. Since the expansion of S. alterniflora in the outbreak stage is rapid, with a large annual change rate, early warning of S. alterniflora invasion is quite important for the efficient and economical removal of the invasive plant. Continuous and accurate monitoring of S. alterniflora is highly necessary and beneficial for the scientific management and sustainable development of coastal wetlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid and disordered expansion of artificial marine aquaculture areas has caused severe ecological and environmental problems. Accurate monitoring of offshore aquaculture areas is urgent and significant in order to support the scientific and sustainable management and protection of coastal marine resources. Artificial intelligence provides a valuable tool to improve marine resource monitoring. Deep learning methods have been widely used for marine object detection, but You Only Look Once (YOLO) models have not been employed for offshore aquaculture area monitoring. This study therefore evaluated the capacity of two well-known YOLO models, YOLOv5 and YOLOv7, to detect offshore aquaculture areas based on different high-resolution optical remote sensing imagery. Compared with YOLOv7 based on a satellite dataset, YOLOv5 increased the Precision value by approximately 3.29% (to 95.33%), Recall value by 3.02% (to 93.02%), mAP_0.5 by 2.03% (to 96.22%), and F1 score by 2.65% (to 94.16%). Based on the Google Earth dataset, YOLOv5 and YOLOv7 showed similar results. We found that the spatial resolution could affect the deep learning models' performances. We used the Real-ESRGAN method to enhance the spatial resolution of satellite dataset and investigated whether super-resolution (SR) methods improved the detection accuracy of the YOLO models. The results indicated that despite improving the image clarity and resolution, the SR methods negatively affected the performance of the YOLO models for offshore aquaculture object detection. This suggests that attention should be paid to the use of SR methods before the application of deep learning models for object detection using remote sensing imagery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal squeeze of saltmarshes (CSS) has substantially eliminated valuable intertidal habitats and worsened local tidal hydrological environment by disintegrating tidal creek networks and losing tidal connectivity (TC). In this study, we explored the process response of creek network structure and TC to CSS dynamics, taking the southern Bohai Bay of China as a case study area. With the Landsat series data and ArcGIS spatial analysis, the morphological and structural evolution of tidal creek systems were quantified by four parameters: creek order, creek length, creek branch point, and network catchment area. Also, the TC was assessed and visualised based on a geostatistical connectivity method. It was found that low-order small creeks were more sensitive and vulnerable to CSS and the creek network would face disintegration when about 50% of the saltmarsh squeeze degree occurred, which has been observed as a crucial threshold. In the seaward direction, the CSS process has led to the continuous replacement of high TC areas by low TC areas, greatly altering the original natural TC pattern. Revealing the relationship between CSS and creek network structure and TC will allow a further understanding of the degradation of intertidal ecosystems, and will promote their ecological and hydrological restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To carry out prenatal diagnosis for two cases of Pallister-Killian syndrome (PKS) using combined chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH)., Methods: Umbilical cord blood was sampled from the two fetuses and subjected to G-banding chromosomal karyotyping, CMA and FISH assay., Results: Chromosomal karyotyping showed that the two fetuses were mos 47,XX,+i(12)(p10)[3]/46,XX[197] and mos 47,XY,+i(12)(p10)[5]/46,XY[95], respectively. CMA showed that both had carried duplication of 12p. The results of interphase FISH confirmed mosaicism of 12p tetrasomy. Combined with ultrasonographic findings, both fetuses were diagnosed as PKS., Conclusion: Prenatal ultrasound examination, karyotype analysis of umbilical cord blood, G-banded chromosomal analysis, CMA and FISH may be used in conjunct for the prenatal diagnosis of PKS.