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Ecological water replenishment (EWR) has been increasingly applied to the restoration and maintenance of wetland hydrological conditions across China since the beginning of the 21st century. However, little is known about whether EWR projects help protect and/or restore wetland ecohydrology. As one of the earliest and longest-running EWR projects in China, water has been released from the Nenjiang River into the Zhalong wetland since 2001. It is important to examine the ecohydrological effects of this EWR project. In this study, long time series remote sensing data were used to extract the water area, inundation frequency, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to explore how eco-hydrological conditions changed during the pre- (1984–2000) and post-EWR (2001–2018) periods in the Zhalong wetland. Results show that the inundation area decreased due to the reduced surface water inflow during the pre-EWR period. Similarly, monthly vegetation NDVI in the growing season generally exhibited a decreasing and an increasing trend during the pre- and post-EWR periods, respectively. In the post-EWR period, NDVI increased by 19%, 73%, 45%, 28%, 13% for the months of May through September, respectively. Due to EWR, vegetation growth in areas with low inundation frequency was better than in areas with high inundation frequency. We found that the EWR project, runoff, and precipitation contributed 25%, 11%, and 64% to changes in the NDVI, respectively, and 46%, 37%, and 17% to changes in inundation area, respectively. These results indicate that the EWR project has improved hydrological conditions in the Zhalong wetland. For further maximum benefits of EWR in the Zhalong wetlands, we suggest that implementing similar eco-hydrological projects in the future should focus on flood pulse management to increase the inundation area, improve hydrological connectivity, and create new habitats.

Does Ecological Water Replenishment Help Prevent a Large Wetland from Further Deterioration? Results from the Zhalong Nature Reserve, China