Modeling the health of near offshore water ecosystem of vegetation mud coast

¹ Tianjin Engineering Center of Urban River Eco-purification Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Jinnan district, Tianjin 300350, China
² Hebei Water Resources and Hydropower Survey, Design and Research Institute Group Co. Ltd., Tianjin 300250, China

^* Corresponding author: xyyou@tju.edu.cn

Abstract

Vegetation slope protection is widely applied to mud coastal slope stabilization. This study evaluates the ecological impacts of vegetation-based shoreline in the Huanghua coastal area using the Ecopath model. A comprehensive fuzzy evaluation is used to assess changes in the ecosystem's food web structure and overall health before and after implementation of vegetation-based shoreline. The results indicate that Spartina anglica planting enhances ecosystem maturity and functional stability by introducing new energy pathways, particularly benefiting small animals and Zooplankton. The fuzzy comprehensive evaluation further demonstrates an improvement in ecosystem health following vegetation-based shoreline stabilization, shifting its status from "bad" to "good". Additionally, the changes in key indicators, such as the total primary production/total biomass and total biomass/total system throughput, further confirm the ecological benefits of this approach. Therefore, Spartina anglica planting effectively enhances the ecological health of the Huanghua coastal area and holds promise as a conservation strategy for similar coastal environments.