Author(s)

KaiWei Du^1*, ChengJi Shu², YuSong Li³, ZiYi Jiang⁴, YunDuo Kang⁵

Affiliation(s)

¹School of Architecture and Design,Chongqing College of Humanities, Science & Technology, Chongqing 401524, China.

²State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. 

³Territorial Spatial Planning Service Center, Wenchuan 623000, Sichuan, China. 

⁴School of Landscape Architecture and Architecture, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou 311300, Zhejiang, China.

⁵School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9AD, United Kingdom.

Corresponding Author

KaiWei Du

ABSTRACT

This study examines the riparian zones of seven representative urban parks in Chongqing, exploring strategies for optimizing plant communities based on the concept of "rewilding." The findings indicate several issues in the current riparian vegetation, including a dominance of cultivated species (accounting for 80.57%), a simplistic community structure (with "tree + herb" combinations comprising 57.94%), and a scarcity of wild species (only 55 species, or 19.43%). These factors result in low biodiversity (average Shannon-Wiener index of 1.52), weak soil and water conservation capacity (soil erosion modulus of 312 t/(km2·a) in areas with a single structure), and landscape homogenization, all of which limit the ecological service functions of these areas. Rewilding refers to enhancing ecosystem self-regulation by reducing human intervention and actively introducing native species. Constraints to rewilding include excessive human interference, habitat fragmentation, invasive plant species, and outdated management practices.Based on this, a series of optimization strategies are proposed, including the selection of native wild plants, the development of multilayered plant communities, the implementation of tiered management and targeted control of invasive species, and the encouragement of public participation, aiming to provide scientific support and practical guidance for the ecological restoration of riparian zones in mountainous cities.

KEYWORDS

Rewilding; Riparian zones; Native plants; Ecological service functions; Mountainous cities

CITE THIS PAPER

KaiWei Du, ChengJi Shu, YuSong Li, ZiYi Jiang, YunDuo Kang. Optimization of riparian plant communities in mountainous urban parks based on the concept of rewilding — a case study of Chongqing urban area. Frontiers in Environmental Research. 2025, 3(3): 1-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.61784/fer3033.

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