With continued sea level rise and over-exploitation, saline water extends farther inland, causing changes in soil salinity and water quality and leading to permanent land salinization and ecosystem damage. Saltwater intrusion (SWI), causing numerous ecosystem problems and disasters, brings risk to urban ecosystems in coastal cities. Ecological risk, in the Greater Bay Area in China, should be assessed based on the effect of SWI status on ecosystem health. In this study, we built a new ecological risk-assessment model based on the geographic information system (GIS) technique and spatial data. At the conceptual level, four main stressors were identified based on literature reading and fieldwork. Four stress factors (SFs) were thoroughly investigated, namely, SF1: the intensity gradient immersed in saltwater; SF2: the mountain phreatic water supply; SF3: the salinity tolerance of urban greenbelt vegetation; and SF4: the supply capacity of irrigation water to suppress saline water. After a comprehensive evaluation using GIS and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), we mapped and assessed the ecological risk level of the urban greenbelt for the SWI. Our results showed that the area of urban green space affected by the SWI was approximately 49.31 km2, almost 12.05%. Ecological risk was sorted into five ranks: (1) very low risk 47.53%, (2) low risk 26.29%, (3) medium risk 22.92%, (4) high risk 2.45%, and (5) very high risk (0.8%). The ecological infrastructure of sponges should include freshwater conservation in coastal cities, and more attention should be paid to fresh groundwater discharge from coastal ecosystems in Shenzhen.

As sea levels continue to rise and high tide flooding events increase in frequency, researchers and farmers alike are looking for solutions to adapt to and mitigate the effects of saltwater intrusion (SWI). Some landowners on the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland respond to SWI by taking land out of agriculture. For example, they (1) attempt to remediate salt-damaged soils (e.g., planting switchgrass, Panicum virgatum), (2) restore native marsh grasses (e.g., planting saltmarsh hay, Spartina patens), or (3) abandon fields altogether (e.g., allow for natural recruitment). This work examines the ability of each of these land management practices to reduce phosphorus (P) levels in soils and porewater, with the overall goal to benefit both the farming community and water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. We show that remediation and restoration practices are efficient at taking up soil P and reducing porewater P concentrations through biomass P uptake. After three years of growth, we observed an increase in P uptake in biomass of Panicum virgatum (remediation species; 11-30 kg ha-1) and Spartina patens (restoration species; 4-18 kg ha-1) and a decline in available soil P pools (M3P; 30-50 % kg M3P ha-1). At all farms, under all three management strategies, the P fertility index value (FIV) in the topsoil was 33-50 % lower than baseline conditions, likely reducing the potential release of P to nearby waterways. Results from this work will help inform state-level coastal management policies and determine optimal strategies for climate resilience.