LIU Xiaobo, HAN Zhen, WANG Shiyan, PENG, Wenqi

Lake Poyang is a typical river-connecting lake in the Yangtze River basin, the largest shallow lake in China, and an internationally important wetland providing habitats for a large number of rare species. Since 2003, Lake Poyang has been showing obvious degradation characteristics due to the combination of "river-lake relationship" between the Yangtze River and Lake Poyang, and the severe disturbance of human activities at the watershed and regional scale. Following the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of speeches on "the Great Protection of the Yangtze River", related references were reviewed and data statistical analysis was conducted to reveal key questions and research thinking for protection of Lake Poyang wetland. This paper focuses on three key questions such as the status of wetlands, the driving mechanism of wetland succession considering the "river-lake" relationship, and how to construct a systematic restoration and protection system. In this paper, four key mechanisms were finally proposed, such as making a close connection between the ecological indicators at macro-scale and micro-scale, between ecological process and landscape pattern, between ecological structure and function, between hot spots and vacancies,in order to provide reference for effective scientific research on river-connecting wetlands.

Keywords: Yangtze River protection, Lake Poyang wetland, river-lake relationship, key question, research thinking