Wetland Park Design for Habitat Restoration —Case Study on the Qinghua Wetland in Baoshan, Yunnan Province

Wetland park design seeks to protect and restore the wetland ecosystems of sites through scientific approaches. However, in practice, the relevant ecological principles about wetland restoration are often not effectively understood or applied by landscape designers, resulting in compromised ecological benefits after the restoration, especially in biodiversity and habitat benefits. The authors highlighted the main causal factors in wetland—flooding and fertility—and adopted wetland birds as indicator species to simplify the evaluation method. Based on years of practice, the authors summarized a hydrology-based wetland design method for habitat restoration, aiming to translate ecological principles and research findings into design guidelines that can be easily understood and applied by landscape designers to spatial design. This design method includes 7 steps, namely 1) targeted species selection and goal setting; 2) design of habitat types and spatial arrangement; 3) landform design; 4) water level design; 5) plant community building; 6) landscape design with minimal intervention; and 7) spatial design for natural succession. The article then expanded each step using an illustrative design case, the Qinghua Wetland in Baoshan, Yunnan Province.