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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Ecol. Evol.

Sec. Models in Ecology and Evolution

Restore water resources, diversify vegetation or control invasive species? How to effectively manage wetland based on carbon trading

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Zhejiang Institute of Economic and Trade, Hangzhou, China
  • 2School of Intelligence Engineering, Shandong Management University, Jinan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Wetland ecosystems have suffered serious damage. To increase the incentive to protect wetlands, the government can allocate certain carbon emission allowances to environmental organizations that protect wetlands. Common wetland governance modes include restoring water quantity, diversifying vegetation and controlling invasive species. In order to derive the applicable range of various wetland governance modes, this article constructs three differential game models and compares and analyzes the equilibrium results obtained by the models. Finally, the research shows that if the additional reputation gained by restoring water quantity per unit is small, the government can achieve the maximum benefit by choosing the restoring water quantity mode. If the additional reputation gained by restoring water quantity per unit is large, the government can achieve the maximum benefit by choosing the diversifying vegetation mode. Due to the existence of carbon trading, environmental organizations will take wetland ecosystem protection measures. If the additional reputation gained by restoring water quantity per unit is small and the revenue gained by governing wetlands per unit is large, the environmental organizations can achieve the maximum benefit by choosing the controlling invasive species mode. Otherwise, the environmental organizations can achieve the maximum benefit by choosing the diversifying vegetation mode.

Keywords: ecological management, Differential game, carbon credit, Control mode, Environmental organizations

Received: 05 Sep 2025; Accepted: 18 Nov 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Tan and Bai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Yuntao Bai, baiyuntao@sdmu.edu.cn

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