article · Environmental Challenges
Wetlands are widely viewed as nature-based climate solutions that store carbon, support biodiversity, and buffer environmental extremes. However, viewing them solely as carbon sinks is flawed because wetlands are also significant natural sources of methane. A broader perspective treats wetlands as climate feedback systems influenced by factors such as hydrology, vegetation, salinity, temperature, and microbial processes. Restoration success cannot be judged merely by the surface area restored or the total carbon stored. Instead, projects must consider ecological integrity, biodiversity recovery, hydrological stability, and the prevention of methane amplification. Drawing on evidence from peatlands, coastal areas, floodplains, and constructed wetlands, a new framework links biodiversity, methane, hydrology, and carbon. This approach supports comprehensive greenhouse-gas accounting, trade-off analysis, and adaptive governance to align restoration outcomes with international biodiversity goals.
Wetland restoration projects frequently focus only on capturing carbon, risking unintended climate impacts through increased methane emissions. By viewing wetlands as dynamic feedback systems, conservationists, policymakers, and project managers can better evaluate ecological trade-offs. This broader understanding ensures that wetland interventions actively support global biodiversity targets while minimising greenhouse gas emissions.
The work provides a conceptual framework for greenhouse-gas accounting, hydrological diagnosis, and intervention trade-off analysis across constructed wetlands, peatlands, and coastal sites. Environmental consultancies, wetland restoration practitioners, and carbon-offset developers could apply these guidelines to improve project design and verification protocols. The framework represents an early-stage advisory and accounting model that requires operational testing within formal environmental monitoring and carbon-credit certification programmes.
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Wetlands are increasingly promoted as nature-based climate solutions because they store carbon, regulate hydrology, sustain biodiversity, and buffer climate extremes. However, treating wetlands primarily as carbon sinks is scientifically incomplete because they are also major biological sources of methane. This critical narrative review examines the limitations of the carbon-sink paradigm and reframes wetlands as climate-feedback systems shaped by hydrology, vegetation, salinity, nutrients, temperature, microbial pathways, disturbance, and restoration design. Using the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles (SANRA) as a reporting and quality-assurance checklist, the review integrates evidence from wetland biogeochemistry, methane modelling, restoration ecology, biodiversity monitoring, and implementation of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We argue that wetland restoration should not be evaluated by restored area or carbon accumulation alone, but by whether it enhances ecological integrity, recovers biodiversity, stabilizes hydrological function, avoids preventable methane amplification, and contributes credibly to 2030 biodiversity targets. Evidence from peatlands, coastal wetlands, floodplains, constructed wetlands, and tidal systems shows that climate and biodiversity outcomes can align but are not automatically mutually reinforcing. The review contributes a Biodiversity–Methane–Hydrology–Carbon Feedback Framework to guide wetland typology, hydrological diagnosis, biodiversity assessment, greenhouse-gas accounting, intervention trade-off analysis, and adaptive governance. Reframing wetlands as climate-feedback systems strengthens restoration science, policy accountability, and climate–biodiversity management.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.envc.2026.101631
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