Abstract: Estuarine wetland vegetation has high primary productivity and plays a significant role in climate change mitigation. As an important component of wetland ecological processes, hydrological connectivity has a profound impact on ecosystem stability of estuarine wetland. Clarifying the response mechanism of estuarine salt marsh wetland vegetation carbon sink capacity to changes in hydrological connectivity is a hot research topic. We reviewed the research on estuarine wetlands in China in terms of the assessment methods of vegetation carbon stock, the current status of carbon stock research and the quantification methods of hydrological connectivity, and compared the advantages and disadvantages of various methods. We sorted out the influence of hydrological connectivity on vegetation carbon sink capacity of estuarine wetlands at three scales: individual, community, and landscape, and clarified the specific mechanism characteristics. Future research on the response of vegetation carbon sink capacity to hydrological connectivity in estuarine salt marsh wetlands should focus on multi-scale simultaneous observations and the construction of multi-source data fusion analysis assessment methods, the mechanism of hydrological connectivity blocking and vegetation carbon sink function stability in estuarine salt marsh wetlands under multiple stresses, and vegetation carbon sink enhancement and conservation technology based on hydrological connectivity modification of estuarine salt marsh wetlands.

Key words: estuarine wetland, hydrological connectivity, vegetation carbon stock, response mechanism