Abstract: Largescale wetland ecological restoration is a huge and complex systematic project. It is necessary to set the restoration of wetland structure and function as the basic goal, systematically sort out the research results scattered in time and space, and form a regular understanding of regional wetland ecological change and its driving factors. In this study, we took Yancheng coast as a case study area, and the salt marsh wetlands in 1987 as no or less interference state. The key ecological characteristics of regional wetland restoration were quantified from the perspective of structure processfunction coupling, including healthy and dynamic intertidal wetland system, Suaeda salsa ecosystem productivity and resilience, complex landscape mosaic and interaction, intertidal benthos abundance and bird foraging base, and endangered and key water bird population protection. Reclamation and land use, water management, global change and sea level rise are regarded as external factors driving regional wetland ecological changes. Coastal erosion and deposition, regional water regime change, topography change, wetland spatial change and loss of connectivity, and Spartina alterniflora invasion are the internal pressure factors affecting the change of wetlands. Based on the analysis of the complex relationship between these pressure factors and the changes of wetlands, a conceptual ecological model of regional wetland restoration was formed under the combination of external driving force, internal pressure source, ecological impact and ecological characteristics. This model intuitively shows the general path of removing or reducing various pressure factors in wetland restoration, which is helpful to guide the planning and practice of largescale salt marsh wetland restoration.

Key words: conceptual ecological model, salt marsh restoration, Yancheng coast, coastal wetland.