Identifying recreation priority development zones in global wetland cities under wetland conservation considerations

Balancing recreation and wetland conservation requires identifying where recreational opportunities can be developed with limited ecological disturbance. Taking 43 globally Ramsar-certified Wetland Cities as the study area, this study integrates multi-source remote-sensing and geospatial data to examine the spatiotemporal patterns of Recreation Potential Change (RPC) and Wetland Degradation and Conservation (WDC) before and after accreditation (2016-2024), as well as the resulting differentiated recreation development modes. A refined bivariate LISA model is then used to reveal urban-suburban heterogeneity in RPC-WDC synergy/trade-off relationships, and a wetland Conservation Recreation Priority Development Index (CRPDI) is constructed to identify wetland patches suitable for priority recreation development under secured wetland conservation. The results show that: (1) Four development modes were identified: Infrastructure and Service-Driven (ISD), Synergistic Comprehensive Development (SCD), Conservative Maintenance (CM), and Natural Landscape Enhancement (NLE). (2) Synergistic enhancement (HH) and latent-service (LH) zones generally had higher shares in suburbs than in urban cores. Dual-decline (LL) shares were higher in urban cores in SCD, CM, and NLE cities. SCD cities showed the smallest urban–suburban differences across the four categories, whereas CM cities had the highest LH shares. (3) CRPDI identified 10,911 high-priority patches covering 260.82 km 2 , accounting for 0.83% of the assessed wetland-patch area. These patches were concentrated mainly in SCD cities, followed by CM cities. (4) Tidal flats, coastal marshes, ponds, and canals ranked relatively highly in city-balanced CRPDI comparisons. Shallow marine waters were represented in only a small number of coastal cities. This study provides a quantifiable spatial decision-support tool for balancing wetland-based recreation and conservation, with methodological relevance for recreation planning and management in accredited, renewal-stage, and candidate Wetland Cities.