Coastal News

China’s Rapid Coastal Development Damages Ecosystems

According to a recent study, China's reclamation of coastal land for or agricultural, industrial, and urban land use raises ecological and environmental challenges.

The study, which interpreted trends of coastal reclamation using remote sensing, was a collaboration between the State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University in Shanghai and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Seattle, Washington.

The study notes that while rapid economic growth and urbanization have driven extensive coastal reclamation, the value of restoring or preserving coastal wetlands has not been considered until recently. They sought to provide a detail look at that development, analyze the factors that drive it and understand the relationship between these factors. To accomplish this, they used long-term Landsat image time series from 1985 to 2010 in 5-year intervals, in combination with remotely sensed image interpretation, spatial analysis, and time-series analysis.

The lead author for the study, Bo Tian is a geographer at East China Normal University. According to the paper, “The analysis results indicated that 754,697 hectares of coastal wetlands have been reclaimed across all coastal provinces and metropolises from 1985 to 2010, and the trend increased sharply after 2005. High-intensity coastal reclamation was mainly driven by the booming economy, especially after 2000, associated with urbanization and industrial development in China's coastal region; this was closely correlated with the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The continuous large-scale coastal reclamation of its coastal region now means China is facing a great challenge, including the enormous loss of vegetated coastal wetlands, negative environmental effects, and potential disaster risks related to coastal flooding under future change climate conditions. Long-term ecosystem-based coastal protection and management are critical to support sustainable coastal ecosystems in China in the future.”

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