Research On The Theory And Method Of Marine Major Function Oriented Zoning

To promote and form priority development zones in the planning and coordination of the spatial distribution of land development is a significant strategic development in China's social and economic development. Based on the carrying capacity of both natural environment and resources, the existing development density and development potentiality, the National Plan for Priority Development Zones classifies spatially national land in accordance with development forms into four categories, namely the optimized development zone, the critical development zone, the restricted development zone and the prohibited development zone. National Plan for Development Priority Zones issued by the State Council definitely points out that"on the consideration of the specific characteristics of the coastal and oceanic land and water in the formation of national development priority zones, the relevant state agencies should formulate National Plan for Marine Priority Development Zones in accordance with the present Plan". At the same time, the National 12th Five-year Economic and Social Development Plan Outlines has laid down the strategic planning for"the development and implementation of marine priority development zones to optimize the spatial distribution for ocean economic development". The basis for the development of Marine Major Function Oriented Zones (MMFOZ) is to carry out studies on the theory, methodology and evaluation index systems for zoning MMFOZ.The coastal and ocean waters are the space for the sustainable development of human society in the future and have important position and role in relieving the restraints of natural environments and resources on land and expanding the space for national economic and social development. For the past years, with the publication and implementation of the National Ocean Economic Development Plan Outlines and the National Ocean development Plan Outlines, marine development surges have been high along the coast, as a result, ocean economy has been an important growth point for coastal regional economic development. However, with the rapid development of ocean economy,various factors and issues that restraining a healthy development of ocean economy have surfaced gradually, such as the increasing unbalanced spatial structure of marine development indicated by irrational distribution of marine development, contradicting ocean industry structure and serious similarity of industries among coastal regions. The second point is heavy cost of coastal natural resources and great damage to coastal ecology and environments and the third point is both lower coordination and integrated planning of development on land and at the sea. As the case may be,it is imperative to form the priority development zones in China's sea areas on the basis of scientific evaluations on the carrying capacity of marine natural environment and resources, marine development intensity and marine development potentiality in scientific ways and the rational spatial distribution of ocean economy with the goals of coordinating the spatial distribution of marine development, standardizing time sequence of marine development and building a blue home with harmonized land and sea.This paper makes the following studies with coastal and oceanic priority development zones in China as the themes.Part One is an introduction to the paper. On the basis of summarizing the theory and methodology for MMFOZ,the paper makes clear the objectives and significance of the theoretical and methodological studies on MMFOZ and defines the approaches and substances in the studies of MMFOZ. Part Two studies the development and status of state spatial planning and marine spatial planning at home and abroad. This part analyzes systematically the status of spatial planning and ocean spatial planning at home and abroad and clearly identifies the relationship between MMFOZ and current ocean functional zonation scheme. Part Three makes theoretical study on MMFOZ. This part summarizes the relevant theories concerning the zonation of MMFOZ, analyses the conditions and basis for zoning MMFOZ and clearly proposes the basic concepts and connotation concerning the zonation of MMFOZ for laying down a foundation for building up a theoretical system for zoning MMFOZ. Part Four refers to the studies on zoning methods for MMFOZ. This part, by taking the basic theory for zoning priority development zones as the basis, creates the methodology system for zoning MMFOZ consisting of the index system for zoning and the methodology system for discriminating types of MMFOZ, including mainly the identification of spatial units, the development of evaluation system, the valuation and quantification of the index, the integrated calculation and overlapping of indexing factors, the discriminative analysis of the types of MMFOZ, the clustering of functional zones and the definition of zoning schemes. Part Five refers to the ground truthing study on MMFOZ. On the basis of the theoretical studies, this part takes coastal sea area as the pilot site for ground truthing studies for zoning MMFOZ and finally classifies the types of various MMFOZ in the coastal waters. Part Six forms the summary part of the paper and points out the orientation for future studies.The major contributions of the present paper are summarized as follows. Firstly, a rather complete system of basic theories for zoning MMFOZ has been created. At present, there has not formed a systematic and integrated system in the study of the theories and methodology for zoning MMFOZ at home and abroad, without mentioning the formulation of models for zoning or ground truthing of MMFOZ in China. This paper, on the basis of the studies on the theories and methodology for zoning MMFOZ, has developed a basic theoretical model for its zoning, which has provided theoretical support and basis for zoning MMFOZ. Secondly, the paper has developed a rather systematic methodological system for zoning MMFOZ. By learning from the relevant experiences and lessons in marine spatially planning at home and abroad and integrating the methodology and modern technical tools for zoning planning, this paper has developed a basic methodological system and solved the technical issues for zoning MMFOZ by taking into account the practical situation in China. Thirdly, the paper has creatively developed an evaluation index system by making references to the features of coastal and oceanic waters and on the basis of the carrying capacity for coastal and oceanic natural environment and resources, the existing development intensity and development potentiality. Fourthly, by making use of the tools for the qualitative and quantitative evaluation and GIS and spatial analysis, this paper has creatively developed the method to discriminate the types of MMFOZ. Lastly, the paper has made ground truthing studies in which both index system and methodology for the evaluation of MMFOZ have been made.This paper has further enriched the theories and methodology for zoning MMFOZ and provided theoretical and technical support to government agencies in zoning MMFOZ and is of great significance in zoning MMFOZ in China.