Ecological Effect Assessment On Coastal Development In Xiamen Bay, China

Coastal zones are the connecting areas between land and marine systems, where the interactions among the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere, are most frequent and active. It has a variety of characteristics, such as resource abundance, multiple services or functions, frequent-occurrence of disasters, ecological frangibility and so on. With the rapid development of economic and social, coastal areas are suffered tremendous pressures from human activities. The purpose of ecological effects assessment is to protect the unique ecosystem and then to acheive the sustainable developement in coastal area. The results would be very useful for the resource and environmental management in coastal area.At present, the research on ecological effect is not mature yet. There are no integraty ecological effect assessment index systems or assessment methods, especially on coastal area ecological effect assessment. This paper took Xiamen bay in Fujian province as an example, established a framework of index based on Pressure-State-Response (PSR) Model, and attempted to assess ecological effect assessment in Xiamen bay. Constructive policy and suggestions are proposed to respond to the results of ecological effect assessment in coastal area, which in order to maintain ecosystem health and safety.This paper was devided two parts:theoretical research and case study, principally as follows:(1) There are two parts of theorietical research. The author summarizes the theories and practices in ecological effect assessment in the world and raised the definition and difference of ecological effect assessment and ecological impact assessment in EIA. Just as effect assessment focus on present situation and retrospective evaluation, impact assessment is belong to predictive evaluation. And the contents of ecosystem health and ecological risk are differentiated. The former indicates normal level of ecosystem interior, the latter shows the function of ecological stress, which external factors threaten the ecosystem interior on ourburst event. Retrospective risk evaluation is to find risk source and suffer, and provide evidence for predictive evaluation. PSR Model and its application research were introduced and pointed out at present the problems that exists in research. Then the objectives, contents and approach were described. The PSR model was used to build the framework of ecological effect assessment in coastal area:Pressure (human activities and natural variation),State (ecological healthy and ecological risk),Response (constructive policy and suggestions are proposed) in coastal area were considered as problem factors, then related index systems were established.(2) The case study (the 3rd charpter)btook Xiamen bay as an example.In this part, the general situation of Xiamen bay was introduced. Based on analyzing the types and intensity of development activities in Xiamen bay, assessment system of ecosystem health and ecological risk was built to study the ecosystem state and changing trend. Retrospective evalution, including qualitative analysis, was combined with present situation evalution (quantitative analysis of single factor and the integrated index) to identify the ecosystem health and presenty ecological risk. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to caculate the statistical weight of different evaluation indexs and enhance the assessment accuracy. The single-factor evaluation showed that phytoplankton, zooplankton and zoobenthos were on healthy. However, higher plant (mangrove), nekton (fishing ground), amphioxus and habitat reduction present unhealthy. For ecological risk evaluation, phytoplankton, zooplankton, zoobenthos and egret are in the state of fragility and alarming. Seriously fragile and the highest risk grade of plant (mangrove) and nekton (fishing ground) were found. In 2007, the integrated index of Xiamen Bay ecosystem health state was 0.41, presenting subhealthy; the integrated index of ecological risk was 0.57, presenting fragile level.At last, the relationships between ecological effects and human activities were discussed and Constructive policy and suggestions are proposed to respond to the results of coastal ecological effect assessment, which in order to maintain ecosystem health and safety. It is concluded that irrational human development activities are the root causes of unhealthness and highly risk of some of the marine plants and animals, proper development and mangegement of the coastal belt are the only way for a healthy and low risk coastal belt of Xiamen Bay. These include proper functional zoning of the coastal belt, control of marine pollution sources to minimize discharge of pollutants to the coastal water, and strict management of the marine reserve to minimize humen interference.(3) The present study established a whole index and criteria system for coastal belt ecological health and risk assessment and apllied the system in retrospective assessment practice of Xiamen Bay. It is belived that the established system is a kick-off in coastal eocologial health and risk assessment with credible results and conclusions from the case study. Further refinement of the established index and criteria system is recommended for future applications elsewhere.