The Socio-economic Impacts Of Global Climate Change On The Yangtze River Estuary And Coastal Regions

Since the1980s, with climate warming as a symbol, the global climate change has gradually received a high degree of attention and widespread concern from governments around the world, international organizations and scientists, which has become one of the major "global issues" facing contemporary human society Authorized by the United Nations, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published five-year assessment report on climate change issues in1990,1995,2001,2007,2012, which points out continuous impact of human activities on global climate change, and a series of global economic, social, ecological and political issues that arise. Furthermore, the scope and depth of the impact on human society will be far more than the global environmental climate problem itself. Scholars at home and abroad have conducted a lot of researches from different fields and perspectives on the global problem of climate change and its vulnerability. The research focus has shift from the world’s natural ecosystems to the global social-economic-ecological complex system, and has begun to emphasis on the impact of global climate change on human social and economic mechanisms, impact path and their corresponding impact mitigation and prevention countermeasures.The impact of global climate change on human society and economy is mostly embodied in the coastal cities and coastal areas. Because the coastal zone is the "golden zone" of the coastal countries and regions world, where population, industries, cities, wealth are clustered. Furthermore, as the combination of the land and sea known as two physiogeographic units, coastal zone is easily affected by marine disaster and coastal ecological events caused by global warming, such as exacerbated sea-level rise, storm surges, saltwater intrusion, coastal erosion and wetland ecological degradation. Especially estuarine and coastal areas where land mingles with sea and lake, human activities and natural-artificial compound ecosystem which is complex, sensitive, and fragile, once affected by the global climate change, a series of derivative effects and amplification effects are likely to happen, causing heavy casualties and social economic losses, and have significant and ripple effect on other areas. Therefore, we must focus on the research and prevention on coastal areas especially in estuarine and coastal areas.Yangtze River Delta is located in the middle of China’s coastal zone and at the mouth of the Yangtze River, which is the longest river in China and the world’s third longest river. It is known as a typical coastal region that is the most economically developed in China. Shanghai, the largest economic center, is also located in this area. However, it is also an urbanized area sensitive to global climate changes which suffers from the conflicts between human and the fragile ecological systems. Therefore, further research on social economic impacts of global climate change on coastal areas of the Yangtze River Delta means significantly to disaster prevention, city development and transformation theoretically and practically. It will also provide an important reference value to the whole country and other coastal regions worldwide about how to respond positively to the global climate change.Based on the background above, this paper presents an important finding of the National Social Science Fund named "the study of the impact of global climate change on the Yangtze River Delta in coastal areas"(item number:13BJL087). The paper also blends theory with practice and integrates knowledge from various subjects. After summarizing relevant theoretical knowledge from geography, economics, science of calamity and sociology and analyzing current researches at home and abroad, this paper chooses eight cities located in the Yangtze Estuary and coastal areas as research object for empirical analysis and uses various research methods such as variable fuzzy recognition model,"Pressure-State-Response"(PSR) framework and scenario-based simulation based on the GIS system platform to further analyze the socio-economic impact of global climate change on estuarine and coastal urbanized areas. This paper is aimed at qualitatively identifying the coupling relationship between global climate change and human socio-economic development as well as the mechanisms and pathways that how global climate change affect human society and economic development. Additionally, based on the empirical evaluation and the quantitative measure on the coordination degree of compound ecosystem and vulnerability degree to global climate change, and the simulated conditions of future spatial scenarios to global climate change in the Yangtze River estuary and coastal areas, this paper provides decision reference and empirical analysis case for both government to strengthen the preventive measures and academics to implicate further research.This paper is divided into seven chapters:The first chapter is an introduction. This chapter describes the research background, meaning, content, frameworks, methodologies, research ideas and the main technical route, where important relevant concepts are defined.The second chapter is the theoretical basis and literature review. This chapter summarizes relevant theoretical knowledge from relevant subjects closely related to climate changes such as geography, economics, science of calamity and sociology and analyzing current researches at home and abroad. This chapter qualitatively identifies the coupling relationship between global climate change and human socio-economic development as well as the mechanisms and pathways that how global climate change affect human society and economic development. This chapter also constructed a vulnerability assessment model on Yangtze River estuary coastal areas under the circumstance of climate change by summarizing the existing climate impacts and learning basic vulnerability assessment model, which laid the foundation for the full text theoretically and methodologically.The third chapter comments on the present situation and the coordination degree of social and economic environment of the Yangtze River Estuary and coastal areas. By analyzing thoroughly on the three major systems including economic, social and environmental systems, this chapter builds an assessment system to evaluate the economic, social and environmental coordination degree in this region. Through the variable fuzzy recognition model this chapter carried out quantitative assessment and comparative spatial analysis on the coordination degree of the region and eight cities in the region influenced by climate change.The fourth chapter assesses the effect of global climate change on the ecosystem of Shanghai and the Yangtze River Estuary and coastal areas. This chapter conducts time series analysis and quantitative measurement to analyze Shanghai composite ecosystem vulnerability to climate change in the period of2001-2012through the indicator of vulnerability in the aspects of exposure, sensitivity and adaption, which means that a comprehensive and comparative vulnerability assessment has been carried out in those eight cities of global climate change.The fifth chapter evaluated the spatial impact of global climate change on the urban compound ecosystem in Shanghai. This chapter selects Shanghai as a typical urbanized area. By filtering the risk factors that the most affect urban complex ecosystem of climate change, this chapter proceeds the comprehensive assessment of spatial exposure and vulnerability under the background of global climate change in selected area. Meanwhile, the assessment is based on three scenario simulation-sea level rise, land subsidence and Storm surge-in the period of the next20years (2030) to40years (2050).The sixth chapter addresses global climate change measures and countermeasures of the Yangtze River Estuary and coastal areas. Through empirical analysis, this chapter describes the guiding ideology and basic principles on climate change solutions, identifies priority areas to cope with, and has raised concretely supporting measures which can be a reference for authority’s decision-making.The Seventh Chapter is the conclusion and research prospects. This chapter summarizes the theoretical and empirical research, and proposes the prospect of further research.