Primary Study On Ecological Impact Assessment For Urbanization In Luchao Harbor Area

Shanghai will be an international shipping center in the world. It is necessary to development a new harbor city near the Yangshan International Container Port. The New Harbor City is located at Luchao Harbor area in Shanghai Nanhui District, which would be an ecological city. This program was started in the year of 2002 and will be finished in 2020. The total development area is 160 km2, of which the city region is 95 km2.It is significant and indispensable to carry out environment impact assessment (EIA) in development area. EIA is the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made. EIA is a necessary process contributing to the management of ecologically sustainable development. It is one of the main tools used to minimize environmental degradation associated with human activities. It can anticipate and avoid, minimize or offset the adverse significant biophysical, social and other relevant effects of development proposals, and optimizes resource use and management opportunities.Based on investigating numerous references in literature both at homes and abroad, collection statistical data and field survey, EIA guidelines (such as ), EIA basic and operating principles, G1S software and urbanization proposals, the ecological impact assessment was analyzed in four aspects:1) To investigate and collect data and information of current condition in programming area, and the introduction of the development project;2) Ecological assessment: to practise ecological assessment for regional state, analyze the characteristic of ecosystem structure, ecological function, diversity, landscapepattern and ecological environmental sensitive area.3) Ecological impact assessment: to emphasize impact analysis caused by proposal and mitigation and impact management.In this process, to identify and predict the likely environmental and other related effects of the proposal, establish the measures that are necessary to avoid, minimize or offset predicted adverse impacts and, where appropriate, to incorporate these into an environmental management plan or system.4) Environmental indicator system for eco-cityAn environmental indexes framework for New Harbor City was established, which is composed of four hierarchical levels and three subsystems. Environmental indicator system can serve as basis not only for assessing state of city environment, also for decision-making , environmental management and monitoring.The research shows that:(1) Ecological impact assessment is desirable, whenever possible, if monitoring, evaluation and management plan indicators are designed so they also contribute to local, national and global monitoring of the state of the environment and sustainable development.(2) Though the proposals will optimize resource use and promote region development, it also can make negative influence on the ecosystem. Consequently, it is essential to implement effective and timely mitigation and impact management. Furthermore, eco-city is the best way for sustainable development.In addition, there are some deficiencies in this document. The study on assessment matrix and regional ecological risk assessment should be continued in future.