Ecological Compensation Mechanism Based Approaches For Coastal Ecosystem Management And Planning Under Uncertainty

Rapid social and economic development, characterized by industrialization, urbanization, population growth, and expansion of human activity, exacerbates the conflicts between high requirements for natural resources and the limited and irreversible ecosystem reserves, which, in turn, hinders the social and economic sustainable development in the long run. Thus, effective regional planning plays a significant role for promoting the regional ecosystem protection as well as the sustainable socio-economic development. However, such a planning may encounter difficulties since uncertainties existing in a number of impact factors and ecosystem-related processes are often not well acknowledged and reflected. Therefore, the objective of this study is to advance optimization approaches to handle such uncertainties in regional ecosystems for supporting rational local decision-making. Firstly, based on ecosystem services valuation approaches, an interval-fuzzy regional ecosystem management (IF-REM) model is developed, and then applied to a real case of planning regional ecosystem development in New Binhai District of Tianjin. Secondly, according toeco-compensation mechism, a relative interval-regret analysis (RIRA) method is proposed, and then applied to a real case of Dongying, where the natural ecosystem has suffered the severe degradation induced by large-scale land reclamation projects along the coastal line. The results of the IF-REM model reveal that, although large-scale reclamation projects can bring benefits and make a significant contribution to local economic development, they can also result in many negative effects to the coastal ecosystem, such as endangering animals and plants, changing intrinsic gas regulation, as well as altering natural nutrient cycling. Moreover, the results of the RIRA model indicate that eco-compensation cost is much higher than the cost for reclaimed land use, revealing that eco-compensation mechism is desried forcurbing excessive reclamation activities. In a word, IF-REM and RIRA models can facilitate the local decision makers in not only considering regional ecosystem integrity but also gaining insights into the tradeoff between socio-economic development and eco-environmental sustainability.