Ecosystem Health Assessment And Stress Factor Analysis On Zhuhai Coastal Marine Areas

Resources exploitation in coastal zones increases with social and economicdevelopment, which brings more serious threat to marine ecosystems, coastal marineareas ecosystems in particular. Coastal ecosystem service value is the key component ofthe global ecosystem values. In this connection, the health of coastal marine areasecosystem is the premise of realizing sustainable social and economic development. It isof great significance to investigate the health condition of coastal ecosystem.This paper applies the marine ecosystem health assessment in the specific area ofZhuhai coastal marine areas. Based on summarizing researches marine ecosystems athome and abroad, this paper constitutes the health assessment system for the ecosystemof Zhuhai coastal marine areas and evaluates its health conditions. In addition, this papercontrasts its research results with that gotten by way of following the standard“Evaluation Standards for Coastal Marine Ecosystem Health”(HY/T087-2005). With theresearch results, this paper further its study on analyzing the health stress factors forZhuhai coastal marine areas ecosystems and puts forward protective measuresaccordingly, as well as provides decision support for the comprehensive management ofZhuhai coastal marine areas.The research content and results mainly include:1. Building the health evaluation system for Zhuhai coastal marine areas ecosystemand assessing its health conditions from2009to2010. The evaluation results show thatthe health evaluation index of Zhuhai coastal marine areas ecosystems is0.6827, at asub-healthy level. The evaluation result derived in reference to the standard EvaluationStandards for Coastal Marine Ecosystem Health（HY/T087-2005）also indicates thesub-healthy condition, which is consistent with the results of the research conductedaccording to the evaluation system proposed in this paper.2. Be familiar with the health conditions of Zhuhai coastal marine areas ecosystem,this paper carries out analysis on the health stress factors to Zhuhai coastal marine areasecosystems and obtains the following results: pollutant intake in Zhujiang, oceanformation for arable land, over-fishing, land-based emissions and sea pollution. Based on the health stress factors for Zhuhai coastal marine areas ecosystem, this paper putsforward regulatory and governance measures for Zhuhai coastal marine areas system,namely: Establishing coastal comprehensive management system; setting up the regionalcoordination mechanism; regulating coastal development activities; protectingecologically sensitive areas and restoring damaged ecosystems; strengthening educationon ecological protection; improving emergency mechanism for maritime environmentaldisasters.