Study On Coastal Utilization Planning Of Chanthaburi Province,Thailand

Marine spatial planning(MSP)is an effective way to manage marine areas while achieving sustainable development.Coastal utilization planning is a significant part of MSP for coastal zone management.The status of MSP in Thailand is in the initial step.Planning and implementing this management type and integrating all sectors takes a long time.Chanthaburi is located on the east coast of Thailand.It is one of the areas which are most famous for its tropical fruits.Moreover,this province is also a tourist destination in Thailand.Recently,the utilization of Chanthaburi's coastal area is developing rapidly,especially in terms of its tourism,agriculture and aquaculture.Coastal zone utilization without planning results in coastal resource degradation and multiple environmental conflicts.To reduce these problems and to archive the sustainable development of Chanthaburi's coastal area,research on an adaptive approach of coastal utilization planning with the marine spatial planning concept is urgent.This research focuses on the coastal environmental status and coastal utilization based on the analysis of key problems in Chanthaburi.Coastal utilization planning with the MSP concept is proposed to provide solution guidelines,reduce problems,and ease conflicts between the human and coastal environments.This research could be a useful approach for integrated coastal management and the sustainable development of Chanthaburi Province.Chanthaburi has many valuable coastal natural resources,such as mangroves,coral reefs,seagrasses and rare marine species.There have been significant changes in the coastal utilization of Chanthaburi Province during recent decades with increasing coastal aquaculture and urbanization.Although the forest area,including the mangrove and dense forest,increased during the past five years,its area has been seriously invaded compared with that 20 years ago.The coastal environmental problems and conflicts in Chanthaburi Province involve two main aspects:conflict between the coastal environment and human activities and conflict between different human activities.The former includes the conflict among mangrove resources,shrimp farming,and urbanization,conflict between coral reef and seagrass resources and tourism activities,conflict among rare marine animals,fishery activities,and marine debris and conflict between fishery resources and fishery activities.The latter includes the conflict between local and commercial fisheries,and the conflict between the government and the fishermen.The coastal zoning schemes of Chanthaburi have been developed from marine functional zoning in China considering the coastal situation of natural resource and development in Chanthaburi Province.There are 12 types of areas,and 19 subtypes have been defined.The main types are marine protected areas,forest conservation,agricultural areas,aquacultural areas,industrial areas,urbanization areas,fishing areas,transportation areas,tourism and recreation areas,port shipping areas,special areas and reserved areas.Coastal spatial analysis has been conducted with potential surface analysis,which is a spatial analysis that uses weighting and rating values of related factors from GIS.The related spatial data include basic geographical data,coastal resource data,related laws,social and economic data such as coastal utilization and provincial plan data.Every factor is taken into account to define the potential area in ArcGIS.The area of each type was classified into areas with high,moderate,and low potential.The high-potential area of each type delimits suitable areas.The coastal utilization planning map in the coastal area of Chanthaburi is proposed,including 11 types and 16 subtypes.The objective of utilization can be classified into four levels.The first level includes marine protected areas consisting of mangroves,coral reefs and seagrasses and rare marine species.The first level is strictly prohibited to all human activities to preserve the natural situation.The second level includes forest conservation areas,which are focused on forest conservation and reforestation and prohibit wildlife hunting.The areas of the second level can undergo conservation measures,such as replantation,restoration and scientific research.The third level reflects development areas,which include agricultural,aquacultural,industrial,urbanization,transportation,fishing,and port shipping areas.The third level is the main developing area in the next ten years in Chanthaburi.The fourth level represents reserved areas that would be protected under natural situation for future suitable utilization.