Abstract
The oceans are a crucial source of natural resources for human development, as productive terrestrial resources increasingly reach their limits of economic and ecological exploitation. With increasing human impact on oceans, it is vital to maintain a sustainable human–ocean relationship. We present an indicator system and information entropy model to assess the evolution of human–ocean systems (HOSs) according to the dissipative structure theory. Sustainable development ability (SDA) scores for HOSs are calculated based on the combination-weighting model. Finally, the Richards model is used to depict the HOSs’ evolution states and periods in different coastal regions of China. The assessment indicates that total entropy is undergoing a process of negentropy; and that order degrees of HOSs are gradually improving. The results also suggest that the sustainable development levels of HOSs are continuously improving. The different coastal regions showed notable disparities of SDA and evolutionary processes, due to a differing resource base, environmental carrying capacity, and socio-economic development. Different limiting factors should determine regional policies for enhancing the SDA process; the key to sustainable development of HOS is achieving a balance between the exploitation of ocean resources for socio-economic development and conserving ecosystem services that are critical to wellbeing and livelihoods.
Highlights
Ocean ecosystems rank among the most productive ecosystems on Earth [1]
After each indicator was standardized using the Min–Max normalization method, Equation (3) was used in the information entropy model and the four types of entropy were calculated for the human–ocean systems (HOSs) in different regions
The entropy value of ΔiS2 fluctuated initially and decreased rapidly. It can be inferred from these trends that the ecological pressures of human activity on the HOSs are displaying predictable decline; pollution emission levels are falling in the coastal regions of China
Summary
Ocean ecosystems rank among the most productive ecosystems on Earth [1]. Humans—especially in coastal areas—depend on ocean systems for essential and valuable monetary (commercial activity) and non-monetary (climate regulation and food production) goods and services [2,3]. (1) overfishing; (2) dumping and spills in the ocean; (3) coastal ecosystem destruction; (4) land-based contamination; and (5) pressures associated with climate change These manifold, complex interactions and effects significantly increase levels of risk, exposure, and sensitivity of coastal communities and ocean systems and increase their vulnerability to human activities [5]; and even place the goal of “sustainable development”—the balanced socio-economic benefit of the marine environment—out of reach for some regions [6]. With these points in mind, sustainable development of the human–ocean systems (HOSs) has long been a focus of research and policy initiatives, despite the difficulties of understanding the relationships between multiple human activities and the status of HOSs [7]
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