Coordination of Marine Functional Zoning Revision at the Provincial and Municipal Levels: A Case Study of Putian, China

Faming Huang,Jie Lin,Rongrong Zhao,Jinliang Huang,Huixin Liang,Qiuming Chen,Yanhong Lin

doi:10.3390/jmse7120442

Abstract

Marine functional zoning (MFZ) is a type of marine spatial planning (MSP) implemented widely in China and one of the three major systems defined in the Law of the PRC on the Administration of Sea Area Use. China adopts “top-down management” for MFZ, in which upper management levels impose clear constraints and restrictions on lower levels. However, this approach has led to issues, such as a rigid MFZ classification system and unreasonable re-allocation of control indicators in the process of assigning MFZ classification at different levels. In this study, we propose and demonstrate the coordination of MFZ revision in terms of the classification system and the re-allocation of control indicators in the coastal city of Putian, China. The results show that the proposed measures could help realize the effective and reasonable coordination of MFZ revisions at the provincial and municipal levels, providing a reference for such MFZ revisions in other regions of China and the coordination of MSP between different levels in other countries.

Highlights

Major coastal countries mostly implement marine management using marine spatial planning (MSP)
The Chinese government applies a “top-down” strategy for marine management in which most decision-making power is held by the state council at the highest levels of government, who are responsible for re-allocating resources and resolving conflicts between different departments
It can be seen that the expert opinions focus on the answers to the three questions Q1, Q2, and Q4, while the comments of government managers focused on the answer to Q3 because they were more familiar with the various situations of different sea areas

Summary

Introduction

Major coastal countries mostly implement marine management using marine spatial planning (MSP). The application of MSP can help resolve conflicts between human activities and limited maritime resources by regulating the spatial and temporal distribution of human behavior, thereby promoting the realization of marine management based on the marine ecosystem [1,2,3]. In China, marine functional zoning (MFZ) is a major implementation of MSP as one of the three major systems defined in the Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the Administration of Sea Area Use. Most western maritime countries, such as the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, have adopted “bottom-up” management, in which higher government levels act only to guide the strategy and policy implementations of the lower levels [6]. First-level zoning determines the overall management requirements of the sea area [10]

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion