Does the marine environmental carrying capacity of the Yellow Sea’s large marine ecosystem maintain sustainable development? – Evidence from Shandong China

Abstract

Under the framework of sustainable development of the marine economy, much consideration has been given to various coastal states for the large marine ecosystem (LME) concept. The Yellow Sea LME (YSLME) is one of the most heavily exploited LMEs in the world, and its sustainable development has been heavily threatened by human activities, with negative impacts on the economies of bordering countries, such as China. With the aim of mitigating environmental threats by developing a low-carbon economy based on low pollution, low energy consumption and low emission, an index system for evaluating marine environmental carrying capacity (MECC) was established in this study based on the entropy method, and gray relation analysis (GRA) was carried out to assess the MECC of three main coastal cities (Qingdao, Yantai and Weihai) along the YSLME in China. The results verified the importance of the environmental carrying capacities (ECCs) of marine resources, marine economy and marine environmental governance for the sustainable development of the YSLME, and revealed paths for improving the MECC of the studied cities. Based on the results, suggestions for ecosystem-based management of a low-carbon economy were provided to help government departments to reasonably develop and utilize marine resources, protect the marine environment and implement sustainable development strategies.