Abstract
Gaomei wetlands are national Taiwanese coastal wetlands. Over the past few years, they have grown into an important water bird habitat and popular bird-watching location. However, the rapid growth in tourism has begun to affect the environmental quality in the Gaomei wetlands. This study combined ecosystem services (ES) and ecological footprint (EF) assessments to evaluate the sustainability status according to the features of each ecosystem service for the different Gaomei wetlands land uses. The results found that (a) the total Gaomei wetlands ecosystem service value increased from 59.24 million TWD in 2008 to 98.10 million TWD in 2015, and the ecosystem service function was continuously improving; (b) the EF increased by 56.12% over 8 years; and (c) there was a negative growth rate of 106.54% in the ecological deficit (ED) in the sustainable ecological evaluation indicators (SEEI). The ecological footprint index (EFI) in 2015 was at Level 4 at 1.02, and the environmental sustainability index (ESI) was at Level 3 at 0.49. Results show that Gaomei wetlands have a low sustainability; therefore, the local, regional, and national governments need to implement regulations to strictly control the Gaomei wetlands land use. This study demonstrated that ES and EF theory application can give an objective guidance to decision-makers to ensure that wetlands eco-security can be maintained at safe levels.
Highlights
As outlined in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of the United Nations, wetlands are one of the most threatened ecosystem in the world, with biodiversity loss being the major concern
As the Gaomei wetlands have been evolving in the past few years from a primarily agriculturally based economy to a primarily tourism based economy, there have been several recent studies focused on tourist behavior and local tourism support initiatives [50,51,52]
Ai × f ij × Ea × Sk × Tk where ESV is the total ecosystem service value; Ai is the distribution area for the ith type of land use and land cover; f ij is the equivalence factor for the jth ecosystem goods and services item provided by the ith ecosystem; Ea is the production per unit area or the ecosystem service value coefficient; Sk is a K coefficient for regional differences; Tk is a K regional service support coefficient; i is the land use and land covers in the different ecosystems; j is the ecosystem service category
Summary
As outlined in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of the United Nations, wetlands are one of the most threatened ecosystem in the world, with biodiversity loss being the major concern. Wackernagel and Rees (2000) proposed that the EF magnitude was directly proportional to the environmental impact (the greater the EF, the greater the environmental impact), and was inversely proportional to the per-capita usable area of biologically productive land (the greater the EF, the smaller the per-capita usable area of biologically productive land) [49] It is a widely used measure in the field of ecological economics as it is a quantitative indicator that is easy to understand and calculate. This paper first combines the ecosystem services and ecological footprint models to evaluate the sustainability status based on each of the ecosystem service features for the different Gaomei wetlands land use covers, after which the ecosystem service values are calculated. The problems identified by the different indicator values are evaluated to develop a systematic measurement apparatus to encourage sustainable development and to review the evolution in sustainable development trends
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