From Coastal Management to Integrated Terrestrial Planning: Evolution of China’s Marine Spatial Planning System

Abstract

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has emerged as an integrated policy tool, which seeks to identify and manage different uses of the sea in a conducted manner to increase what has become known as blue growth opportunities and address marine environmental issues caused by land-sea interactions. In the historical geography of China's marine temporal and spatial development, the past MSP, whether it was a real or institutionalized system, is the basis for the interaction and temporal understanding of Chinese human-sea relationship, from which experience and lessons would be learned. The development of MSP in China origins following the implementation of the opening-up policy of 1979. These key phases of the development of the MSP system can be identified and there have been significant changes in the geographical extent and aim of MSP. In this paper, we not only explain the emergence of integrated terrestrial planning (containing land and sea) in the context of what has been happening within China but also clarify some of the challenges facing the new integrated and broad terrestrial approach, which considers the land and sea as being a single territory.