Implementing Regional Sea Use Planning system in China: Evolution, drivers and experiences

Abstract

The Regional Sea Use Planning (RSUP) system, initiated in 2006 and terminated in 2018 in China, required a concentrated layout and unified planning for multiple reclamation projects in the same coastal area to improve reclamation management. In this study, we investigated the driving factors and challenges by analysing policy evolution, temporal and spatial changes of the approved reclamation area under RSUP system, and utilisation efficiency of reclamation land. Our results show that the progress of RSUP in China was strongly influenced by macro policies and the economy, local industrial structure, and bottom-level governance system. First, RSUP items increased steadily from 2006 to 2008, peaked from 2009 to 2012, and decreased sharply thereafter, indicating that the policy adjustment and the trend of economic fluctuation has played a crucial role in promoting or controlling reclamation. Second, the reclamation scale curve of each coastal region was highly consistent with the proportion curve of the marine secondary industry. This implies that the coastal industrial structure largely relied on traditional land-based secondary industry has led to a surge in RSUP items. Moreover, the reclamation completion rate of 79.7% and construction rate of 24.8% exposed the excessive conversion of the sea to land, and the main reason is that the bottom-up governance process of the RSUP system did not coincide with its top-down decision-making process. Hence, adaptive management is an important approach for coastal reclamation policymaking, marine industrial structure should be redesigned to become less dependent on secondary industry, and the bottom-level governance system must be improved to connect effectively to the top-level design. The experiences gained from China's RSUP system are highly important and relevant even to other countries, as the policy implications from this study would inform reclamation and other sea use management policies.