Monitoring and analysis of coastal reclamation from 1995\u20132015 in Tianjin Binhai New Area, China

Wengang Chen,Xiangwang Wei,Feicui Wang,Dongchuan Wang,Liding Chen,Lihui Zhang,Bingxu Hu,Mengqin Sang,Yong Huang,Jinya Liu

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04155-0

Abstract

Increasing coastal reclamation activities have been undertaken to solve the conflict between people and land resources, creating significant challenges for coordinating coastal reclamation, economic development and environmental protection. This paper analyzes the effects of coast reclamation on Gross Domestic Product growth and the quality of inshore seawater in the Tianjin Binhai New Area. Remote sensing and a Geographic Information System were used to extract the information of coastal reclamation. The correlation between the area of coastal reclamation, GDP growth and the quality of inshore seawater was analyzed and a decoupling elasticity model was used to explore trends in the relationship between economic development and coastal reclamation. Results showed that coastal reclamation activities played an important role in promoting economic development, but greatly damaged the ecological environment. Although the relationship between coastal reclamation and economic development has weakened during the last three periods, the influence on the environment will continue because of the cumulative effects of pollution. To maintain a balance between coastal reclamation, economic development and environmental protection, (1) coastal reclamation planning must address both economic and environmental outcomes; (2) environmental deficiencies from existing coastal reclamation projects must be rectified; and (3) the legal system regulating coastal reclamation needs to be refined and strengthened.

Highlights

Driven by an increasing need for land resources, more and more reclamation activities are occurring in coastal areas around the world
Coastal reclamation during this period mainly occurred in the Nangang industrial zone, the Harbor industrial zone, Nanjiang port, Beijiang port, Dongjiang port and the Binhai leisure zone, covering a large region but with a relatively small area of change
The natural coastline influenced by human activities shows irreversible changes, which have a severe impact on the marine ecological environment

Summary

Introduction

Driven by an increasing need for land resources, more and more reclamation activities are occurring in coastal areas around the world. Perkins et al.[25] reviewed the nature of ecological impacts of coastal structures, finding that coastal structures alter important physical, chemical and biological processes of inter tidal habitats and strongly impact community structure, inter-habitat linkages and ecosystem services while driving habitat loss These researches highlighted some of the problems relevant to the planning and management of coastal reclamation. Some works[26,27,28] have analyzed the changes in coastlines and their effects on the ecological environment This is of great significance for the planning and management of coastal reclamation and the coordinated development of coastal reclamation and sea water resources protection. Both economic development and environmental protection should be included in the process of coastal reclamation

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion