Tendency of land reclamation in coastal areas of Shanghai from 1998 to 2015

Abstract

Coastal land reclamation is one of the major human interventions in the coastal areas, it is a process undergo in many parts of the world. Land reclamation supplies land for development with urgent needs for coastal cities, and creates the opportunity for rapid urbanization, however, it also influences the integrity of the coastal ecosystem and results in a decline in biodiversity and ecosystem services. Over-exploitation and unreasonable use of coastal land has been a major issue and became a threat to ecological security in China. This paper analyzed the coastal land expansion and utilization process from 1980 to 2015 in Shanghai through remote sensing image processing and field investigations. The process of land reclamation in Shanghai and the effect of land use transformation on natural wetlands and the quality of the natural habitat are explored by analyzing land use and land cover change and modeling ecosystem services change by Integrated valuation of ecosystem services and tradeoffs (InVEST) model. The results show that the urban ‘ocean sprawl’ in Shanghai has increased by ∼10 % from 1980 to 2015 which transformed natural wetlands into construction land significantly. Despite strict control over the quality of reclamation projects and appropriate compensation with artificial wetlands, the natural habitat damage caused by reclamation increases exponentially in the past few decades. Recently the policies have changed from encouraging human reclamation to prohibit all kinds of land reclamation programs from national to local scales. It has major policy implications for future coastal habitat conservation. This paper gives an overview of the land reclamation in Shanghai and its impact on natural habitat that can foster the related policies to promote healthier and more reasonable urbanization during the economic transformation.