The ecological footprint study of marine fisheries in Liaoning Province of China based on system dynamics

Abstract

Since the end of the 20th century, with the rapid development of the marine economy, the marine environment of Liaoning Province in China was under tremendous pressure andthe fishery resources have been in serious decline. The marine fishing output of Liaoning Province was reduced from 1.502×107 t in 2000 to 5.244×106 t in 2018. Using STELLA software as the modeling platform, we followed the basic steps of system dynamics modeling (SD model), combined with the principle of ecological footprint of fisheries to establish theSD model of ecological footprint of fisheries in Liaoning Province of China, and applied thefuzzy evaluation method to comprehensively evaluate the ecological carrying capacity ofLiaoning marine area. The results show that marine fishery resources in Liaoning Provincehave been in ecological deficit and unsustainable development. The ecological footprint of fisheries in Liaoning Province has increased from 1.08×107 km2 to 1.88×107 km2 with an average value of 1.60×107 km2 between 2000 and 2018, which is already higher than the ecological carrying capacity of 3.20×106 km2 and about 5 times of the carrying capacity, which means that fishing pressure needs to be reduced to at least 20% of its current level for the ecological footprint of fisheries to rebound and for the ecological deficit to decrease steadily, thus preventing an ecosystem collapse. Keywords: Ecological footprint of fisheries; Liaoning fishery resources; System dynamics; STELLA software