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Anthropogenic activities and coastal environmental quality: a regional quantitative analysis in southeast China with management implications

  • Environmental Quality Benchmarks for Aquatic Ecosystem Protection: Derivation and Application
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Abstract

Regional analysis of environmental issues has always been a hot topic in the field of sustainable development. Because the different levels of economic growth, urbanization, resource endowments, etc. in different regions generate apparently different ecological responses, a better description and comparison across different regions will provide more valuable implications for ecological improvement and policymaking. In this study, seven typical bays in southeast China that are a rapid developing area were selected to quantitatively analyze the relationship between socioeconomic development and coastal environmental quality. Based on the water quality data from 2007 to 2015, the multivariate statistical method was applied to analyze the potential environmental risks and to classify the seven bays based on their environmental quality status. The possible variation trends of environmental indices were predicted based on the cross-regional panel data by Environmental Kuznets Curve. The results showed that there were significant regional differences among the seven bays, especially Quanzhou, Xiamen, and Luoyuan Bays, suffered from severer artificial disturbances than other bays, despite their different development patterns. Socioeconomic development level was significantly associated with some water quality indices (pH, DIN, PO4–P); the association was roughly positive: the areas with higher GDP per capita have some worse water quality indices. In addition, the decreasing trend of pH values and the increasing trend of nutrient concentration in the seven bays will continue in the foreseeable future. In consideration of the variation trends, the limiting nutrient strategy should be implemented to mitigate the deterioration of the coastal environments.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41576180), the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province, China (No. 2012J05078 and 2014J06014), the Doctoral Fund of Shandong Province, China (No. BS2014SF011), and the Basal Research Fund of Xiamen University (No. 2072010507). Thanks are also given to the Fujian Marine Environment and Fishery Resource Monitoring Center for providing historical water quality data and to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the earlier draft of this paper. We are also grateful to Professor John Hodgkiss for his assistance with the English in this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coastal and Ocean Management Institute, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, China

    Kai Chen & Minggang Cai

  2. Department of Finance, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Yan Liu

  3. Fujian Marine Environment and Fishery Resources Monitoring Center, Fuzhou, 350003, China

    Dongren Huang & Huorong Chen

  4. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Minggang Cai

  5. College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, China

    Hongwei Ke, Shengyun Yang & Minggang Cai

  6. School of Economics and Management, Northwest University, Xi’an, 710127, China

    Songbin Zhang

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  1. Kai Chen
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  2. Yan Liu
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Correspondence to Yan Liu or Minggang Cai.

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Chen, K., Liu, Y., Huang, D. et al. Anthropogenic activities and coastal environmental quality: a regional quantitative analysis in southeast China with management implications. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 3093–3107 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9147-6

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