Chinese Marginal Seas Case Study Group

Topic: Eco-environmental assessment and sustainability for the Chinese marginal seas

Key Issues

The Chinese marginal seas are surrounded by land regions with a rapid population rise and economic development, which have resulted in the adjacent coastal water experiencing the strong stress of human perturbation and have imposed on the already stressed marine ecosystems affected by climate change. The objective of the Chinese marginal seas case study is to to understand the impacts of major societal needs on the eco-environment of Chinese marginal seas and their further consequences to human well-being, to provide knowledge base for actions toward healthier ecosystems and sustained ecosystem services, and to meet the Grand Challenges in the earth system for sustainability.

• Eutrophication and pollution status: past, present, and future;
• Mariculture and its sustainability;
• Service variability and sustainable management.

Tasks

The ecological environments of Chinese marginal seas are experiencing eutrophication, pollution, and changing freshwater input, massive and intensive aquaculture, over-fishing, excess land reclamation, course shifts, land use change, and climate change; the effects of which may have disproportionately large impacts, which restricted the sustainability of Chinese marginal seas ecosystem and their contributions to human well-being.

Task 1: The ecosystem and physicochemical environment change in the last 50 years (led by Su Mei Liu, Ocean University of China)

Task 2: Impacts of mariculture on eco-environment and options for sustainable sea food supply (led by Zeng-Jie Jiang, Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

Task 3: Integrated spatial planning for food-secure and carbon neutral blue economy (led by Hui Liu, Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

Task 4: China’s Blue Carbon Ecosystems in the context of global change: evolvement, conservation and management (led by Qin-Hua Fang, Xiamen University)

Task 5: Occurrence, ecological impact/risks and prevention strategies of normal and emerging pollutants in coastal and marginal seas (co-led by Jianhui Tang, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Xindong Ma, National Marine Environmental Monitoring Center, Ministry of Ecology and Environment)

Task 6: Coastal zone management and policy in the context of sustainable development goals (led by Jia-Yu Bai, Nankai University)