College of the Environment & Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, China; Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Feb 15;615:572-580. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.309. Epub 2017 Oct 6.
Decision-makers often have to make trade-offs between economic growth and environmental conservation when developing and managing coastal environments. Coastal development and management need to be subject to rigorous assessments to determine if they are sustainable over time. We propose a methodological framework - the Coastal Development Index (CDI) for the assessment of the changes in sustainability of coastal development over time. CDI is a modified version of the Ocean Health Index (OHI) but with two new indicators - ecological and environmental indicators (EEI), and social and economic indicators (SEI), both of which comprise three sub-indicators (coastal protection, clean waters and species protection for EEI, and food provision, coastal livelihoods and economies and tourism and recreation for SEI). The six sub-indicators represent key aspects of coastal development and the level of exploitation of natural resources that have previously been missing in other conceptual frameworks. We demonstrate the value of CDI with a detailed case study of Fujian Province in China, 2000-2013. The scores of CDI decreased from 1.01 in 2000 to 0.42 in 2013 suggesting that the Fujian coastal zone has experienced unsustainable development in that time. Meanwhile, the scores of EEI decreased from 22.1 to 20.4 while the scores of SEI increased from 21.9 to 48.1 suggesting that environmental values have been eroded by economic growth. Analysis of the scores of sub-indicators reveals a need to integrate economic growth and social development with environmental conservation on Fujian coastal management. Our case study highlights the potential value of the CDI for improving the ecological sustainability of coastal zone management and development practices.
决策者在开发和管理沿海环境时，经常不得不在经济增长和环境保护之间进行权衡。沿海开发和管理需要进行严格评估，以确定其是否具有可持续性。我们提出了一种方法框架——沿海发展指数（CDI），用于评估沿海开发可持续性随时间的变化。CDI 是海洋健康指数（OHI）的修改版本，但增加了两个新指标——生态和环境指标（EEI）和社会和经济指标（SEI），这两个指标都包含三个子指标（海岸保护、清洁水和物种保护为 EEI，以及食品供应、沿海生计和经济以及旅游和娱乐为 SEI）。这六个子指标代表了沿海开发的关键方面和自然资源的开发程度，这在以前的概念框架中是缺失的。我们通过对中国福建省 2000-2013 年的详细案例研究展示了 CDI 的价值。CDI 的得分从 2000 年的 1.01 下降到 2013 年的 0.42，表明福建沿海地区在这段时间经历了不可持续的发展。同时，EEI 的得分从 22.1 下降到 20.4，而 SEI 的得分从 21.9 上升到 48.1，这表明经济增长导致环境价值受到侵蚀。对子指标得分的分析表明，福建沿海管理需要将经济增长和社会发展与环境保护相结合。我们的案例研究强调了 CDI 提高沿海带管理和发展实践生态可持续性的潜在价值。
