Economic development and coastal ecosystem change in China.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: He Q
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4125988 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Between approximately 5,800 and 3,600 cal B.P. the biggest architectural monuments and largest settlements in the Western Hemisphere flourished in the Supe Valley and adjacent desert drainages of the arid Peruvian coast. Intensive net fishing, irrigated orchards, and fields of cotton with scant comestibles successfully sustained centuries of increasingly complex societies that did not use ceramics or loom-based weaving. This unique socioeconomic adaptation was abruptly abandoned and gradually replaced by societies more reliant on food crops, pottery, and weaving. Here, we review evidence and arguments for a severe cycle of natural disasters-earthquakes, El Niño flooding, beach ridge formation, and sand dune incursion-at approximately 3,800 B.P. and hypothesize that ensuing physical changes to marine and terrestrial environments contributed to the demise of early Supe settlements.
| S-EPMC2635784 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Coastal habitats, such as salt marshes and dune systems, can protect communities from hazards by reducing coastline exposure. However, these critical habitats and their diverse ecosystem services are threatened by coastal development and the impacts from a changing climate. Ever increasing pressure on coastal habitats calls for coastal climate adaptation efforts that mitigate or adapt to these pressures in ways that maintain the integrity of coastal landscapes. An important challenge for decisionmakers is determining the best mitigation and adaptation strategies that not only protect human lives and property, but also safeguard the ability of coastal habitats to provide a broad suite of benefits. Here, we present a potential pathway for local-scale climate change adaptation planning through the identification and mapping of natural habitats that provide the greatest benefits to coastal communities. The methodology coupled a coastal vulnerability model with a climate adaptation policy assessment in an effort to identify priority locations for nature-based solutions that reduce vulnerability of critical assets using feasible land-use policy methods. Our results demonstrate the critical role of natural habitats in providing the ecosystem service of coastal protection in California. We found that specific dune habitats play a key role in reducing erosion and inundation of the coastline and that several wetland areas help to absorb energy from storms and provide a protective service for the coast of Marin county, California, USA. Climate change and adaptation planning are globally relevant issues in which the scalability and transferability of solutions must be considered. This work outlines an iterative approach for climate adaptation planning at a local-scale, with opportunity to consider the scalability of an iterative science-policy engagement approach to regional, national, and international levels.
| S-EPMC9415443 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Among the earliest consequences of climate change are extreme weather and rising sea levels-two challenges to which coastal environments are particularly vulnerable. Often found in coastal settings are microbial mats-complex, stratified microbial ecosystems that drive massive nutrient fluxes through biogeochemical cycles and have been important constituents of Earth's biosphere for eons. Little Ambergris Cay, in the Turks and Caicos Islands, supports extensive mats that vary sharply with relative water level. We characterized the microbial communities across this variation to understand better the emerging threat of sea level rise. In September 2017, the eyewall of category 5 Hurricane Irma transited the island. We monitored the impact and recovery from this devastating storm event. New mat growth proceeded rapidly, with patterns suggesting that storm perturbation may facilitate the adaptation of these ecosystems to changing sea level. Sulfur cycling, however, displayed hysteresis, stalling for >10 months after the hurricane and likely altering carbon storage potential.
| S-EPMC9140962 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This paper optimises projected land-use structure in 2020 with the goal of increasing terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage and simulates its spatial distribution using the CLUE-S model. We found the following: The total carbon densities of different land use types were woodland > water area > cultivated land > built-up land > grassland > shallows. Under the optimised land-use structure projected for 2020, coastal Jiangsu showed the potential to increase carbon storage, and our method was effective even when only considering vegetation carbon storage. The total area will increase by reclamation and the original shallows will be exploited, which will greatly increase carbon storage. For built-up land, rural land consolidation caused the second-largest carbon storage increase, which might contribute the most as the rural population will continue to decrease in the future, while the decrease of cultivated land will contribute the most to carbon loss. The area near the coastline has the greatest possibility for land-use change and is where land management should be especially strengthened.
| S-EPMC4092344 | biostudies-other
Project description:Global change is leading to warming, acidification, and oxygen loss in the ocean. In the Southern California Bight, an eastern boundary upwelling system, these stressors are exacerbated by the localized discharge of anthropogenically enhanced nutrients from a coastal population of 23 million people. Here, we use simulations with a high-resolution, physical-biogeochemical model to quantify the link between terrestrial and atmospheric nutrients, organic matter, and carbon inputs and biogeochemical change in the coastal waters of the Southern California Bight. The model is forced by large-scale climatic drivers and a reconstruction of local inputs via rivers, wastewater outfalls, and atmospheric deposition; it captures the fine scales of ocean circulation along the shelf; and it is validated against a large collection of physical and biogeochemical observations. Local land-based and atmospheric inputs, enhanced by anthropogenic sources, drive a 79% increase in phytoplankton biomass, a 23% increase in primary production, and a nearly 44% increase in subsurface respiration rates along the coast in summer, reshaping the biogeochemistry of the Southern California Bight. Seasonal reductions in subsurface oxygen, pH, and aragonite saturation state, by up to 50 mmol m-3, 0.09, and 0.47, respectively, rival or exceed the global open-ocean oxygen loss and acidification since the preindustrial period. The biological effects of these changes on local fisheries, proliferation of harmful algal blooms, water clarity, and submerged aquatic vegetation have yet to be fully explored.
| S-EPMC8166049 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThe Firth of Clyde is a large inlet of the sea that extends over 100 km into Scotland's west coast.MethodsWe compiled detailed fisheries landings data for this area and combined them with historical accounts to build a picture of change due to fishing activity over the last 200 years.FindingsIn the early 19th century, prior to the onset of industrial fishing, the Firth of Clyde supported diverse and productive fisheries for species such as herring (Clupea harengus, Clupeidae), cod (Gadus morhua, Gadidae), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus, Gadidae), turbot (Psetta maxima, Scophthalmidae) and flounder (Platichthys flesus, Pleuronectidae). The 19th century saw increased demand for fish, which encouraged more indiscriminate methods of fishing such as bottom trawling. During the 1880s, fish landings began to decline, and upon the recommendation of local fishers and scientists, the Firth of Clyde was closed to large trawling vessels in 1889. This closure remained in place until 1962 when bottom trawling for Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus, Nephropidae) was approved in areas more than three nautical miles from the coast. During the 1960s and 1970s, landings of bottomfish increased as trawling intensified. The trawl closure within three nautical miles of the coast was repealed in 1984 under pressure from the industry. Thereafter, bottomfish landings went into terminal decline, with all species collapsing to zero or near zero landings by the early 21st century. Herring fisheries collapsed in the 1970s as more efficient mid-water trawls and fish finders were introduced, while a fishery for mid-water saithe (Pollachius virens, Gadidae) underwent a boom and bust shortly after discovery in the late 1960s. The only commercial fisheries that remain today are for Nephrops and scallops (Pecten maximus, Pectinidae).SignificanceThe Firth of Clyde is a marine ecosystem nearing the endpoint of overfishing, a time when no species remain that are capable of sustaining commercial catches. The evidence suggests that trawl closures helped maintain productive fisheries through the mid-20th century, and their reopening precipitated collapse of bottomfish stocks. We argue that continued intensive bottom trawling for Nephrops with fine mesh nets will prevent the recovery of other species. This once diverse and highly productive environment will only be restored if trawl closures or other protected areas are re-introduced. The Firth of Clyde represents at a small scale a process that is occurring ocean-wide today, and its experience serves as a warning to others.
| S-EPMC2912323 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Increasing levels of global trade and intercontinental travel have been cited as the major causes of biological invasion. However, indirect factors such as economic development that affect the intensity of invasion have not been quantitatively explored. Herein, using principal factor analysis, we investigated the relationship between biological invasion and economic development together with climatic information for China from the 1970s to present. We demonstrate that the increase in biological invasion is coincident with the rapid economic development that has occurred in China over the past three decades. The results indicate that the geographic prevalence of invasive species varies substantially on the provincial scale, but can be surprisingly well predicted using the combination of economic development (R(2) = 0.378) and climatic factors (R(2) = 0.347). Economic factors are proven to be at least equal to if not more determinant of the occurrence of invasive species than climatic factors. International travel and trade are shown to have played a less significant role in accounting for the intensity of biological invasion in China. Our results demonstrate that more attention should be paid to economic factors to improve the understanding, prediction and management of biological invasions.
| S-EPMC2065902 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Helping the world's coastal communities adapt to climate change impacts requires evaluating the vulnerability of coastal communities and assessing adaptation options. This includes understanding the potential for 'natural' infrastructure (ecosystems and the biodiversity that underpins them) to reduce communities' vulnerability, alongside more traditional 'hard' infrastructure approaches. Here we present a spatially explicit global evaluation of the vulnerability of coastal-dwelling human populations to key climate change exposures and explore the potential for coastal ecosystems to help people adapt to climate change (ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA)). We find that mangroves and coral reefs are particularly well situated to help people cope with current weather extremes, a function that will only increase in importance as people adapt to climate change now and in coming decades. We find that around 30.9 million people living within 2km of the coast are highly vulnerable to tropical storms and sea-level rise (SLR). Mangroves and coral reefs overlap these threats to at least 5.3 and 3.4 million people, respectively, with substantial potential to dissipate storm surges and improve resilience against SLR effects. Significant co-benefits from mangroves also accrue, with 896 million metric tons of carbon stored in their soils and above- and below-ground biomass. Our framework offers a tool for prioritizing 'hotspots' of coastal EbA potential for further, national and local analyses to quantify risk reduction and, thereby, guide investment in coastal ecosystems to help people adapt to climate change. In doing so, it underscores the global role that conserving and restoring ecosystems can play in protecting human lives and livelihoods, as well as biodiversity, in the face of climate change.
| S-EPMC7259744 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Integrating ecosystem services supply-demand relationships into ecological management zoning is a hot topic. Most studies have focused on the matching relationship between the supply and demand of ecosystem services. However, the extent to which both are coordinated at different matching levels is ignored, that is, whether ecosystem services supply and demand tend to reinforce each other at high levels or constrain each other at low levels. Therefore, taking Dalian as an example, this study constructed a research framework for ecological management zoning by integrating the matching and coupling coordination relationship of ecosystem services supply-demand. We found that the supply of ecosystem services in Dalian decreased by 23.70% and the demand increased by 22.54% from 2005 to 2019. There was an obvious mismatch and disharmony in the supply and demand of ecosystem services, and the matching and coordination often did not exist simultaneously. Overlay analysis was used to divide Dalian into four ecological management zones: eco-conservation, eco-development, eco-improvement, and eco-restoration zones. This study helped in integrating the matching and coupling coordination relationship of ecosystem services supply-demand into the environmental management system, which has practical significance for the sustainable development of ecosystem services.
| S-EPMC10098249 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundEconomic prosperity has fostered numerous changes that may translate into better or worse outcomes across all domains of health. This study aims to explore the associations of economic development with uveitis onset in mainland China.MethodsWe used Poisson regression with generalized estimated equations to quantify the associations of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) with uveitis onset in 31 provinces of mainland China from 2006 to 2017. We further estimated the effects mediated by economic growth on the temperature-uveitis and PM2.5-uveitis associations established in our previous studies.ResultsA total of 12,721 uveitis patients from 31 provinces of mainland China were studied. Overall, every 10,000 Chinese yuan ($ 1491.278, 2006-2017) increase in per capita GDP, with no weighted value or weighted by population, corresponded to 1.85% (95% confidence interval, 1.19-2.52%) and 1.43% (95% confidence interval, 0.37-2.51%) lnRR decrease in the uveitis onsets. Stratified analysis showed this negative association between per capita GDP and uveitis onset, only existed in male patients (P < .001), individuals aged 20-50 years (P < 0 .05), non-infectious uveitis, uveitis with systemic disease, and Bechet's disease (all P < 0 .05). Moreover, the increased per capita GDP, if above the national level, could reinforce both temperature-uveitis and PM2.5-uveitis association (both P < 0.001).ConclusionsThe findings suggest that economic development is negatively associated with uveitis onset. However, it may facilitate the uveitis onset mediated by both increased temperature and PM2.5 exposure if the per capita GDP is above national level.
| S-EPMC10476315 | biostudies-literature