Abstract:

Abstract: Biodiversity is the basis for survival and development of human society and it affects various aspects of modern life. In order to assess the marine biodiversity status in coastal areas of northern China, and to study the impacts of socio-economic development on the local marine biodiversity, we conducted a trial study in Changhai County. Changhai is the only island county in the China, which is also rich in various biological resources. As a famous northern fishery county, the primary industries in Changhai are marine fisheries and aquaculture. We collected data on social economic development, the ecological environment, and environmental protection in Changhai County during 2004-2013. We selected 19 indicators to build the marine biodiversity assessment framework based on the pressure-state-response (PSR) model, determined the weight values using the Analytical Hierarchy Process approach, and calculated the Marine Biodiversity Index. The results showed that the Marine Biodiversity Index reached a maximum value of 0.660 and thus matched to level “Good” in 2004, and then declined to 0.471 and to level “Medium” in 2013. During the investigated period, the state of marine biodiversity in 2004-2007 was better than that in 2008-2013. Changes in pressure, state, and response indices revealed that the trends of weighted scores of several pressure indicators, such as the discharge of industrial waste water, fixed asset investment, aquaculture of non-indigenous species, number of tourists, and port cargo all showed an obvious decreasing tendency, which suggest growing pressures on marine biodiversity, and potential impacts on biodiversity in Changhai.

Key words: PSR model, Marine Biodiversity Index, Changhai County