Adaptation of fisheries and mariculture management to extreme oceanic environmental changes and climate variability in Taiwan

The impacts of 2008 snowstorm in China on the ecological environments in the Northern South China Sea

“…The temperature difference is larger in winter and smaller in summer, and is largest in February and August. The peak of the temperature difference between offshore and coastal waters in February 2008 was up to 8.72 C ( Figure A3(b)), consistent with in situ measurements (Chang et al 2009(Chang et al , 2013. It indicates that the impact of land low temperature on the SST in the study area was stronger in winter, and even stronger in the coastal waters than in the offshore waters due to strong SLI.…”

“…This colder diluted water turned to the south along the bank of the Zhejiang and formed MZCW by the northeast monsoon as Figure 2(e), which was the same as Pan and Tang (Pan et al 1997;Tang & Wang 2004). Simultaneously, the discharge from YRE extended offshore and intruded to the southwest (Chang et al 2009(Chang et al , 2013Liao et al 2013;Zhu et al 2013), mixing with the MZCW and flowing into NSCS as Figure 2(c-e). At the same time, the annual mean discharge of the PRE is about 3. to the east and the shelf area (Lu et al 2013; Figure 9(a)), bringing lots of suspended sand and nutrients into the NSCS.…”

“…SST did not decrease much in Bins 13, 14 and 16 because they are located near the LZS, where were influenced by the Kuroshio warm water westward flow (red arrows in Figure 10) to this sea area (about 119 E, 20 N) in winter (Metzger & Hurlburt 1996;Liang et al 2008, Hong et al 2011aChang et al 2009Chang et al , 2013Liao et al 2013). Mainly due to the contribution of the Kuroshio intrusion water (KIW) (as Figure 10), suitable temperature with average value of 22.42 C in the offshore waters after the snowstorm provided favourable environment for the growth of phytoplankton, which would be beneficial for the further elevation of Chla.…”

“…First, the discharge from YRE extended offshore and intruded to the southwest (Chang et al 2009(Chang et al , 2013Liao et al 2013;Zhu et al 2013), mixing with the MZCW and flowing into NSCS, as given in Figure 2(c-e). From before to after snowstorm, the larger runoff from YRE and PRE caused by the heavy rainfall and melting snow and ice (as in Figure 5(c)) and stronger northeast monsoon ( Figure 9) would lead to much diffusion of the cold water with high SSC in the coastal waters to the offshore waters, while much stronger diffusion and advection would carry large amount of sand from the coast to the offshore, which promoted the increase of SSC in the offshore waters.…”

“…This disaster was extremely severe in terms of its spatial extent, duration and damage, affecting Shanghai (SH), Zhejiang (Zhe), Fujian (Min), Anhui (Wan), Guangdong (Yue), Henan (Yu), Jiangxi (Gan), Jiangshu (Shu), Hunan (Xiang), Guizhou (Qian) and Guangxi (Gui), among other areas, and causing substantial mortality of wild fish and 80% loss of caged Mariculture fish (Chang et al 2009(Chang et al , 2013. The damaged area of the fishery industry in Guangdong province exceeded 0.17 million hectares and the economic losses to the fishery industry were as high as 6 billion Yuan.…”