Shoreline Changes Along the Coast of Mainland China—Time to Pause and Reflect?

Abstract

Shoreline changes are of great importance for evaluating the interaction between humans and ecosystems in coastal areas. They serve as a useful metric for assessing the ecological costs of socioeconomic developmental activities along the coast. In this paper, we present an assessment of shoreline changes along the eastern coast of mainland China from ~1990 to 2019 by applying a novel method recently developed by us. This method which we call the Nearest Distance Method (NDM) is used to make a detailed assessment of shorelines delineated from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Operational Land Imager (OLI) images. The results indicate a dramatic decline in natural shorelines that correspond to the rapid increase in the construction of artificial shorelines, driven by China’s economic growth. Of the entire coast of mainland China, the biggest change occurred along the Bohai Sea, where artificial shorelines expanded from 42.4% in ~1990 to 81.5% in 2019. Over this period, this study indicates that China lost > 60% of its biological shorelines, a trend that is especially worrisome because these include areas that were once biologically diverse and extremely rich. As anticipated, shoreline losses were greatest where regions of low economic value had been transformed to areas of higher economic value. Overall, this influence of human activities on shorelines in China is unprecedented. The repercussions of these changes on ecosystems, and the susceptibility of new shoreline developments to population growth and sea-level rise, need to be assessed urgently before additional changes are effected.

A Spatiotemporal Change Detection Analysis of Coastline Data in Qingdao, East China

“…Most of the anthropogenic growth was the key reason for the coastline change in Qingdao over 19 years, while the natural factors were the secondary reasons [50]. e overall changes of shorelines along the coast of mainland China increased over the ∼1990-2019 period primarily for land reclamation and quay construction [61].…”

“…In the Qingdao coastal zone, the relative change in the sea level might be involved in modifying the shorelines. Over the past decades, the length of natural shorelines of each subtype has decreased, while artificial construction and quay shorelines of the artificial group have increased dramatically [61].…”

“…e human-induced activities that cause shoreline changes have significantly affected these natural protections. Tian et al [61] mentioned in 2020 that low-economic value shorelines, such as rocky, sandy, muddy, and estuarine shorelines, were transformed into high-economic value shorelines, such as aquaculture, which were transformed into shorelines with even more economic values, such as shorelines of construction and quay. Growing populations and development works along the coasts put the coastal ecosystems under unprecedented pressure.…”

Modeling and Analysis of Shoreline Change in the Sidi Abdel Rahman Coast Area, Egypt

“…A coastal zone is a region that is bordered by both land and sea. Although it is continually changing, it represents a large natural and economic resource [1][2][3][4]. Furthermore, this microcosm is a very intricate ecosystem in which a variety of climatic, topographical, biological, and human-made factors infl uence erosion processes and, as a result, the retreat or advancement of the shoreline [5][6][7].…”

Monitoring Spatial and Temporal Scales of Shoreline Changes in Lahou-Kpanda (Southern Ivory Coast) Using Landsat Data Series (TM, ETM+ and OLI)

“…A coastal zone is a transition area between the land and water. It represents a very important natural and economic resource [1][2][3], despite the fact that it is constantly changing. In addition, this microcosm is a highly complex environment in which erosion phenomena, and therefore the retreat or advance of the coastline, are influenced by a wide range of meteorological, geographical, biological, and anthropogenic influences [4][5][6].…”