Signal #2: Environmental Impacts of Land Reclamation in China under Climate Change background
This is the topic of one of my term papers in Spring 2018 semester. I did a literature review for the analysis and discussions of the environmental impacts of land reclamation projects worldwide and then focused on those in China. Specifically, I narrowed my target range to Chinese coastal cities, one group of the most trending areas in the world with growing land reclamation need.
Land reclamation, also known as reclamation or land fill, is the process of creating new land from ocean, riverbeds, or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or land fill. As one of the literature described, “in recent decades, rapid expansion of the coastal economy and accelerated coastal population growth in China have caused a sharp increase in land reclamation in the coastal region for industry, urban expansion, and infrastructure, which resulted in the cumulative loss of coastal wetlands, negative environmental effects, and a greater risk of potential disasters related to extreme events” (Tian, 2016).
Their analysis results indicated that 754,697 ha of coastal wetlands have been reclaimed [turned into land] across all coastal provinces and metropolises from 1985 to 2010, and a consistently increasing trend at an annual rate of 5.9% was observed. The reclamation between 2005 and 2010 sharply increased and accounted for over 35% of China’s total reclamation during the 25-year period since 1985.
If land-use structure and management can be effectively optimized by land managers and governments, biomass and soil carbon pools could be sinks, which would promote the carbon sequestration capacity of China’s terrestrial ecosystems. The optimization of carbon sequestration would benefit from land-use policies that ensure stable areas of different land-use categories. Future works need to make new links with and predictions based on various climate models of the potential climate impacts on the expanded land into sea in China. This is a complicated yet urgent topic in city development around the world. More data-driven analysis using remote sensing and geospatial modeling should come into the decision-making process in coastal cities. Minority groups and communities must have their voice heard and their interests represented in the process as well, given weak resilience to a climate change background.
Citation and link of the mentioned literature:
Bo Tian, Wenting Wu, Zhaoqing Yang, Yunxuan Zhou. Drivers, trends, and potential impacts of long-term coastal reclamation in China from 1985 to 2010. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, Volume 170, 2016, Pages 83–90, ISSN 0272–7714, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2016.01.006.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771416300063
