Highlights
- Cumulative stressor impact on China’s coastal waters has increased significantly.
- Salt marshes, mangroves and coasts are at the highest risk of stress in China’s marine waters.
- Cumulative stressor impact in the southern coasts of Shandong increased significantly.
- Climate change has emerged as a primary driver of ecosystem alterations in China’s marine waters.
- The most significant threat to China’s marine ecosystem is the rise in sea surface temperatures.
Abstract
Understanding the spatial patterns of human activities and the consequences of stressors on marine and coastal environments is critical for mitigating marine ecological risks and maintaining healthy ecosystems. However, there is limited understanding of the spatial variations, locations, and drivers of the most significant changes in the cumulative impacts, causing significant challenges for the conservation and restoration of marine habitats. Here, we estimated the spatial intensity of 14 stressors (land-based, sea-based, and climate change-related) and their potential impacts on 9 marine and coastal ecosystems during three five-year periods (2006–2010, 2011–2015, and 2016–2020) at an ∼1 km resolution as well as the spatiotemporal changes in the cumulative impacts on China’s marine waters. In addition, we generated maps of the cumulative exposure occurring in each pixel, that is, the sum of their intensities without considering ecosystem vulnerability. We found that nearly all eastern provinces of China experienced significantly increasing cumulative impacts on marine waters, as did all marine and coastal ecosystems from 2006 to 2020, with salt marshes, mangroves, and coasts at the greatest risk. However, notably, in recent years, the cumulative impacts in most coastal waters, except for the southern coast of Shandong, have decreased significantly. Furthermore, the increasing areas of the cumulative effects gradually shifted from coastal regions to areas beyond the shelf, indicating that the threats related to climate change have gradually emerged as the primary drivers of most significant change. The ranking of the stressor impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems for the entire study region suggested that the five stressors with the greatest impact were sea surface temperature (29.42 %), coastal ports (21.81 %), sea level rise (17.97 %), commercial shipping (14.95 %), and ocean acidification (7.73 %).
Liu C., Li P., Zhao Y., Liu D. & Wang S., 2025. Evaluating the cumulative impacts of multiple stressors on marine and coastal ecosystems in China’s marine waters. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 112: 107766. doi: 10.1016/j.eiar.2024.107766. Article (subscription required).
