Planning island sustainable development policy based on the theory of ecosystem services: A case study of Zhoushan Archipelago, East China

Island ecosystems and living conditions are undergoing rapid change as human populations are increasingly concentrated in coastal regions. Many island economies have transitioned from an emphasis on primary sector production to reliance on tourism, port, and shipping industries. This has driven proc...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Island studies journal 2020-05, Vol.15 (1), p.237-252
Main Author: Huan Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
china
ecosystem services
islands
sustainable development
trade-offs
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Island ecosystems and living conditions are undergoing rapid change as human populations are increasingly concentrated in coastal regions. Many island economies have transitioned from an emphasis on primary sector production to reliance on tourism, port, and shipping industries. This has driven processes of large-scale construction and urbanization, occasioning drastic changes in island ecosystems and enhancing the importance of understanding ecosystem service mechanisms on islands. This paper explores the spatial distribution and interactions of ecosystem services in East China’s Zhoushan Archipelago and how these should affect the island’s sustainable development policy. The results show that the archipelago’s total ecosystem services hold great potential but that there are significant trade-offs and synergy relations, which vary on different islands in the archipelago. Cultural services are mainly distributed across the northeastern and southeastern regions, with plentiful natural scenery and Buddhist cultural heritage, which are attractive to tourists. Provisioning services show a negative correlation between cultural services and regulating services, indicating strong trade-offs between them. However, the synergy areas between cultural and regulating services might become priorities for future policies. These are mostly situated in the rural eastern part of the archipelago. The island planning policy proposed in this paper, based on the ecosystem services theory and sensitive to intra-archipelagic differences, contributes to efforts at island sustainable development by seeking to resolve tensions between economic development and environmental protection.
ISSN:1715-2593
1715-2593
DOI:10.24043/isj.105