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Emergy Evaluation of Mai Po Mangrove Marshes

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Emergy Evaluation of Mai Po Mangrove Marshes ___________________________________________________________________www.paper.edu.cn Ecological Engineering 16 (2000) 271–280 www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoleng Emergy evaluation of Mai Po mangrove marshes P. Qin a, Y.S. Wong b,*, N.F.Y. Tam b a Department of Biology, Nanjing Uni6ersity, Nanjing 210093, PR China b Department of Biology and Chemistry, City Uni6ersity of Hong Kong, Tat Chee A6enue, Kowloon, Hong Kong Received 5 January 1999; received in revised form 25 February 2000; accepted 3 March 2000 Abstract This study is an emergy evaluation of Mai Po mangrove marshes. The important emergy indices of the system are as follows, the total output emergy of the marshes is 26.39×1017 sej/year; its macroeconomic value is 25.87×105 per year (in 1988 Hong Kong); its emergy density is 6.94×1011 sej/m2 per year; and its investment ratio (IR), environmental loading ratio (ELR), yield ratio (YR) are 0.48, 1.03, and 3.10, respectively. The emergy of education function in Mai Po was tentative calculated as 125.65×1017 sej/year, its macroeconomic value is 123.19×105 $ per year (in 1988 Hong Kong), in which the knowledge distribution is outstanding, about 99.26×1017 sej/year, the macroeconomic value is 97.31×105 $/year (in 1988 Hong Kong), occupied 92% of all investments of whole education system. These data show that used emergy of per area in Mai Po is high and the management and education function of the natural reserve is good, but environmental loading is high. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Emergy evaluation; Mai Po; Natural reserve; Mangrove marshes 1. Introduction (called gei wai by the locals) and a quiet and safe mudflat attracts a great deal of bird, Over 60 000 The Mai Po marshes are the largest remaining winter birds used the area in January 1996 (The and most important wetland in Hong Kong. Its Nature Conservation Bureau and Wetlands Advi- total area is 380 ha, including 250 ha ponds and sory Service, 1997). This is a wonderful landscape 130 ha mangrove marshes. In September 1995, the in Mai Po. The marshes also draw much interest Mai Po marshes and the inner Deep Bay were from a lot of people including scientists which listed under the convention on Wetlands of Inter- make multi-discipline researches, for example, national Importance especially as Waterfowl productivity and nutrients of mangrove marshes Habitat (the Ramsar Convention). A wide variety (Lee, 1989a,b, 1990a,b; Tam et al., 1990, 1998; of habitat types with higher productivity of man- Anderson, 1992), ecology of gei wai and fish grove marshes, distinguished tidal shrimp ponds ponds (Poovachiranon, 1986; Lee, 1989b; Aspin- wall et al., 1996; Young and Chan, 1997), the * Corresponding author. Tel.: +852-2788-9377; fax: +852- 2788-9377. birds and biodiversity in Mai Po marshes E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.S. Wong). (Melville and Morton, 1983; Lee, 1986; Chalmers, 0925-8574/00/$ - see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0925-8574(00)00104-X 272 ____________________________________________________________________中国科技论文在线 P. Qin et al. / Ecological Engineering 16 (2000) 271–280 www.paper.edu.cn 1989, 1990, 1992), etc. The rough values of gei wai al., 1997) emergy theory research (Odum, 1983, and fish pond, and the education significance of 1996; Jorgenson et al., 1995; Patten, 1995; Tiezzi Mai Po have been evaluated and appraised (Axell, et al., 1996); etc. But there was less emergy evalu- 1983; Nelson, 1993), but nobody is concerned to ation on mangrove marshes (Gunderson, 1989), estimate the ecological–economic benefits (real of course, not Mai Po mangrove marshes. wealth) in Mai Po with emergy analysis. In this study, emergy analysis is used to evalu- Using the monetary cost of reinforcing nature ate the integrative ecological–economic benefit of as a measure of its value underestimate the wealth Mai Po marshes and the real wealth of its ecosys- required for replacement (Jansson, 1984; Odum, tem, education function. The sustainability policy 1996), because the major free environmental con- and manner of the marshes will be briefly tributions are not included in the cost. suggested. A science-based evaluation system is now avail- able to represent both the environmental values and the economic values with a common measure. 2. Methods This is emergy evaluation, which measures the energy of one type directly and indirectly used in 2.1. Study area the production to generate a product, whose units are solar emjoules (sej) Odum, 1988. This evalua- The Mai Po marshes lies in 22°30%N, 114°00%E, tion provides a quantitative way to find what on the edge of Deep Bay at northwestern part of policies and patterns for humanity and nature are Hong Kong, are located to the east of the Zhuji- sustainable, with less trial and error, because they ang River estuary (see Fig. 1). Its total area is 380 tend to anticipate self-organization for maximum ha, including 250 ha ponds and 130 ha man- benefit and prosperity. groves. In fact, Deep Bay is shallow, its average In recent years, research using emergy evalua- depth is only 3 m and the deepest depth is 6 m. Its tion has been active, including national and re- largest tide difference is only 2.8 m, so there is a gional emergy analysis of environment, economy wide mudflat when the tide receded. and public policy (Huang and Odum, 1991; Lan The mangrove at Mai Po is the largest stand of and Odum, 1994; Ulgiati et al., 1994; Brown and mangrove in the territory and covers an area of McClanahan, 1996); emergy evaluation of ecosys- 130 ha. The mangrove is located in transition of tem and economic system (Odum, 1984; Gunder- the inter-tidal mudflat and the gei wais. A total of son, 1989; Bastianoni and Marchettini, 1996; Eum six species of mangrove are found and these are et al., 1996; Sohn et al., 1996; Tong, 1996; Day et Kandelia candel, Aegiceras corniculatum, A6icennia Fig. 1. The position of Mai Po Natural Reserve in Hong Kong. A, Mai Po Natural Reserve; B, the district of Hong Kong; C, the continent of China. ____________________________________________________________________中国科技论文在线 P. Qin et al. / Ecological Engineering 16 (2000) 271–280 www.paper.edu.cn 273 marina, Acanthus ilicifolius, Excoecaria agallocha, The emergy investment ratio (IR) is the ratio of and Bruguiera gymnorrhiza. Among them the spe- feedback inputs (F) to all emergy derived from cies of K. candel is the largest population in Mai local sources (the sum of R and N), where R is Po. The productivity of mangrove ecosystem is local renewable emergy and N is the emergy from relatively high and supports a high diversity of local nonrenewable sources. organisms. The most prominent one will be the F colorful fiddler crab, Uca sp. and their burrows IR= can be easily seen under the mangrove. Mangrove (R+N) barnacle and snail are also abundant around the The name is derived from the fact that it mangrove stem. is a ratio of emergy ‘invested’ from the econ- A wide variety of habitat types can be found omy to resident emergy. The larger the in- within the reserve that includes natural and man- vestment ratio the greater the intensity of develop- made habitats. In the center of the reserve there ment. are the man-made tidal shrimp ponds, called ‘gei The environmental loading ratio (ELR) is the wai’. They are large rectangular ponds (each area ratio of nonrenewable emergy (N+F) to renew- is about 10 ha) surrounded by dykes with one able emergy (R) as follows: sluice gate for each pond on the seaward side to control the water inflow and outflow between the (N+F) ELR= bay and the ponds at different tides. The central R part of the gei wai is covered by vegetation domi- nated by the mangrove species and the reeds Low ELR reflects relatively small environmen- (Phragmites sp.). Fallen leaves as an organic input tal loading, while high ELR suggests greater and shrimp larvae from the Deep Bay make the loading. gei wai a self-sufficient system for shrimp produc- The emergy YR is emergy of yield divided by tion. Within the gei wai, the rapid accretion rate the emergy of all the feedback from the economy means that the channel around the edge of each (e.g. tourism income, several funds and services in pond has to be dredged every 10–12 years, so that this study), i.e. YR=(R+N+F)/F (in this sys- a water column of approximately 1–1.5 m is tem the output emergy is calculated by summing maintained for prawn production. So Mai Po is a emergy inputs). paradise of birds as feeding, roosting, breeding The emergy YR of each system is a measure of and nesting grounds as well as refueling station its net contribution to the economy. for migratory. 2.4. Determining the real wealth of education 2.2. General methodology for emergy analysis function in Mai Po The general methodology for emergy analysis is The real wealth of education function in Mai a ‘top-down’ systems approach (Odum, 1988, Po is important to evaluate the synthetic effect of 1996). the system. The emergy evaluation includes not only financial and material investments, environ- 2.3. Determining the important emergy indices mental resources, but also intellectual. In this study, the knowledge contribution is calculated In this study, a series of emergy indices will be tentatively as the intellectual investment. The ma- determined. Among them the emergy investment jor knowledge contribution in Mai Po is derived ratio, environmental loading ratio and the net from its staffs, the emergy of knowledge contribu- emergy yield ratio (YR) are rather important, tion per individual is as follows, the total annual because they reflect directly the relationship be- used emergy of Hong Kong divided by the popu- tween economic and environmental subsystems, lation in different hierarchical level of education and ecological–economic benefit.
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