View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Institutional Repository of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research,... Journal of Coastal Research 27 5 966–972 West Palm Beach, Florida September 2011 Evaluating Habitat Change and Boundary Adjustment of a Nature Reserve in Coastal Wetlands: Case Study of Beidagang Nature Reserve, China { { { { { Zhenglei Xie , Jiyuan Liu *, Gaoru Zhu , Quanqin Shao , and Xuegong Xu www.cerf-jcr.org {Institute of Geographic Sciences and {College of Urban and Environmental Natural Resources Research Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) The key laboratory for earth surface Regional Environmental Group processes A11 Datun Road Anwai, Chaoyang District Peking University Beijing, Beijing 100101, China Beijing, China [email protected] ABSTRACT XIE, Z.; LIU, J.; ZHU, G.; SHAO, Q., and XU, X., 2011. Evaluating habitat change and boundary adjustment of a nature reserve in coastal wetlands—Case study of Beidagang Nature Reserve, China. Journal of Coastal Research, 27(5), 966– 972. West Palm Beach (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Habitat change of coastal wetlands caused by natural and anthropogenic factors is an important issue facing China. Large areas of coastal habitat are disappearing, and those remaining become vulnerable to anthropogenic impacts from industry, agriculture, aquaculture, urban development, and domestic waste. A question is whether the change of habitat area has an influence on boundary adjustments of natural reserves. The study reported in this paper applied remote- www.JCRonline.org sensing images, and environmental and socioeconomic data to analyse the change of land use and land cover and habitat quality in an estuarine area and to identify the driving forces for these changes from 1988 to 2008. The results show that land use has changed significantly over this period. Cultivated lands occupying total area 35.96% decreased from 36,879.0 ha to 35,313.7 ha from 1988 to 1999. The area of settlements expanded from 11,305.1 ha in 1988 to 16,661.3 ha in 1999 and further to 23,258.6 ha in 2008. The areas of settlement, saltwater bodies, and unused land increased by 47.38%, 33.51%, and 16.66%, respectively, from 1988 to 1999. These trends continued from 1999 to 2008. The total average biomass in 2003 was far below the biomass of the same region in 1983 and the biological density also decreased sharply. The gross domestic product and population of the Dagang District grew continuously from 1993 to 2006 and was the main driving force of habitat change. The habitat quality of coastal wetlands is associated with natural reserve boundaries, which should be modified according to the actual protection status. The suggestion of boundary adjustment has also assisted the enhancement of habitat quality of coastal wetlands. This research emphasises the improvement of coastal environments through implementation of boundary adjustments. ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS: Coastal land use change, remote sensing, protection status, Tianjin. INTRODUCTION Buchary, 2002; Hobbs, Landry, and Perry, 2008; Katsuki et al., 2009).Coastal wetland changes and their causes have become a Coastal zones are of strategic importance: they are important hot spot in global environmental change research (Carreno et settlement areas, have a high-percentage contribution to al., 2008; Liu et al., 2005; Omenn, 2006). Natural and economic output, and are the location of valuable natural anthropogenic factors acting together lead to changes in habitats. More than 37% of the global population live in coastal diversity, both within and among populations (Fratini et al., cities and about 90% of industries are located there (Small and 2008). However, despite previous government-initiated at- Nicholls, 2003; Striegnitz, 2006; Vitousel and Mooney, 1997). tempts to protect wetlands, these habitats continue to be Coastal zones play an important role in preserving many degraded at an uncontrolled pace. With 40% of China’s ecosystem functions and are the focus of many conservation population located in coastal regions, and expected rapid efforts as well as their socioeconomic development that change socioeconomic development of these regions until the mid-21st land use (Qi and Luo, 2008; Turner, 2000). Coastal zones are century, they are going to be subjected to uncontrolled human facing increasingly acute problems of habitat destruction, exploitation with further disturbance and degradation of their water contamination, hydrogeological hazards, coastal erosion, environment (Fave et al., 2009; Vela et al., 2008). Despite a resource depletion, and accelerated sea-level rise as well as reduction in China’s birth rate, China remains one of the serious social–economic and cultural problems (Fauzi and world’s most populated places and anthropogenic impacts have DOI: 10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00134.1 received 9 September 2010; spurred an increased use of coastal resources to meet demands accepted 1 November 2010. of economic development and requirements for pollutant Published Pre-print online 1 February 2011. ’ Coastal Education & Research Foundation 2011 discharge (Alder et al., 2002; Callaway, 2005; Karamanlidis * Corresponding author. et al., 2004; Lotze et al., 2006; Tao, Xue, and Lu, 2007). Evaluating Habitat Change in a Chinese Nature Reserve 967 The establishment of natural reserves (NRs) serves to protect crucial ecosystems and to aid species recovery in degraded lands (Armenteras, Rodriguez, and Retana, 2009; Dobson, Bradshaw, and Baker, 1997). With the rapid economic development occurring in Chinese coastal zones, these envi- ronments are continuing to deteriorate in the face of intensive population pressure. The severity of development pressures on China’s coastal wetlands have prompted the question of: what changes have occurred in coastal environments and which factors have led to these changes? Under the policy of ‘‘Salvage Protection’’, large areas of cultivated land and densely populated areas have been included within NRs as buffer zones. Buffer zones are basically made up of urban and rural settlements, built-up areas, farmland, and industrial land. Figure 1. Location of the study area. Therefore, the effects of protection on coastal wetlands and biological resources are very vague and boundary adjustment is and 38u339–38u579 N (Figure 1). It covers about 1025.54 km2, necessary for most NRs. the average elevation is below 5 m, and it has many natural and However, with the growth of the population and economic artificial wetlands. The area has a coastline of 25 km, and the activities, coastal land use has changed dramatically, most coastal zone is a siltation pelitic coast. A warm temperate, evidently by the continuous decline of the area of cultivated semihumid, and continental monsoon climate dominates this land. The rapid loss and ongoing deterioration of coastal zones region year-round. The average annual temperature is 12.1uC, is a major concern and should be the focus of efforts to achieve mean annual precipitation 593.6 mm, and mean annual the objectives of protecting the NRs. Considerable research has evaporation 1979 mm. Petrochemical, oil processing, gas been carried out in coastal wetland science studies. This has exploitation, and chemical fibre industries are very advanced included elaboration of land use and land cover (LULC) and and important for the economy of Tianjin. The development of vegetation community maps (Wright and Gallant, 2007), these industries has occupied large areas of coastal wetlands analysis of hydrological and land cover changes in wetlands, and caused the degradation of coastal habitats. using high-resolution Quickbird satellite imagery to distin- The Dagang District possesses a unique natural ecological guish and map black mangroves (Everitt et al.,2008),using system with abundant wetlands and intertidal zones, and habitat suitability mapping in Chongming Dongtan NR, China 39.8% of the terrestrial area is wetland. Tianjin Beidagang (Tian et al., 2008), determining habitat patch connectivity and Wetland Natural Reserve (TBNR) was established in 2001 and corridors in refuge design (Partyka and Peterson, 2008), occupies 442.40 km2, 43.14% of the area of Dagang District. The assessing coastline changes (Ekercin, 2007; Vidal and Filo- primary focus of the NR is to preserve existing wetlands and grasso, 2008), determining the effects of habitat loss and species the unique fauna and flora of these habitats. The TBNR is a diversity on landscape composition (Cardozo and Chiaraviglio, relic of marine regression, which created the large wetland 2008; La Greiner, Reams, and Mendelssohn, 2000; Simenstad et area that today serves as critical migratory habitat for species. al., 2006), and pursuing biodiversity conservation, eradication The aquatic organisms and plant resources are very rich, and of poverty, and coastal management (Foster et al., 2007). the aquatic floras are simple, with 140 species belonging to 12 Little attention has been paid to the extent and the drivers of items, 26 subjects. Six species present in TBNR are protected mudflat habitat change in Dagang, Tianjin. This paper takes under the classification of First-Grade State Protection of Dagang District as a case study, analysing changes in the LULC endangered species and 17 species are second-grade protected and revealing the influence of habitat quality upon the species. boundary adjustment while supplying a scientific reference. Moreover, many planners think that habit quality