Human impacts and changes in the coastal waters of south China.
Human impact on the environment remains at the center of the debate on global environmental change. Using the Hong Kong-Shenzhen corridor in south China as an example, we present evidence that rapid urbanization and economic development in coastal areas were the dominant factors causing rapid changes in coastal waters. From 1990 to 2012, coastal seawater temperature increased ~0.060°C per year, sea level rose 4.4mm per year and pH decreased from 8.2 to 7.7, much faster than global averages. In the same period, there were exponential increases in the local population, gross domestic product and land fill area. Empirical analyses suggest that the large increase in the population affected local temperature, and economic development had a major impact on local pH. Results also show that pH and temperature were significantly correlated with local sea level rise, but pH had more predictive power, suggesting it could be considered a predictor for changes in local sea level. We conclude that human activities could significantly exacerbate local environmental changes which should be considered in predictive models and future development plans in coastal areas.
Division of Ocean Science and Technology, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, PR China.
Linlin
L
Wang
Division of Ocean Science and Technology, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, PR China.
Qiang
Q
Li
Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Solomons, MD 20688, United States. Electronic address: hbi@umces.edu.
Hongsheng
H
Bi
Division of Ocean Science and Technology, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, PR China. Electronic address: maoxz@sz.tsinghua.edu.cn.
Xian-Zhong
XZ
Mao
D002681:China; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D006723:Hong Kong; D006802:Human Activities; D006801:Humans; D012623:Seawater / Q000737:chemistry*; D014507:Urbanization; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*; D014877:Water Pollution, Chemical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
Environmental changes; Human impacts; Sea level rise; Temperature; pH