The framework design and empirical study of China's marine ecological-economic accounting

Abstract

In recent years, the Chinese government has attached greater importance to marine ecological protection. To contribute to scientific understanding of the importance of marine ecosystems to human well-being, this paper analyzes marine ecosystem service and its accounting, and introduces the concept of “quaternary industry” on the basis of current marine economic accounting framework. Marine ecosystem accounting, marine economic accounting and marine ecological-economic accounting of coastal areas in China during the time series of 2005–2017 are calculated. The results show that compared with Gross Ocean Product (GOP), the average annual growth rate of Gross Marine Ecological-Economic Product (GMEEP) stays stable. The proportion of the added value of quaternary industry in marine ecological economy is relatively large, which is between 46% and 51%. And the ratio of GMEEP and GOP is around 1.9, suggesting a quite close association between GMEEP and GOP.

Keywords

• Marine ecological-economic accounting
• Marine ecosystem services
• Gross ocean product