Comprehensive Evaluation of Resources and Environmental Carrying Capacity in Guangdong Coastal Zone

Abstract

Guangdong Province is actively building a national marine ecological civilization construction demonstration area, and it is crucial to conduct research and assessment on the resources and environmental carrying capacity of the coastal zones. Under the guidance of the "double evaluation" of the territorial space planning, this study takes the coastal areas of Guangdong Province, namely the 45 coastal counties and the sea areas within the scope of the marine functional areas of Guangdong Province as the research scope It proceeded from the functional orientation of ecological protection, agricultural production, and urban construction to construct the evaluation index system of the resources and environmental carrying capacity of the coastal zone of Guangdong Province. In 2019, based on the evaluation index system, a comprehensive evaluation of the resources and environmental carrying capacity of the coastal zone of Guangdong Province was performed using integrate and integrate multi-scale spatial data, remote sensing, geographic information system, and other technical means and its resource and environmental carrying status were quantitatively revealed. The results showed that approximately 84% of the land area in the coastal zone and more than 1/2 of the sea areas (cities, districts) have overall good comprehensive bearing status of the resources and environmental carrying capacity, which is mainly characterized by loadability. The scale of human socio-economic activities in most regions is within the range of the resources and environmental carrying capacity; however, in some regions it exceeds the threshold, particularly in regions distributed in the Pearl River Delta. Specifically, under the guidance of the ecological protection function, 60.05% of the land area and 14 counties (cities, districts) of the sea area are in a loadable state, mainly distributed in the east and west wings of the urban agglomeration in the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao. Under the guidance of the agricultural production function, the carrying capacity of land agriculture is relatively severe, mainly critical overload, while the number of counties (cities, districts) that can be carried by sea agricultural production is relatively small. Compared with the functions of ecological protection and agricultural production, the area of the loadable area under the urban construction function is the highest, with 86.93% of the land area and 29 counties (cities, districts) of the sea area in the loadable state, and only 3.01% of the land area and 10 counties (cities, districts) of the sea area in the overloaded state. Guangdong Province is a major province of marine economy. As an important place for economic activities in the coastal zone, the ocean is a strategic place to promote the high-quality development of Guangdong Province.. Under the mode of sustainable development, there is still a large scope for the development of resources and environmental carrying capacity in the coastal zone of Guangdong Province. On the premise of ensuring the stability of resources and environment, the loadable area can be further developed and utilized selectively, the allocation of resource elements can be optimized, and a new management mode of high-level protection and efficient utilization of resources can be built. Thus the research results provide a basis for the compilation of territorial space planning and the optimization of territorial space development and protection pattern in Guangdong Province.

Keywords

• carrying capacity of resources and environment
• ecological protection
• agricultural production
• urban construction
• coastal zone
• guangdong province