Valuation Of Marine Ecosystem Services And Its Application

Marine ecosystem services refer to the products and services that marineecosystem and its component provide for human being through certain ecologicalprocess.In recent years,with economic development of coastal areas and accelerationof urbanization process in full-scale,the demand for marine ecosystem servicesincrease.But some marine ecosystems is destroying and the capability of ecosystemsto provide these services decreases.Therefore,evaluating marine ecosystem servicesand studying the impact of human activities on them is important in the protection andsustainable development of marine ecosystem.Firstly the definition of marine ecosystem service is presented in this paper.According to the utiliztion of marine ecosystem service,the classification method ofmarine ecosystem services is established,and the formulation mechanism is studied.From the persective of ecological economics,the basic attribute of marine ecologicalasset and the relationship between ecosystem services and human welfare is discussed.Based on the economic methods to value ecosystem services and the characteristic ofmarine ecosystem services,the assessment model for marine ecosystem services areestablished.Finally application study is carried out in several typical ecosystemsincluding Sanggou Bay,Jiaozhou Bay,and Miaodao Archipelago.The main content and results are as follows:(1) Marine ecosystem services and their formulation mechanismBased on analysis of marine ecosystem services,the difference betweenecosystem functions and ecosystem services,marine services and marine ecosystemservices are discussed.According to classification method of ecosystem services givenby other scholars and the utiliztion of marine ecosystem services,marine ecosystemservices are be subdivided into provisioning services,regulating services,culturalservices and supporting services including 14 kinds of services.Finally fomulation mechinsm of marine ecosystem services,the ecosystem component and mainecological process which support the services,and the contribution of services tohuman being is analyzed.All the above study provide scientific basis for the servicesevaluation.From the perspective of ecological economics,the characteristic of marineecosystem assets and relationship between ecosystem services and human welfare arediscussed.The stucture of marine ecosystem services value,economic valuationmethod of marine ecosystem service are analyzed.Finally the assessment model ofmarine ecosystem services is established with the characteristic of them considered.(2) Study on ecosystem services value in Sanggou bayFirstly the ecosystem status and the impact of mariculture activities on ecosystemin Sanggou bay is analyzed.Then the ecosystem services which have been impacted isidentified.The change of ecosystem services value is calculated from 1994 to 2004.Based on ecosystem services value,cost and benefit analysis(CBA) model isestablished,which is used to assess mariculture activities in Sanggou bay.Acccordingto the result of CBA,some measures to improve the mariculture mode in Sanggou bayare given.The results show that:①Mariculture activities have great impact on ecosystem in Sanggou bay.From1994 to 2004,the total value of ecosystem services increases greatly,in which thevalue of food production increases a lot,but the value of oxygen production,climateregulation and water purification decreases.Therefore,the increase of total valuemainly results from the change of food production.②The result of CBA of mariculture activities in Sanggou bay indicates that thebenefit increase mainly result from the increase of economic benefit,coupled with theincrease of environmental cost (the value of other services such as climate regulation,oxygen production and water purification decrease).In summary,the improvement ofmariculture model in Sanggou bay should not only concentrate on the production ofcultured species,but also address the impact of mariculture activities on ecosystemservices and trade-off among different ecosystem services. ③The CBA model provides a framework for the impact study of humanactivities on marine ecosystem and integration of valuation of ecosystem services intoocean management.(3) Study on ecosystem services value in Miaodao ArchipelagoThe characteristics of ecological environment in Miaodao Archipelago isanalyzed and the main ecosystem services are identified considering the characteristicswith both land and marine area.The value of marine ecosystem services in MiaodaoArchipelago in 2005 is calculated.The uncertainty analysis model is established andthe model is used to study the ecosystem services in Miaodao Archipelago.The resultsshow that:①The value of regulation service in south-five island of Miaodao Archipelago isthe largest which reaches 43.17% of the total value.The value of culture servicesoccupies 37.87%,and the food production only reaches 18.96%.The value of bothregulation services and culture services account to 81.04% of the total value,whichshow that the dominant service isn't the supply of food production in south-five islandof Miaodao Archipelago.This also reflects the characteristics of protected area.②The result of uncertainty analysis indicates that there is large fluctuation of thevalue of climate regulation and oxygen production,but generally they are relativelyconcentrated.When confidence level is low,there is a little fluctuation.However,when the confidence level increases,the variance percentage increases significantly.This indicates that although the characters of value is centralized distribution,therestill exists"fatty tail"phenomenon namely that the value still probably falls to theposition which is far from the average value of lower limit and upper limit.(4) Study on ecosystem service value in Jiaozhou bayThe main ecosystem services in Jiaozhou bay is identified,and the value ofecosystem services is estimated based on the survey in 2003.Then a model to assessthe loss caused by reclamation is set up which is used to estimate the loss ofecosystem services value from 2003 to 2006 in Jiaozhou bay.The main results are as follows:①The total value of marine ecosystem services in 2003 is 13.79×10~8 CNY,andthe value is 35623 CNY/hm~2.Among all these services,the value of provisioningservices is 91.02×10~7 CNY which accounts to 57.42%.The value of regulatingservices is 17.06×10~7 CNY which reach 12.38%,and the value of culture services is41.64×10~7 CNY and occupy 30.20% of the total value.Compared with mariculture activities in Sangggou bay and Miaodao Archipelago,the proportion of cultured alage is lower in Jiaozhou bay,which lead to low value ofregulating services.But the proportion of knowledge dissemination value is high andthe reason is that Qingdao is an important marine research centre,and many relativeresearch projects are often carried out in this area.This reflects the characteristics ofmarine ecosystem services which rely on the local area,and also shows spatialdifference of knowledge dissemination service.②The loss caused by reclamation in Jiaozhou bay is about 2.32×10~8 CNY from2003 to 2006 and there is about 0.58×10~8 CNY increment in loss on average annually.The total loss of ecosystem services is approximately 76×10~4 CNY/hm~2.