Evaluation Of Habitat Suitability And Habitat Quality In The Coastal Waters Of Tongzhou Bay

Coastal zone is the most active area of human activities.With the development of economy,the ecosystem of coastal zone is also faced with huge challenges.The research on habitat quality in coastal zone and nearshore waters can provide scientific support for coastal zone planning and management,which is of great significance to coordinate the development and protection of coastal zone.In recent years,the application of ecological models to large-scale spatial habitat quality assessment has become a hot topic,among which In VEST model has been widely used in habitat quality assessment of different scenes due to its advantages of easy data acquisition,simple processing and fast calculation.Due to the lack of clear landscape boundaries,marine is often considered as a single habitat type,which the evaluation results are difficult to objectively and accurately reflect the spatial differences of marine habitat quality.In this study,we divided the nearshore water into different habitat types according to ocean development and utilization status,furthermore we used the benthic diversity to reflect waters habitat quality to modify the nearshore water habitat quality.We chose Tongzhou bay as the study area,based on four seasons environmental and ecological data from 2018 to 2019,established the Tongzhou bay nearshore waters habitat suitability empirical equation,optimizes the calculation of In VEST-HQ model,on the basis of the calculation result analyzed the present status,spatial distribution and seasonal variation of habitat suitability and habitat quality situation.The results showed that:(1)The biodiversity index in the coastal area of Tongzhou Bay ranged from 0 to3.08,which was mainly affected by water temperature,active phosphate and chemical oxygen demand factor.(2)The empirical model of habitat suitability index can be used to reflect the suitability of benthic habitats in the nearshore waters of the study area.The annual mean value of habitat suitability index in Tongzhou Bay was 0.6,indicating a seasonal trend of autumn > summer > spring > in winter.The high value of annual mean distribution was concentrated in the central sea area,while the low value was concentrated in the north coastal area and the coastal waters of Tongzhou district.(3)The annual mean value of habitat quality in Tongzhou Bay was 0.61,with the maximum range of ? class and the minimum level of ? class.The mean value of habitat quality showed a seasonal trend of autumn > summer > spring > winter.The spatial distribution of habitat quality was mainly determined by habitat suitability.The high value of habitat quality was concentrated in the natural tidal flat area in the south and the natural sea area in the far central coast,while the low value was concentrated in the aquaculture area in the north,the northeast region around the offshore wind power projects,and the coastal waters in Tongzhou District and Qidong City.This study in view of the present problems in divided marine area of In VEST model,using benthic diversity to calculate Tongzhou bay nearshore waters habitat suitability and habitat quality,increase the accuracy of In VEST-HQ model calculation results,came up with a new way for the application of In VEST-HQ model in the coastal zone area,provided scientific support for Tongzhou bay coastal zone planning and development.In addition,it has important practical significance to coordinate the rehabilitation and development activities in Tongzhou bay coastal zone protection.