Assessing Ecological Vulnerability under Climate Change and Anthropogenic Influence in the Yangtze River Estuarine Island-Chongming Island, China

Wanting Peng, Duoduo Wang and Yongli Cai
Additional contact information
Wanting Peng: School of Design & China Institute for Urban Governance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Duoduo Wang: Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
Yongli Cai: School of Design & China Institute for Urban Governance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-19

Abstract: Understanding and assessing ecological vulnerability for estuarine islands are important for maintaining estuarine island ecosystem services and its sustainable development. However, due to its complex fresh water–sea–land interaction mechanism and multiple stressors from both climate change and anthropogenic influence, a comprehensive evaluation of ecological vulnerability for estuarine islands has been limited. Therefore, taking the typical estuary island of Chongming Island as an example, we developed a comprehensive evaluation system of ecological vulnerability for an estuarine island ecosystem based on the pressure-state-response (PSR) conceptual model, and explored the spatial and temporal distribution of ecological vulnerability in 2005 and 2015. The results indicated that the main pressures of Chongming Island from saltwater intrusion intensity and land use intensity were mainly distributed in northern coastal areas and eastern areas of wetland; the ecological vulnerability index (EV) of Chongming Island showed a slight decrease from 2005 to 2015; and three categories of towns based on ecological vulnerability assessment for an eco-island planning and environmental management were identified. Our study provides an effective evaluation system of ecological vulnerability for estuarine islands, which could be helpful for planners and decision makers in improving eco-island planning and environmental management.

Keywords: ecological vulnerability; climate change; anthropogenic influence; ecosystem services; urban governance; Yangtze River Estuarine Island (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11642/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11642/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:21:p:11642-:d:673201

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().