Assessment of cumulative impacts and coastal ecosystem health in the JiaoZhou Bay

<p>Coastal areas are under compounding pressures from urbanization, industrialization, infrastructure growth, and aquaculture.  There is hence an urgent need for developing solutions for coastal pollution and ecosystem safety. In this work, based on our long-term and multidisciplinary ecosystem monitoring data, we develop tools to translate the observing data into management information to sustainable coastal use and development. From the existing data and experimental studies, we develop approaches to understand key processes and factors controlling coastal ecosystems and to define thresholds and guidelines values of ecological parameters to determine. With focus on marine ecosystem health assessment, we use the integrating data to describe ecosystem condition, its potential trend and the impact of existing pressures. This present study initially focused on the coastal area of the Yellow Sea, in the JIAOZHOU Bay. The technique of the structured research can be applied to other coastal regions as well to understand how these ecosystems respond to local and global pressures.</p>