Challenges of ecological protection and restoration in coastal zone of bay cities in China

The bay city is an urban unit with a specific structure and function connecting land and sea. Due to its superior geographical location, developed inland hinterland, strong port functions, and good cultural environment, the development of the bay cities are uniqueness. The main probelms and countermeasures for ecological protection and restoration of the coastal zone in bay cities are mainly as follows: (1)How to solve the ecological problems arising from development? Due to the early expansion of urban development space, the ecological environment of urban coastal zone is damaged with varying degrees by land reclamation, sea embankment, mangrove felling, etc. Scientific and effective ecological protection and restoration planning should be designed, and “one zone-one policy” should be formulated according to the local conditions of damaged area, which can effectively guarantee the connectivity of coastal ecological corridors. (2)How to improve the value of ecological products? The path to realize the value of ecological products in coastal protection and restoration is still immature, resulting in the failure of forming a closed loop of investment income for coastal ecological protection and restoration projects, and it is difficult to alleviate the problems of the single source of funds for protection and restoration, and the insufficient maintenance funds in the later stage. Innovating the value realization mechanism of marine ecological products and promoting the innovation of ecological environment-oriented development and investment-financing models, can become an effective way to promote the realization of the value of marine ecological products. (3)How to implement systematic protection? Some urban coastal ecological protection and restoration projects lack an overall design of restoration content. The restoration area is single segmented, and the bricolage is obvious. One-sided pursuit of a single goal, ignoring the site conditions such as water, soil and climate for planting trees and grass. Starting from the integrity of the coastal ecosystem, exploring the establishment of an ecological protection and restoration linkage mechanism of “river basin-estuary-bay” can effectively promote the practice of land-sea coordination and systematic protection and restoration. (4)How to improve the public participation? In the process of implementation of the protection and restoration project, The public participation in the pre-project evaluation and post-project supervision of the project is not yet involved. Adhering to people-oriented principles, enhancing the awareness of ecological protection among the public and social groups, and fully leveraging the advantages of regional cooperation should be helpful to the successful development of protection and restoration work. (5)How to ensure the long-term effectiveness of ecological protection and restoration? Due to the insufficient demonstration and unreasonable design in the early state, the plan of some ecological protection and restoration projects have to change in the implementation process, which might affect the overall restoration progress and restoration effect. The comprehensive use of various monitoring and supervision methods, and the scientific construction of ecological protection and restoration comprehensive technical system will help to achieve the effective restoration. As a representative of the high-quality development of China’s bay-type garden city, the “Xiamen Experience” has a strong reference value for solving the problems faced by the coastal ecological protection and restorationin bay cities. Doing a good job in the ecological protection and restoration in the coastal zone of bay cities will help improve the connectivity of urban coastal ecological corridors and provide important support for the construction of beautiful China and beautiful bays.