Adverse Impacts of Human Development on China's Coastal Area: Management Issues and Implications.

Booming economic development has been accompanied by serious adverse impacts on China's coastal area during the last 5 decades, especially the 1970s, when the open policy began. This quickly generated intense anthropogenic problems, and led to significant losses. Anthropogenic problems include direct human impacts, such as coastal pollution, global warming-induced sea level rise, and human-enhanced disasters, which include natural disasters such as storm surge, sea or coastal river flooding, salt water intrusion, coastal erosion, and coastal land subsidence. Case studies for various kinds of anthropogenic disasters indicated that these occurred due to 1) pursuit of maximal short-term interests by the stakeholders at the expense of environment, 2) a lack of profound environmental awareness among local decision-makers, and 3) a lack of integrated comprehensive coastal management at a higher plane of vision. The review suggests that once the causes and the serious consequences of anthropogenic disasters or their risks are clearly recognized, and effective and timely counter-measures have been undertaken by the local authorities of the disaster area, with time the deteriorated environment can be largely improved and sometimes even be restored with time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]