ESTUARINE AND COASTAL CHALLENGES IN CHINA

Estuaries and coasts are conjunctions of four spheres (atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere) and important matter and energy convergence/divergence zones, where developed economy, dense population and highly intensive exploitation induce adverse environmental changes and serious destruction of resources, which have great impacts on coastal sustainable development, especially as the highly intensive development in river basins has direct and pronounced effects on estuaries and their adjacent coasts. In the new century, China’s estuaries and coast are faced with four main challenges: sharp decrease of sediment discharge into the sea, rapid increase of pollution matter into the sea, loss of coastal wetland, and the impacts of global sea level rise on the coastal lowlands of China. Therefore, it is undoubtedly very important and urgent to carry out studies on estuarine and coastal environmental changes, in order to resolve the issue of national sustainable development, especially that of rational use of coastal zone resources.