Integrated gravity and magnetic study on patterns of petroleum basin occurrence in the China seas and adjacent areas

The China seas and adjacent areas contain numerous petroleum basins.One of the main challenges for future oil and gas exploration is to identify the inherent patterns of petroleum basin distribution.The formation and evolution of petroleum basins along with the migration and accumulation of oil and gas are often closely related to the tectonic environment.The gravity and magnetic fields with high lateral resolution and wide coverage provide important data for regional tectonic research.Based on the gravity data in the Global Satellite Gravity Anomaly Database(V31.1)and magnetic data from the Earth Magnetic Anomaly Grid(2-arc-minute resolution)(V2),this study uses integrated gravity and magnetic field technique to obtain integrated gravity and magnetic field result for the China seas and adjacent areas,and then adopts the normalized vertical derivative of the total horizontal derivative technique to conduct partition.Finally,it identifies the relationship between the partition characteristics and tectonics as well as the patterns of petroleum basin occurrence.The research shows that the partition of gravity and magnetic field integrated result has a good correlation with the Neo-Cathaysian tectonic system and tectonic units.The petroleum basins are characterized according to three blocks arranged from north to south and four zones arranged from east to west.The north-south block structure causes the uneven distribution of oil and gas resources in the mainland area and the differences in the hydrocarbon-bearing strata.Petroleum basins are more abundant in the north than in the south.The ages of the main oil-and gas-bearing strata are“Paleozoic–Mesozoic,Paleozoic–Mesozoic–Cenozoic,and Paleozoic–Mesozoic”,in order from north to south.The difference in the overall type of oil and gas resources in all basins is controlled by the east–west zonation.From east to west,the oil and gas resource type exhibits a wave-like pattern of“oil and gas,gas,oil and gas,gas”.The vertical distribution is characterized by an upper oil(Mesozoic–Cenozoic)and lower gas(Mesozoic–Paleozoic)structure.Within the study area,the Paleozoic marine strata should be the main strata of future natural gas exploration.

Geological reservoir and resource potential(10^(13)m^(3))of gas hydrates in the South China Sea

A detailed understanding of the distribution and potential of natural gas hydrate(NGHs)resources is crucial to fostering the industrialization of those resources in the South China Sea,where NGHs are abundant.In this study,this study analyzed the applicability of resource evaluation methods,including the volumetric,genesis,and analogy methods,and estimated NGHs resource potential in the South China Sea by using scientific resource evaluation methods based on the factors controlling the geological accumulation and the reservoir characteristics of NGHs.Furthermore,this study compared the evaluation results of NGHs resource evaluations in representative worldwise sea areas via rational analysis.The results of this study are as follows:(1)The gas hydrate accumulation in the South China Sea is characterized by multiple sources of gas supply,multi-channel migration,and extensive accumulation,which are significantly different from those of oil and gas and other unconventional resources.(2)The evaluation of gas hydrate resources in the South China Sea is a highly targeted,stratified,and multidisciplinary evaluation of geological resources under the framework of a multi-type gas hydrate resource evaluation system and focuses on the comprehensive utilization of multi-source heterogeneous data.(3)Global NGHs resources is n×10^(15)m^(3),while the NGHs resources in the South China Sea are estimated to be 10^(13)m^(3),which is comparable to the abundance of typical marine NGHs deposits in other parts of the world.In the South China Sea,the NGHs resources have a broad prospect and provide a substantial resource base for production tests and industrialization of NGHs.

Deep-water Fan Systems and Petroleum Resources on the Northern Slope of the South China Sea

The shallow shelf delta/strand arenaceous-pelitic deposit region in the north of the Pearl River mouth basin, sitting on the northern continental shelf of the South China Sea, has already become an important oil production base in China. Recent researched has revealed that a great deal of deep-water fans of great petroleum potentiality exist on the Baiyun deep-water slope below the big paleo Pearl River and its large delta. Based on a mass of exploration wells and 2-D seismic data of the shallow shelf region, a interpretation of sequence stratigraphy confirmed the existence of deep-water fans. The cyclic falling of sea level, abundant detrital matter from the paleo Pearl River and the persistent geothermal subsidence in the Baiyun sag are the three prerequisites for the formation and development of deep-water fans. There are many in common between the deep-water shelf depositional system of the northern South China Sea and the exploration hotspots region on the two banks of the Atlantic. For example, both are located on passive continent margins, and persistent secular thermal subsidence and large paleo rivers have supplied abundant material sources and organic matter. More recently, the discovery of the big gas pool on the northern slope of the Baiyun sag confirms that the Lower Tertiary lacustrine facies in the Baiyun sag has a great potentiality of source rocks. The fans overlying the Lower Tertiary source rocks should become the main exploration areas for oil and gas resources.

Tectonics and Petroleum Potential of the East China Sea Shelf Rift Basin

There are two Cenozoic sedimentary basins in the East China Sea. They are the East China Sea shelf basin and the Okinawa Trough basin. The former can be divided into a western and an eastern rift region. The development of the shelf basin underwent continental-margin fault depression, post-rift and then tectonic inversion stages. Available exploration results show that the distribution of source rocks is controlled by the basin architecture and its tectonic evolution. In the Xihu depression, mudstones and coals are the main source rocks. The eastern rift region has good geological conditions for the formation of large oil and gas fields.

Evaluation of natural gas hydrate resources in the South China Sea using a new genetic analogy method

Natural gas hydrate(NGH)has attracted much attention as a new alternative energy globally.However,evaluations of global NGH resources in the past few decades have casted a decreasing trend,where the estimate as of today is less than one ten-thousandth of the estimate forty years ago.The NGH researches in China started relatively late,but achievements have been made in the South China Sea(SCS)in the past two decades.Thirty-five studies had been carried out to evaluate NGH resource,and results showed a flat trend,ranging from 60 to 90 billion tons of oil equivalent,which was 2-3 times of the evaluation results of technical recoverable oil and gas resources in the SCS.The big difference is that the previous 35 group of NGH resource evaluations for the SCS only refers to the prospective gas resource with low grade level and high uncertainty,which cannot be used to guide exploration or researches on development strategies.Based on the analogy with the genetic mechanism of conventional oil and gas resources,this study adopts the newly proposed genetic method and geological analogy method to evaluate the NGH resource.Results show that the conventional oil and gas resources are 346.29×10^(8)t,the volume of NGH and free dynamic field are 25.19×10^(4)km^(3) and(2.05-2.48)×10^(6)km^(3),and the total amount of in-situ NGH resources in the SCS is about(4.47-6.02)×10^(12)m^(3).It is considered that the resource of hydrate should not exceed that of conventional oil and gas,so it is 30 times lower than the previous estimate.This study provides a more reliable geological basis for further NGH exploration and development.

Evaluation of natural gas hydrate resources in the South China Sea by combining volumetric and trend-analysis methods

Natural gas hydrate(NGH),considered as a type of premium energy alternative to conventional hydrocarbons,has been broadly studied.The estimate of the total NGH resources in the world has decreased by more than 90%since the first evaluation in 1973.Geographic and geophysical conditions of the South China Sea(SCS)are favorable for the formation of NGH,which has been proved by drilling results up to date.The recoverability of the NGH in the SCS has been confirmed by the production tests using both vertical and horizontal wells.Since 2001,35 estimates of NGH resources in the SCS have been made,with relatively stable results varying between 600 and 900×109 ton oil equivalent.In these estimations,the volumetric method was commonly adopted,but the geological conditions,the migration-accumulation mechanisms of NGH,and the practical recoverability were not considered.These estimates cannot be regarded as evaluated resources according to the international resource evaluation standards,but are at most about prospective gas content of NGH,thus inefficient for guiding explorations and developments.To solve these problems,this study divides the past NGH surveys in the SCS into seven stages,acquires key geological parameters of every stage based on previous studies and analogy with other areas,evaluates the NGH resources of these seven stages by using the volumetric method,then adopts a new trend-analysis method to simulate the downward trend of these estimates,and finally predicts the NGH resources in the SCS at 2025 and 2030.The downward trend is because of the continuous improvement of NGH understanding over time,which is consistent with the trend of global NGH estimates.At the present stage(from 2019 to 2021),the average technically recoverable resource(ATRR)is 7.0×10^(12)m^(3),and the estimates of 2025 and 2030 ATRR are 6.46×10^(12)m^(3) and 4.01×10^(12)m^(3)respectively,with a difference of less than 40%.Therefore,it can be inferred that the ATRR of NGH in the SCS is between 4.0 and 6.5×10^(12)m^(3),with an average of 5.25×10^(12)m^(3).

Geochemical insights into contribution of petroleum hydrocarbons to the formation of hydrates in the Taixinan Basin, the South China Sea

Methane hydrate in the South China Sea (SCS) has extensively been considered to be biogenic on the basis of its δ13C andδD values.Although previous efforts have greatly been made,the contribution of thermogenic oil/gas has still been underestimated.In this study,biomarkers and porewater geochemical parameters in hydrate-free and hydrate-bearing sediments in the Taixinan Basin,the SCS have been measured for evaluating the contribution of petroleum hydrocarbons to the formation of hydrate deposits via a comparative study of their source inputs of organic matters,environmental conditions,and microbial activities.The results reveal the occurrence of C_(14)–C_(16) branched saturated fatty acids (bSFAs) with relatively high concentrations from sulfate-reducing bacteria(SRBs) in hydrate-bearing sediments in comparison with hydrate-free sediments,which is in accord with the positive δ^(13)C values of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC),increasing methane concentrations,decreasing alkalinity,and concentration fluctuation of ions (Cl^(-),Br^(-),SO_(4)^(2-),Ca^(2+),and Mg^(2+)).These data indicate the relatively active microbial activities in hydrate-bearing sediments and coincident variations of environmental conditions.Carbon isotope compositions of b SFAs (-34.0‰to -21.2‰),n-alkanes (-34.5‰to-29.3‰),and methane(-70.7‰to -69.9‰) jointly demonstrate that SRBs might thrive on a different type of organic carbon rather than methane.Combining with numerous gas/oil reservoirs and hydrocarbon migration channels in the SCS,the occurrence of unresolved complex mixtures (UCMs),odd-even predominance (OEP) values (about 1.0),and biomarker patterns suggest that petroleum hydrocarbons from deep oil/gas reservoirs are the most probable carbon source.Our new results provide significant evidence that the deep oil/gas reservoirs may make a contribution to the formation of methane hydrate deposits in the SCS.

Petroleum geology controlled by extensive detachment thinning of continental margin crust: A case study of Baiyun sag in the deep-water area of northern South China Sea

The relationships between crustal stretching and thinning,basin structure and petroleum geology in Baiyun deep-water area were analyzed using large area 3D seismic,gravity,magnetic,ocean bottom seismic(OBS),deep-water exploration wells and integrated ocean drilling program(IODP).During the early syn-rifting period,deep-water area was a half-graben controlled by high angle faults influenced by the brittle extension of upper crust.In the mid syn-rifting period,this area was a broad-deep fault depression controlled by detachment faults undergone brittle-ductile deformation and differentiated extension in the crust.In the late syn-rifting period,this area experienced fault-sag transition due to saucer-shaped rheology change dominated by crustal ductile deformation.A broad-deep fault depression controlled by the large detachment faults penetrating through the crust is an important feature of deep-water basin.The study suggests that the broad-deep Baiyun sag provides great accommodation space for the development of massive deltaic-lacustrine deposition system and hydrocarbon source rocks.The differentiated lithospheric thinning also resulted in the different thermal subsidence during post-rifting period,and then controlled the development of continental shelf break and deep-water reservoir sedimentary environment.The high heat flow background caused by the strong thinning of lithosphere and the rise of mantle source resulted in particularities in the reservoir diagenesis,hydrocarbon generation process and accumulation of deep-water area in northern South China Sea.

Introduction to the Second Round of Bidding for Petroleum Resource Exploration Onshore China

The bidding blocks are distributed in different regions of China,There are seven blocks in W est China,and seven blocks in Northeast China,the other twelve blocks are from North and Central China.All the blocks are located in prospective sedimentary basins with different geological condi-tions,some are from oil produced basin such as Bohai Bay Basin which is a prolific basin,it's production accounts for 50%in total prodcuction of China.Based on estimation,the total potential resource of oil is 3.55 billion tons and gas is 800 billion cubic meters in bidding areas.As far as the exploratory objectives are concerned,there are Paleozoic.Mesozoic and Cenozoic strata,as well as continental clastic and marine一carbonate re-servoir.These provide more choices for foreign companies.In addition,most of bidding blocks are adjacent to transport lines,so communication and petroleum transportation are very convenient.

Geology and hydrocarbon accumulations in the deepwater of the northwestern South China Sea——with focus on natural gas

The deepwater of the northwestern South China Sea is located in the central to southern parts of the Qiongdongnan Basin （QDN Basin）, which is a key site for hydrocarbon exploration in recent years. In this study, the authors did a comprehensive analysis of gravity-magnetic data, extensive 3D seismic survey, cores and cuttings, paleontology and geochemical indexes, proposed the mechanism of natural gas origin, identified different oil and gas systems, and established the model of hydrocarbon accumulations in the deep-water region. Our basin tectonic simulation indicates that the evolution of QDN Basin was controlled by multiple-phased tectonic movements, such as Indochina-Eurasian Plate collision, Tibetan Uplift, Red River faulting and the expansion of the South China Sea which is characterized by Paleogene rifting, Neogene depression, and Eocene intensive faulting and lacustrine deposits. The drilling results show that this region is dominated by marine- terrestrial transitional and neritic-bathyal facies from the early Oligocene. The Yacheng Formation of the early Oligocene is rich in organic matter and a main gas-source rock. According to the geological-geochemical data from the latest drilling wells, Lingshui, Baodao, Changchang Sags have good hydrocarbon-generating potentials, where two plays from the Paleogene and Neogene reservoirs were developed. Those reservoirs occur in central canyon structural-lithologic trap zone, Changchang marginal trap zone and southern fault terrace of Baodao Sag. Among them, the central canyon trap zone has a great potential for exploration because the various reservoir- forming elements are well developed, i.e., good coal-measure source rocks, sufficient reservoirs from the Neogene turbidity sandstone and submarine fan, faults connecting source rock and reservoirs, effective vertical migration, late stage aggregation and favorable structural-lithological composite trapping. These study results provide an important scientific basis for hydrocarbon exploration in this region, evidenced by the recent discovery of the significant commercial LS-A gas field in the central canyon of the Lingshui Sag.

Cenozoic Sea-land Transition and its Petroleum Geological Significance in the Northern South China Sea

The process of Cenozoic sea-land changes in the northern South China Sea(SCS)controlled the sedimentary filling pattern and played an important role in the petroleum geological characteristics of the northern marginal sedimentary basins.Under the control of the opening process of the SCS,the northern SCS Cenozoic transgression generally showed the characteristics of early in the east and late in the west,and early in the south and late in the north.The initial transgression occurred in the Eocene in the Taixinan Basin(TXNB)of the eastern SCS,while the transgression occurred until the Pliocene in the Yinggehai Basin(YGHB)of the western SCS.International Ocean Discovery Program(IODP)expeditions(Expeditions 367/368)revealed that the initial transgression of the SCS basin occurred at approximately 34 Ma,which was the initial opening time of the SCS.The period of drastic changes in the sedimentary environment caused by large-scale transgression corresponded to the opening time of the southwestern subbasin(approximately 23 Ma),which also represented the peak of the spreading of the SCS.The sea-land transition process controls the distribution of alternating continent-marine facies,marine facies source rocks and reservoirs in the basins.The marine facies source rocks of the basins in the northern SCS have a trend of gradually becoming younger from east to west,which is consistent with the regional process of gradual transgression from east to west.Regional sea-level changes were comprehensively influenced by SCS opening and global sea-level changes.These processes led to the early development in the east and south and late development in the west and north for the carbonate platform in the SCS.Carbonate platforms form another type of"selfgenerating and self-accumulating"oil-gas reservoir in the northern SCS.The sea-land transition controlled the depositional filling patterns of different basins and laid the foundation of marine deposits for oil and gas resources.The source-reservoircap assemblage in the northern SCS was controlled horizontally by provenance supply and sedimentary environmental changes caused by sea-land transition and vertically by the tectonic evolution of the SCS and regional sea-level changes.

Reduction of global natural gas hydrate(NGH)resource estimation and implications for the NGH development in the South China Sea

There have been at least 29 groups of estimates on the global natural gas hydrate(NGH)resource since1973,varying greatly with up to 10,000 times and showing a decreasing trend with time.For the South China Sea(SCS),35 groups of estimations were conducted on NGH resource potential since 2000,while these estimates kept almost the same with time,varying between 60 and 90 billion tons of oil equivalent(toe).What are the key factors controlling the variation trend?What are the implications of these variations for the NGH development in the world and the SCS?By analyzing the investigation characteristics of NGH resources in the world,this study divided the evaluation process into six stages and confirmed four essential factors for controlling the variations of estimates.Results indicated that the reduction trend reflects an improved understanding of the NGH formation mechanism and advancement in the resource evaluation methods,and promoted more objective evaluation results.Furthermore,the analysis process and improved evaluation method was applied to evaluate the NGH resources in the SCS,showing the similar decreasing trend of NGH resources with time.By utilizing the decreasing trend model,the predicted recoverable resources in the world and the SCS are(205-500)×10^(12)m^(3)and(0.8-6.5)×10^(12)m^(3),respectively,accounting for 20%of the total conventional oil and gas resources.Recoverable NGH resource in the SCS is only about 4%-6%of the previous estimates of 60-90 billion toe.If extracted completely,it only can support the sustainable development of China for 7 years at the current annual consumption level of oil and gas.NGH cannot be the main energy resource in future due to its low resource potential and lack of advantages in recovery.

Research progress and challenges of natural gas hydrate resource evaluation in the South China Sea

As an efficient clean energy,natural gas hydrate(NGH)has become a hot topic in recent researches.Since1990 s,China has made great achievements and progress in NGH exploration in the South China Sea(SCS),including determination of the favorable distribution areas and favorable strata thickness,identification of the dual source for accumulation,evaluation of the prospective gas contents,verification of the widespread existence,and confirmation of the technical recoverability of NGH resources.However,there are three major challenges in the NGH studies.First,all the 24 national key and major projects in the SCS focused on trial production engineering and geological engineering in the past 20 years,while 8 of the 10 international NGH research projects focused on resource potential.Second,resource evaluation methods are outdated and some parameter selection are subjective.Third,the existing resource evaluation results are low-level with a great uncertainty,and cannot be used to guide NGH exploration and production or strategic research.To improve the evaluation of NGH resources in the SCS,future researches should focus on four aspects:(1)improve the research on the criterion of the objective existence of NGH and the method of prediction and evaluation;(2)apply new theories and methods from the global NGH research;(3)boost the research on the difference and correlation of the conditions of hydrocarbon migration and accumulation in different basins;(4)innovate the theory and method of NGH resource potential evaluation.

Estimation of potential distribution of gas hydrate in the northern South China Sea

Gas hydrate research has significant importance for securing world energy resources, and has the potential to produce considerable economic benefits. Previous studies have shown that the South China Sea is an area that harbors gas hydrates. However, there is a lack of systematic investigations and understanding on the distribution of gas hydrate throughout the region. In this paper, we applied mineral resource quantitative assessment techniques to forecast and estimate the potential distribution of gas hydrate resources in the northern South China Sea. However, current hydrate samples from the South China Sea are too few to produce models of occurrences. Thus, according to similarity and contrast principles of mineral outputs, we can use a similar hydrate-mining environment with sufficient gas hydrate data as a testing ground for modeling northern South China Sea gas hydrate conditions. We selected the Gulf of Mexico, which has extensively studied gas hydrates, to develop predictive models of gas hydrate distributions, and to test errors in the model. Then, we compared the existing northern South China Sea hydrate-mining data with the Gulf of Mexico characteristics, and collated the relevant data into the model. Subsequently, we applied the model to the northern South China Sea to obtain the potential gas hydrate distribution of the area, and to identify significant exploration targets. Finally, we evaluated the reliability of the predicted results. The south seabed area of Taiwan Bank is recommended as a priority exploration target. The Zhujiang Mouth, Southeast Hainan, and Southwest Taiwan Basins, including the South Bijia Basin, also are recommended as exploration target areas. In addition, the method in this paper can provide a useful predictive approach for gas hydrate resource assessment, which gives a scientific basis for construction and implementation of long-term planning for gas hydrate exploration and general exploitation of the seabed of China.

Deep structural research of the South China Sea: Progresses and directions

The South China Sea(SCS)is the hotspot of geological scientific research and nature resource exploration and development due to the potential for enormous hydrocarbon resource development and a complex formation and evolution process.The SCS has experienced complex geological processes including continental lithospheric breakup,seafloor spreading and oceanic crust subduction,which leads debates for decades.However,there are still no clear answers regarding to the following aspects:the crustal and Moho structure,the structure of the continent-ocean transition zone,the formation and evolution process and geodynamic mechanism,and deep processes and their coupling relationships with the petroliferous basins in the SCS.Under the guidance of the“Deep-Earth”science and technology innovation strategy of the Ministry of Natural Resources,deep structural and comprehensive geological research are carried out in the SCS.Geophysical investigations such as long array-large volume deep reflection seismic,gravity,magnetism and ocean bottom seismometer are carried out.The authors proposed that joint gravitymagnetic-seismic inversion should be used to obtain deep crustal information in the SCS and construct high resolution deep structural sections in different regions of the SCS.This paper systematically interpreted the formation and evolution of the SCS and explored the coupling relationship between deep structure and evolution of Mesozoic-Cenozoic basins in the SCS.It is of great significance for promoting the geosystem scientific research and resource exploration of the SCS.

Hydrocarbon reserves of the South China Sea:Implications for regional energy security

The countries such as China,Vietnam,Philippines,Malaysia,Indonesia and Brunei that border South China Sea region have immense stakes in exploring and exploiting the natural resources of the region including hydrocarbon.More than the hydrocarbon reserves,the South China Sea is home to World’s high-networth trade route that brings the interests of non-geographic entities to this region.Further,the purported reserves of hydrocarbon in the region are in the orders of Persian Gulf but are not yet properly explored and the reserves recovered owing to territorial and non-claimant stakeholder’s influences/interventions.This paper is a synopsis of information on the hydrocarbon reserves of the South China Sea region,and evaluates the territorial and extra-territorial interests in the light of energy security and equitable development and utilization of natural resources from a geological perspective.We also suggest several measures for future consideration and implementation.

Geochemical Characteristics and Hydrocarbon Generation Modeling of the Paleocene Source Rocks in the Jiaojiang Sag,East China Sea Basin

Jiaojiang sag in the East China Sea Basin is at the earlier exploration stage,where characterizing hydrocarbon generation of source rocks is important to understand oil-gas exploration potential.Utilizing geochemical and basin modeling analysis,hydrocarbon generation capacity and process of the Paleocene E_(1)y,E_(1)l and E_(1)m formations were investigated.Results show that E_(1)y and E_(1)l mudstones are high-quality source rocks with Type Ⅱ kerogen,which is dominated by both aquatic organisms and terrestrial higher plants deposited in sub-reduced environment.E_(1)m mudstone interbedded with thin carbonaceous mudstone and coal is poor-quality source rock with Type Ⅲ kerogen,whose organic matter was originated from terrestrial higher plants under oxidized environment.Controlled by burial and maturity histories,E_(1)y and E_(1)l source rocks experienced two hydrocarbon generation stages,which took place in the Late Paleocene and in the Middle to Late Eocene,respectively,and had high hydrocarbon generation capacity with cumulative hydrocarbon volume of 363 and 328 mg/g,respectively.E_(1)m source rock only had one hydrocarbon generation process in the Late Eocene,which had low hydrocarbon generation capacity with cumulative hydrocarbon volume of only 24 mg/g.The future oil-gas exploration in the Jiaojiang sag should focus on hydrocarbon generation center and select targets in the central uplift formed before the Miocene with high-quality traps.

Distribution and resource evaluation of natural gas hydrate in South China sea by combing phase equilibrium mechanism and volumetric method

China Geological Survey conducted the second trial production of natural gas hydrate(NGH)in the Shenhu Area in South China Sea(SCS)from 2019 to 2020.Compared with the first trial production in 2017,the second trial showed significantly increased daily gas production and total gas production,and removed some technical obstacles for large-scale NGH resource developments in the SCS.However,current NGH resource evaluation in the SCS is still at the stage of prospective gas content assessment,which is unable to guide further NGH exploration and development.This study utilized the hydrate phase balance to delineate the NGH distribution range and effective thickness and volumetric method to evaluate NGH resource.Based on the latest exploration and production data from the Shenhu Area,Monte Carlo simulation was performed to calculate the NGH resource amount with different probabilities.By assuming a 50%cumulative probability,the in-situ NGH resources in the SCS was estimated to be11.7×10^(12)m^(3) and the recoverable NGH resources was 2.8×10^(12)m^(3).These results will provide a more reliable resource basis for China to formulate comprehensive development strategies for oil and gas exploration in the SCS.

RELATIVE SEA LEVEL RISE AND ITS EFFECTS ON ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES IN CHINAS COASTAL AREAS

Due to global climate warming and natural and man-made land subsidence etc., relative sea level rise in the coastal plains of China will exceed 2-3 times over the golbal mean value during the first half part of the 21st century. It will result in a series of adverse impacts on evolution of natural environment and socioeconomic development of the coastal area. This paper analyses environmental and resource effects induced by relative sea level rise in China's coastal areas on the basis of rough estimate of future relative sea level rise. These effects include inundating tidal flat and wetlands and increase in inundated risk of coastal habitable land,exacerbating storm surge. coastal erosion, flooding and salt water intrusion hazards.as well as endangering land. water. tourism and living resources and their utilization.

南海渔业资源可持续发展的中国方案建构

有效治理南海渔业资源问题,应以现实需求为导向探寻南海渔业资源可持续发展的总基调,这是建构中国特色治理方案的根本前提。同时,要不失时机地从立法、执法、司法角度深刻反思现有治理措施的缺陷,紧追全球海洋治理大势,借鉴地中海渔业合作治理经验,形成符合南海海洋治理需求的体系化方案。该方案需具有吸引力、感召力与引导力且全面展示中国在南海问题上的基本立场。中国可通过加强科学管理与法规建设、注重生态修复与增殖养护、推动国际合作与区域治理等可行途径实现南海渔业资源的可持续发展。