Dynamic Evaluation of the Impact of Human Interference during Rapid Urbanisation of Coastal Zones: A Case Study of Shenzhen

Abstract

Coastal ecosystems undergoing rapid urbanisation have characteristics of both natural and artificial ecosystems. How we evaluate the dynamic impact of human activities on coastal ecosystems is important for coastal zone management and development. In this study, we first developed a method to extract both the natural and artificial features of coastal land cover, and classified the coastal landscapes impacted by human activities from an ecological service perspective. We then constructed an ecological interference index for classification to evaluate the impact of coastal human interference on both artificial and natural ecosystems during rapid urbanisation. Lastly, we verified our method by applying it to the coastal zone in Shenzhen, China. Our results show that this method can describe the effects of human activities on coastal zones in more detail. The distribution of human activity was mainly associated with the geomorphology of the coastal zone. Changes in human interference were seen strongly in proximity to both the landward and coastal boundaries of the study area, in close correlation with the public’s increasing conscience for ecological environment protection.