Abstract:

The Haizhou Bay marine protected area was established for the effective protection of special coastal geomorphologic landscapes and ecosystems by the State Oceanic Administration in January 2008.Since the ocean is a complex ecosystem，the differences of characteristics in every parts within protected area determines the measures taken for the protection and environmental management.The evaluation of coastal environmental quality （EQ） is the basis and foundation of the protection and management of protected area partition.Based on the biological and physicochemical elements of coastal ecosystem,the paper constructed a comprehensive assessment index system of the coastal EQ with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).With the comprehensive consideration of domestic and international assessment standards，the EQ was classified as “high，good,moderate，poor，and bad”.Coastal EQ in Haizhou Bay protected area was assessed based on the environmental survey data in August 2006，December 2009，and March 2011.The results showed that the indicator system for coastal ecosystem environmental quality integrated assessment was workable，and the value of integrated environmental quality of the coastal ecosystem in Haizhou bay were 0608，0465，0638.It showed that，the coastal EQ of Haizhou Bay protected area was generally good，offshore was better than nearshore.The abundance and biodiversity of marine species in assessment index system showed a certain degree of seasonal fluctuations，particularly the indices of benthic in the winter,which reflected the ecosystem biological elements changed with the regional climate characteristics.When carrying out the evaluation of EQ，more attention should be paid to the interference of seasonal changes for the indices.Enough attention should be paid to the representativeness of investigation selected for ensuring the assessment to be objective and reflecting the regional environmental quality status