Mapping Island Ecological Vulnerability to Urbanization: A Study of Twelve Island Counties/Districts, China

Sun, B.Q.; Ma, X.; Bao, X., and de Jong, M., 2020. Mapping island ecological vulnerability to urbanization: A study of twelve island counties/districts, China. In: Malvárez, G. and Navas, F. (eds.), Global Coastal Issues of 2020. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 95, pp. 83-87. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Over the past two decades, China has witnessed an emerging research interest in island urbanization, which will set further pressure on island ecological vulnerability (IEV), especially to those islands with a fixed link to the mainland. Recently, attention has begun to focus on assessing the impact from urbanization on IEV, with several publications suggesting a dilemma between ambiguous urban planning and the emerging ecological deterioration on island areas. In this article, the IEV of China's twelve island counties/districts is assessed based on an exposure (E) - sensitivity (S) - adaptive capacity (A) framework and by means of an entropy method for determination of the weight of fourteen indicators. Our proposed E-S-A framework and assessment model could be rationally applied to similar coastal urban areas and islands with fixed links to the mainland internationally, which is the major contribution of our study.

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