Journal
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Volume 562, Issue -, Pages 108-114Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.03.216
Keywords
Human impacts; Environmental changes; Sea level rise; pH; Temperature
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41176001]
- Shenzhen Science and Technology Plan project [JCYJ20140902110354253, JCYJ20150831192329178]
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Human impact on the environment remains at the center of the debate on global environmental change. Using the Hong Kong-Shenzhen corridor in south China as an example, we present evidence that rapid urbanization and economic development in coastal areas were the dominant factors causing rapid changes in coastal waters. From 1990 to 2012, coastal seawater temperature increased similar to 0.060 degrees C per year, sea level rose 4.4 mm per year and pH decreased from 8.2 to 7.7, much faster than global averages. In the same period, there were exponential increases in the local population, gross domestic product and land fill area. Empirical analyses suggest that the large increase in the population affected local temperature, and economic development had a major impact on local pH. Results also show that pH and temperature were significantly correlated with local sea level rise, but pH had more predictive power, suggesting it could be considered a predictor for changes in local sea level. We conclude that human activities could significantly exacerbate local environmental changes which should be considered in predictive models and future development plans in coastal areas. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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