Some Problems of Vulnerability Assessment in the Coastal Zone of China

The Chinese coastline is 32000 km long. The 12 coastal provinces are very important in terms of population and their contribution to the economy, and contain 41.9% and 72.5% of China’s total, respectively. There are 8 coastal vulnerable areas and most of them are related to large deltas which presently have a large sediment-supply. 70% of muddy and sandy coasts suffer from erosion, but the main cause is usually related to reduced sediment supply such as beach mining. Coastal-wetland renewing is main trend so far and will likely decelerated with ASLR in the future. About 12000 km coastal engineering constructions protect coastal lowlands, however, extreme climate events resulted in mean-annual economic losses from 1990 to 1998 of 14.96 Millions USD, and 16.65 million people were flooded each year. Vulnerability assessments that include climate change, sea-level rise and human activity suggest that the Chinese coastal zone is relatively low compared to some other countries (see Nicholls and Mimura, 1998). However, further studies are required to provide the information for long-term coastal planning.