Skip to content
Ecological Intelligence

Ecological evidence.
Independent perspective.
Explore Wild Lands ↗

Ecological Intelligence / Subject

scale

Peer-reviewed Asia

One coastal resilience map was not enough for China’s local bays

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Mainland China and Rongcheng, Shandong, China
System
Coastal social-ecological land–sea system

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A three-tier, ten-attribute spatial framework combined nominal-2025 national indicators with a separately weighted local case study. National means were 0.359 for coastal land and 0.470 for coastal waters; more detailed Rongcheng maps exposed within-bay variability, including aquaculture-influenced areas.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A national index can screen for places that need attention, but monitoring and management limits must be set at the scale of local ecological and institutional processes.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

These are model-derived composite capacity scores, not verified post-storm recovery or a causal test. National and local values cannot be compared directly because their indicators and weightings differ.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution — primary coastal index analysis
View original evidence ↗

A national land-and-water index and a nested Rongcheng diagnosis differed in what they could resolve; scores measured capacity, not observed recovery.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

Change the map scale and Hangzhou Bay’s ecological trend changes with it

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Hangzhou Bay Urban Agglomeration, China
System
Urban / coastal metropolitan landscape

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A Google Earth Engine analysis tracked a remote-sensing ecological index from 2000–2024 at 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-km grids and county scale. The regional RSEI increased by about 0.0423 overall, but the share classified as improving rose from 75.34% at 1 km to 84.25% at county scale, demonstrating how aggregation can hide opposing local trajectories. Land-use intensity was the strongest SHAP contributor in the explanatory model.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

For metropolitan ecological planning, scale is part of the result. County or city averages can be useful for screening, but site and corridor decisions need nested spatial analysis so local degradation is not erased by improvement elsewhere.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

RSEI combines greenness, wetness, dryness and surface temperature; it is not a direct biodiversity or ecosystem-integrity measure. The study is observational and cannot assign causal effects to land use or policy, and its machine-learning validation was not designed as a strict spatial or temporal holdout test.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
View original evidence ↗

A 25-year remote-sensing analysis found coarse administrative units made improvement look more widespread while hiding local opposing trends along urban corridors and the bay.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →

Keep exploring

Follow the systems. Find the connections.

WildlifeLandWaterOceansClimateCitiesOne HealthGovernanceMethods / Monitoring
Browse the archive →