From ecological entities to the entire coastal zone: An improved ecological risk assessment methodology in Jiangsu, China

Abstract

Coastal ecosystems face disturbances from multiple risk sources. However, few studies have explored how to overcome land–sea heterogeneity in complex coastal zones to quantify ecological risk (ER) and provide spatial insights into the driving mechanisms of ER in coastal zones. This study proposed an improved ecological risk assessment method based on an exposure–consequence framework from natural and anthropogenic risk sources to investigate spatiotemporal changes in the ER of ecological entities along the Jiangsu coastal zone from 2000 to 2022. The ER of ecological entities was fused to the entire coastal zone to realize the risk correlation between them and calculated ER of shore sections by carrying value. The explanatory power and spatial heterogeneity of the driving factors for coastal ER were determined using geographical detector (GeoDetector) and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) models. For ecological entities, the very low to low-risk of the nature reserves were transferred the most in 2000–2010 (516.7705km²). Very low-risk areas of along the entire coastal zone decreased by nearly 50 %; the lower and higher risks areas were transferred to each other due to natural risk. The main driving factors of ER were GDP, underlying surface type, and development intensity, with a tendency for high-impact areas to expand gradually over time. The explanatory power of socio-economic factors was greater than that of natural factors. This novel ecological risk assessment framework elucidates the patterns and drivers of ER in coastal zones and serves as a practical reference for developing effective risk prevention strategies.