Ecosystem-Based Assessment Indices of Restoration for Daya Bay near a Nuclear Power Plant in South China

Abstract

China has adopted nuclear power generation as one of the strategic energy sources to resolve the dilemma between its evergrowing energy demand and the associated environmental issues. To achieve the latter, a systematic assessment of the state of the ecosystem near nuclear power plants and its restoration via ongoing recovery actions would be highly desirable and much needed. Current assessment methods are mostly based on the individual components of the ecosystem and the methods are therefore not integrated. In this paper, we report a set of system-based assessment indices to study the restoration of Daya Bay in Guangdong, China where a nuclear power plant has been in operation for 15 years. The results show that decades of intensive exploitation by the various coastal activities have pushed Daya Bay's ecosystem away from its baseline and its structure and functions are impaired; ecosystem restoration does not make up for the weakening of the ecological carrying capacity due to anthropogenic seause, nonetheless, the potential for recovery still exists. The case study suggests that the system-based indices can provide integrated information for ecosystem restoration assessment and management.

Ecosystem Health Assessment in the Pearl River Estuary of China by Considering Ecosystem Coordination

“…Lower ECI means more mismatching and lower harmony among ecosystem structure/services. Referred to the previous health assessment at estuary [19], [20], each indicator in the range of [0, 0.4], (0.4, 0.6], (0.6, 0.9] and (0.9, 1] means ill, unhealthy, sub-healthy and healthy state of ecosystem, respectively. After measuring the ecosystem health in terms of ecosystem coordination, we quantify the contribution of each structure/services to incoordination, and identify the incoordination factors influencing ecosystem health. where EI is the indexes in the EVI section, i.e.…”

Marine ecological restoration strategies of coastal nuclear power plants in China

“…The operation of DNPP was in 1994, and the historical monitoring results of relevant environmental factors are shown in Table 4. The results show that decades of operation of DNPP and exploitation of various human activities (It's not just CNPPs but it's a collection of all human activities and it's inseparable) have pushed Daya Bay's ecosystem away from its baseline and its structure and functions are impaired; ecosystem restoration does not make up for the weakening of the ecological carrying capacity due to sea use [23], nonetheless, the restoration of important wetland habitats is conducive to the improvement of the functions of key marine ecosystems and the maintenance of marine biodiversity. The obvious and stable change is characterized by increasing the species diversity of benthos.…”

The ecological mechanisms of Acetes blooms as a threat to the security of cooling systems in coastal nuclear power plants

“…The impacts of thermal discharge on the nearshore ecosystem are mainly reflected by a reduction in dissolved oxygen (DO), increased concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in water, changes to the physiological activity and function of marine organisms, and reduced biodiversity (Chen et al, 2010). Thermal discharge has the most obvious impact on primary producers such as phytoplankton.…”