Integrated Ocean Management (IOM) for Marine Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)14: A Case Study of China’s Bohai Sea

Abstract

Marine development and eco-environmental management have received increasing attention over the past two decades, however, no effective universal approach has been established to achieve marine development without destroying marine ecosystems. This study discusses the integrated ocean management (IOM) for meeting the sustainable development goal (SDG14) through the following four aspects: the marine eco-environment foundation, market mechanism, management support, and space consideration. Our findings highlight how to enhance the coastal and marine areas management efficiency to achieve ecological and socioeconomic values for sustainable development through the benign interaction of marine ecosystem and socioeconomic systems. The presented case study examines the IOM framework for achieving SDG14 in the Bohai Sea. Furthermore, content analysis and semi-structured interviews were conducted. The framework is theoretically and empirically explored in light of the Bohai Sea’s management, focusing on the role of the government and incentive. Further, issues preventing effective IOM are highlighted and a framework for optimizing the IOM implementation to better balance the interests of various industries is suggested. When implementing the IOM framework, each region should fully play to its own advantages and push forward with some focused aspects first. The long-term effect of the Bohai Sea’s management may need time to be verified, and the role of the market mechanism and multi-interest coordination mechanism need more special attention for the Bohai Sea in the future.

Evaluation of sustainable development of the Bohai Sea Rim based on integrated land–sea management: a multi-system coupling and coordination study at coastal, provincial, and city level

“…Until the ecological civilization was proposed around 2012, the management of the Bohai Sea gradually moved towards the coupling and collaborative development of various subsystems and the ILSM. It has been recognized that the management of the Bohai Sea is inseparable from development and resource and environmental issues (Xue et al, 2023), i.e., resource exploitation, ecological and environmental issues, and socioeconomic development and are interrelated and mutually restricted. Therefore, the management of Bohai Sea is bound to be a process of coupling and coordination, and the isolated emphasis on the development of an individual system cannot achieve sustainable development.…”

“…Not only has the functional departments been integrated, but the leadership system has also been reformed, and the ecological environment department is no longer under the management of the local government, but directly under the central government . Currently, it has become a vertical leading organization from the MEE, forming the Ecological and Environmental Protection Bureau at the provincial, the municipal, and then the county-level (Xue et al, 2023). With respect to the resource development and management bureaus system, the ILSM system has been combined with the Ministry of Natural Resources/department/bureau, with cooperation from the fisheries, water conservation, shipping, and other departments.…”

“…With respect to the resource development and management bureaus system, the ILSM system has been combined with the Ministry of Natural Resources/department/bureau, with cooperation from the fisheries, water conservation, shipping, and other departments. The natural resources management department take orders from the local government, but the vertical management of the environment management department take orders only from their upper department, eliciting cooperation between departments and improving the administrative efficiency (Xue et al, 2023).…”

“…It covers resource exploitation, socioeconomic development, cross-regional ecological and environmental governance in these areas, and most importantly, forms a cooperation model for environmental governance (NDRC, 2015). These efforts not only promote the coordinated and coupled sustainable development of socioeconomic ecological and environmental systems, and also promote the ILSM system (Yan J-L. et al, 2022;Xue et al, 2023).…”

Exploring Integrated Ocean Management Policy in China: Evolution, Challenges, and Prospects

“…demonstrated that the transaction system for sea use rights operates as a hierarchical framework within the boundaries of state ownership and the requirement for payment for sea usage and the functioning of the SUR transaction system depend on a combination of government and market mechanisms [20]. Xue et al (2023) examined the use of IOM to achieve the sustainable development aim by focusing on the marine eco-environment foundation, market mechanism, management support, and space consideration [21]. investigated ways to enhance the productivity of the marine sector and promote the high-quality development of the marine economy through financial support using the framework of Integrated Land-Sea Management [22].…”