Yu, H.; Wang, Y., and Li, D., 2023. Using the AHP-entropy weight method to study regional marine economy resilience in China. Journal of Coastal Research, 39(5), 960–969. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. Marine economy has become an important part of China's national economy, but it is facing many constraints and disturbances from within and outside the region. Marine economy resilience can reflect to what extent the region will overcome these problems and achieve sustainable development. Nevertheless, evaluating marine economy resilience is a difficult task requiring considerable effort that is missing in the literature. This paper constructed the evaluation index system from the four dimensions of resistance, recovery, reorganization, and renewal and comprehensively used the analytic hierarchy process and entropy method to make a quantitative assessment of marine economy resilience in 11 coastal regions of China. Based on this, the paper then explored the spatial and temporal evolution of regional marine economy resilience. The evaluation results reveal that the overall level of China's marine economy resilience from 2006 to 2016 shows a fluctuating and rising trend. The resistance ability is generally in an upward fluctuating trend, the recovery ability fluctuates little but has no significant improvement, the reorganization ability also shows a fluctuating and rising trend, and the renewal ability has the largest increase in the four dimensions. This paper puts forward three suggestions for the coastal province governments to improve regional marine economy resilience in terms of technological innovation, green development, and coordinated opening up.

Marine fishery is an important part of China’s maritime power strategy. Improving the ecological efficiency of marine fishery is the inevitable way to achieve the sustainable development of fishery. Based on the perspective of industrial sustainable development, this study used the Super-SBM model to evaluate the ecological efficiency of marine fishery in 11 coastal provinces of China from 2011 to 2020. Combined with Malmquist index, Moran index and other methods, the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics were analyzed. On this basis, the Tobit panel model was used to explore the influencing factors of marine fishery eco-efficiency. The results show that: (1) From 2011 to 2020, the marine fishery eco-efficiency in the 10 coastal provinces and cities of China shows a clear trend of improvement, and the efficiency values in high-efficiency areas remain basically stable. The relative gap between efficient and inefficient regions remains significant. (2) From the perspective of spatial distribution characteristics, the ecological efficiency of marine fishery in coastal provinces and cities in China had no obvious spatial correlation, and showed a trend of cross-distribution between high-efficiency regions and low-efficiency regions. (3) The change of marine fishery eco-efficiency is the result of a variety of influencing factors. Fishery industrial structure, scientific and technological support levels and environmental regulation play a role in promoting the improvement of marine fishery eco-efficiency. Therefore, optimizing the structure of the fishery industry, improving environmental regulation and increasing investment in science and technology are all effective measures for local governments to improve the eco-efficiency of marine fisheries.

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.

Science and technology innovation is an important driving force to promote the development of fishery industry, and is very important to improve the quality of fishery development. In this study, the Super-SBM model was used to evaluate the fishery science and technology innovation efficiency of 30 provinces and cities in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Tibet) from 2011 to 2020. Combined with the kernel density estimation, the spatial and temporal differentiation characteristics were analyzed. Then, from the two dimensions of investment scale and innovation efficiency, the sustainable development types of fishery science and technology innovation were classified. The results show the following: (1) From the perspective of efficiency change, the overall efficiency of fishery science and technology innovation in China increased first and then decreased during 2011–2020, but the overall efficiency level was low, and the efficiency difference between regions gradually widened, and the eastern coastal regions became the development core of fishery science and technology innovation. (2) From the perspective of spatial differentiation characteristics, there was a large gap between the coastal and inland areas in China. The high-efficiency areas were mainly concentrated in the coastal provinces and cities, such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanghai and Tianjin, showing a decreasing trend from east to west. (3) From the perspective of investment scale and innovation efficiency, the study regions can be divided into four types: leading area, breakthrough area, catch-up area and backward area. This paper mainly calculates the efficiency of fishery science and technology innovation in various regions, and divides the type areas of fishery science and technology innovation and development. According to the advantages and problems of different types of areas, different development strategies and correction measures are proposed, which can effectively improve the efficiency of resource utilization, avoid resource waste and realize the sustainable development of fishery.

This study examines the shift in China’s seafood production, revealing that mariculture has surpassed marine capture as the primary source of marine food. The research aims to assess the roles of marine capture and mariculture in meeting rising food demand and ensuring nutrition security, given the limitations of land-based food production. Using data from 2003 to 2021, the study highlights several key trends: mariculture, focused on shellfish and algae, now outpaces marine capture, which remains centered on fish and crustaceans. Significant regional disparities are observed, with mariculture expanding rapidly in several coastal provinces as marine capture declines. Nutrient supply from marine capture has followed a three-phase pattern of growth, stagnation, and decline, while mariculture’s nutrient output has steadily increased, particularly in protein. By 2019-2020, mariculture surpassed marine capture in energy and protein supply, though fat supply remains lower. Regional differences in nutrient supply show mariculture leading in multiple provinces. The study concludes by recommending strategies to promote sustainable, diverse, and environmentally friendly practices for China’s marine food systems.