Purpose: After the 19th CPC national congress, Chinese Communist Party and the government put forward higher requirements for the development of coastal zones, and it is urgent to establish an integrated coastal zone management system, so as to better guarantee the construction of maritime powers and regional coordinated development. The purpose of this paper is to aim at re-examining and positioning China’s integrated coastal zone management. Design/methodology/approach: This paper sorts out the current situation of coastal zone resources and environment, summarizes prominent problems and clarifies the path of comprehensive management of coastal zone based on the typicality and comprehensiveness of coastal ecosystem. Findings: Coastal zone is a typical area of “life community shared among mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and grass.” However, there are three prominent problems at present, namely, separation between land and sea, separation among industry sectors and separation among administrative jurisdictions. Coastal zone planning and legislation are important measures to realize the comprehensive management of coastal zone. Originality/value: This paper puts forward some suggestions on the reform of coastal zone management from the perspective of planning and legislation.

Net Primary Productivity (NPP) can effectively reflect the characteristics and strength of the response to external disturbances on estuarine alluvial island ecosystems, which can provide evidence for regulating human development and utilization activities and improving blue carbon capacity. However, there are a few studies on NPP of estuarine alluvial islands. We established a model based on a Carnegie–Ames–Stanford Approach (CASA) to estimate NPP on Chongming Island, a typical estuarine alluvial island, by considering the actual ecological characteristics of the island. The NPP of different land-cover types and protected areas in different years and seasons were estimated using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System as the main tools. Correlations between NPP and Remote Sensing-based spatially heterogeneous factors were then conducted. In the last 30 years, the mean NPP of Chongming Island initially increased and then slowly decreased, while total NPP gradually increased. In 2016–2017, Chongming Island total NPP was 422.32 Gg C·a⁻¹, and mean NPP was 287.84 g C·m⁻²·a⁻¹, showing significant seasonal differences. NPP showed obvious spatial differentiation in both land-cover and protected area types, resulting from joint influences of natural and human activities. Chongming Island vegetation growth status and cover were the main factors that positively affected NPP. Soil surface humidity increased NPP, while soil salinity, surface temperature, and surface aridity were important NPP limiting factors.

By analyzing the evolution of China’s opening-up policy after the reform and opening up, we revealed the spatial layout and opening-up goals of different stages, as well as the leading position of coastal cities in China’s reform and opening up. On this basis, a comprehensive index evaluation method was used to construct indicators in the fields of economy, society, science and technology, and policy to measure the opening-up level of 22 major coastal cities in China from 2008 to 2020. The results showed that since 2008, the overall opening-up level of all 22 major coastal cities has generally shown a fluctuating upward trend, hugely contributing to improving the overall level of China’s opening-up. Among them, Shanghai is located in the first echelon of opening-up, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Tianjin are in the second echelon, Ningbo, Qingdao, Xiamen, Dalian, Fuzhou, and Zhuhai are in the third echelon, and other research cities are in the fourth echelon. The opening-up level of China’s major coastal cities has characteristics in the four fields of economy, society, science and technology, and policy. In addition to the overall downward trend of the economic opening-up due to domestic economic structural adjustment and international conditions, the opening level in society, science and technology, and policy has steadily advanced. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrated a significant heterogeneity in the opening level among different coastal regions and cities within different regions.

High spatiotemporal variance in land spatial development intensity occurs during rapid socioeconomic development. However, this remains poorly understood in large-scale coastal areas owing to limitations in quantification accuracy and spatial resolution. In this study, the land spatial development intensity in a large-scale coastal area of China was quantified by examining three major types of development areas: ecological, agricultural, and built-up areas. The quantity and quality of these area types were measured to improve quantification accuracy, and a spatial resolution of 100 m × 100 m was employed to capture detailed spatial information. Two time points, 2020 and 2010, were considered as the temporal interval to investigate the spatiotemporal characteristics of land spatial development intensity indices (DIIs) in the context of extensive ecological restoration. The effects of land spatial development intensity on soil organic carbon density (SOCD) were analyzed. The results revealed that ecological and built-up areas exhibited the “patch” spatial pattern, while agricultural areas exhibited the “area” pattern. The coastline is a unique land feature that influences the spatial distribution of ecological and agricultural areas. The DIIs of the ecological, agricultural, and built-up areas increased by 22.29%, 16.33%, and 32.55%, respectively, from 2010 to 2020. Quality improvement benefiting from ecological restoration largely drove the DII increase in ecological and agricultural areas, while quantity enlargement and quality promotion jointly determined the DII increase in built-up areas. Generally, the increase in DIIs contributed to an increase in the SOCD from 2010 to 2020. Specifically, the DII increase in ecological and agricultural areas led to a remarkable improvement in soil carbon sinks in large-scale coastal areas, while that in built-up areas decreased it to a lesser degree. The contributions of the ecological, agricultural, and built-up areas to the SOCD spatiotemporal variations were 45.12%, 40.87%, and 14.01%, respectively, in the entire study area.

Improving natural resource total factor productivity (NTFP) is sential for easing resource and environmental constraints, advancing high-quality development, and supporting China’s dual-carbon goals. This study aims to evaluate the static efficiency, intertemporal productivity change, regional heterogeneity, and hierarchical frontier differences in environmentally adjusted natural resource total factor productivity in China’s aggregated agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery sector from 2008 to 2020. To achieve this aim, we apply a non-radial, non-oriented undesirable-output SBM-DEA model under constant returns to scale, national, regional, and province-specific frontier comparisons. A Global Malmquist–Luenberger index is further used to decompose productivity change into efficiency change and technical change. The analysis shows an overall upward trajectory in national mean NTFP, a persistent eastern advantage, and co-movement among provincial, regional, and national frontier indices, while the dynamic productivity change indicates that productivity improvement was driven mainly by technical change rather than efficiency change. Sensitivity analyses using alternative undesirable-output specifications and cluster-based groupings support the robustness of the main conclusions and inform more targeted discussion and policy implications.