Int J Appl 

Earth Obs Geoinformation 82 (2019) 101902

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Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jag

Rapid expansion of coastal aquaculture ponds in China from Landsat T

observations during 1984–2016
⁎ ⁎⁎
Chunying Rena,e, Zongming Wanga, , Yuanzhi Zhangb,c, , Bai Zhanga, Lin Chena,d, Yanbiao Xia,d,
Xiangming Xiaoe, Russell B. Doughtye, Mingyue Liuf, Mingming Jiaa, Dehua Maoa, Kaishan Songa
a
Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Environment, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Science, Changchun 130102, China
b
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Center for Housing Innovations, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong
c
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Key Lab of Lunar Science and Deep-Exploration, National Astronomical Observatories, Beijing 100101, China
d
University of Chinses Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China
e
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, Center for Spatial Analysis, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA
f
College of Mining Engineering, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063210, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing animal food production sectors mainly developed in fertile coastal
Aquaculture ponds areas. Monitoring and mapping of aquaculture ponds are of utmost importance for the sustainable management
Updating and object-based classification of coastal ecosystems. In this study, an integrated updating and object-based classification approach was de-
Remote sensing veloped to generate maps of coastal aquaculture ponds in China from 1984 to 2016 at 30-m spatial resolution.
Spatiotemporal dynamics
The current extent and change of coastal aquaculture ponds in China were analyzed over the course of 32 years.
Coastal zone of China
In addition, spatial-temporal dynamics of coastal aquaculture ponds were examined by buffer and overlay
analyses. The results showed that the total area of coastal aquaculture ponds in China expanded by 10,463 km2,
with the largest gain occurring from 1990 to 2000 (4,207 km2). The coastal provinces of Guangdong, Shandong,
Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Hebei had significant increases of aquaculture ponds areas, accounting for 83% of totally
expanded ponds in the coastal zone of China. Rapid expansion of coastal aquaculture ponds was observed in the
0–10 km inshore buffer and the loss of wetlands and arable land contributed more than 50% to the expansion.
Socio-economic factors helped drive the continual increase of coastal aquaculture ponds in China. Scientific
environmental regulations and planning and management strategies at the national and international policy
levels should be enhanced to consider the ecological impacts of aquaculture expansion.

1. Introduction China was the world’s top aquaculture producer, contributing 61.5% to
the world production in 2016 (FAO, 2016), and has undergone tre-
Aquaculture (e.g., fishes, shrimps), one of the fastest growing food mendous expansion of aquaculture. Aquaculture has rapidly expanded
production sectors worldwide, is an important source of protein for at different coastal regions of China and was responsible for large scale
people and is likely to play an essential and increasing role for future loss and fragmentation of wetland habitats through land reclamation
global food security (FAO, 2011; UN, 2011). Low-lying coastal areas are and conversion along the coast of the South China Sea (Peng et al.,
the most favorable areas for aquaculture (Primavera, 2006), due to the 2013; Spalding et al., 2014). However, a holistic view of the coastal
presence of highly productive arable land and rich marine and fresh- aquaculture of China using consistent data sources and methodology
water resources (Kuenzer and Renaud, 2012; Renaud et al., 2013). The was not available. Such information is critically important for analyzing
rapid global expansion of the aquaculture industry has caused trans- the increasing pressure on coastal ecosystems, related environmental
formation of large areas of valuable coastal lands with strong adverse impacts, and sustainable development planning of the coastal region.
effects on natural ecosystems, including destruction of coastal wetlands, In addition to being accurate, rapid, and cost effective, remote
decrease of biodiversity, pollution of water and soil (Virdis, 2014). sensing has been a useful tool for the spatial assessment of aquaculture

⁎
Corresponding author.
⁎⁎
Corresponding author at: Chinese University of Hong Kong, Center for Housing Innovations, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C. Ren), [email protected] (Z. Wang), [email protected] (Y. Zhang), [email protected] (B. Zhang),
[email protected] (L. Chen), [email protected] (Y. Xi), [email protected] (X. Xiao), [email protected] (R.B. Doughty),
[email protected] (M. Liu), [email protected] (M. Jia), [email protected] (D. Mao), [email protected] (K. Song).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2019.101902
Received 20 April 2019; Received in revised form 17 June 2019; Accepted 18 June 2019
0303-2434/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
C. Ren, et al. Int J Appl  Earth Obs Geoinformation 82 (2019) 101902

areas at different scales (Ottinger et al., 2017). However, aquaculture is 2.3. Integrated updating and object-based classification method
not the central objective in previous studies and is most often indirectly
investigated with coastal land reclamation (Meng et al., 2017; Mao The updating approach has been increasingly used in visual inter-
et al., 2018), mangrove deforestation (Lu et al., 2018), and loss of pretation and automatic classifications (Zhou et al., 2011; Jin et al.,
coastal wetlands (Long et al., 2016). Great effort has been directed 2013), which synthesize the post-classification comparison and pre-
towards using remote sensing data to map aquaculture and estimate its classification change detection (Xian and Homer, 2010). This approach
extent around the globe, especially in Asia and China (Gusmawati et al., typically started with the reference map, based on which the classifi-
2018; Loberternos et al., 2016). Although data sources varied from cation and change analysis are conducted (Yu et al., 2016). We in-
moderate to high spatial resolution imagery, from multispectral to tegrated the updating approach with an object-based method to map
hyperspectral data (Abd-Elrahman et al., 2011), from optical to mi- coastal aquaculture ponds from 1984 to 2016 using the workflow il-
crowave data (Marini et al., 2013), most previous studies focused on the lustrated in Fig. 2.
mono-temporal precise mapping of aquaculture. Time series data ana- We first generated the reference aquaculture ponds map for 1984
lyses have great potential to reveal long term dynamics of aquaculture using 1984 Landsat TM images and an object-based classification
structures, extents, and ecological parameters (Kuenzer et al., 2015), method by the software eCognition Developer 8.64 (Definiens, 2011).
and could provide the baseline data and valuable information for effi- The workflow of classification involved image segmentation, rule-
ciently planning and managing aquaculture practices. However, time building, and manual editing. Segmentation is the first step in the ob-
series analyses of aquaculture using remote sensing data has rarely been ject-based classification process, and homogeneous objects were ob-
conducted. tained based on three parameters: scale, shape and compactness (Jia
In this study, we aim to explore the spatial and temporal dynamics et al., 2018). From purely visual inspections for the segmentation
of coastal aquaculture ponds in China from 1984 to 2016 using time parameters tests, a satisfactory match between image objects and pond
series Landsat images. The specific objectives of this study were to: (1) features was achieved when the scale, shape, and compactness para-
generate accurate maps of coastal aquaculture ponds in China using an meter was set to 30, 0.1, and 0.5, respectively. The rule sets were
integrated updating and object-based method, and (2) quantify spatial created based on the statistical analysis of the training areas resulting
and temporal changes of coastal aquaculture ponds during 1984–2016, from the field surveys and images. Aquaculture ponds have a spectral
and (3) identify the major factors that have driven the observed signature characteristic of water bodies, so we calculated the mean
changes in coastal aquaculture ponds and related ecological impacts on Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) for all the pixels in a pond
coastal environments. object to separate pure water and non-water objects. The NDWI is de-
fined by the following equation (McFeeters, 1996):
2. Materials and methods
NDWI = (Green − NIR)/(Green + NIR) (1)
2.1. Study area Where Green and NIR represent Green band and NIR band of Landsat
TM/ETM+/OLI imagery. Visual interpretation and manual editing
China's coastal zone stretches from the mouth of the Yalu River in were conducted by remote sensing experts to correct some mis-
the north to the estuary of Beilun River in the south (18.2 °N to 40.5 °N) classifications based on previous knowledge and field survey data,
(Wang et al., 2018) (Fig. 1). Our study focused on the coastal aqua- especially for patches near the boundaries of natural and artificial water
culture ponds and the distance between the farthest aquaculture ponds surfaces.
and the coastline is about 50-km. Thus, the study area was defined as a The maps of aquaculture ponds for 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2016
50-km wide buffer within the coastal zone (i.e., from the coastline to were derived separately using an object-based updating approach at 30-
the land side), while maintaining the integrity of administrative m spatial resolution. The reference map, Map1984, was used as the
boundaries within the prefecture level. The right boundary was relaxed thematic layer when segmenting the imagery, which will not allow the
and the coastal aquaculture ponds were entirely included. The coastal generated objects across any of the borders separating thematic classes
zone encompasses approximately 44.6 × 104 km2, including the pro- of Map1990. Object-based change detection were applied to obtain the
vinces/cities of Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, objects with changes and no changes, and the detailed introduction
Guangdong, Guangxi, Tianjin and Shanghai. This region covers the about the approach can be found in previous studies (Xian and Homer,
tropical, sub-tropical, and temperate climate zones from south to north. 2010; Yu et al., 2016). Objects with no changes from 1984 to 1990 were
The elevation of the China's coastal zone ranges from sea level to over assigned as the attributes of Map1984. Objects with changes were then
3700-m above sea level (Wang et al., 2018). classified into 2 classes: aquaculture ponds and others. We produced the
final aquaculture ponds map of 1990 by assigning the attribute of no
2.2. Landsat imagery and preprocessing change objects and merging the change objects. Subsequent aqua-
culture ponds map (T2) was produced from the previous map (T1).
In this study, the coastal zone of China could be covered by 37 Field surveys were conducted between July and September from
scenes of Landsat images (spatial resolution 30 m) for each time period. 2015 to 2017 along the coastal zone of China to collect ground re-
As an example, a complete list of the images used in 2016 is listed in ference data. A total of 2,171 sampling points were obtained to evaluate
Table 1, most of which were acquired from around May to October in the accuracy of classification results in 2016, including 966 samples of
2016. In total, 185 cloud-free Landsat images, including Landsat The- aquaculture ponds and 1205 samples of others. Owing to the lack of
matic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic (ETM+), and Operational field survey data in 1984, 1990, 2000, and 2010, we collected 3,890
Land Imager (OLI) images, were used for mapping and monitoring reference samples via visual inspection of very high resolution images
aquaculture ponds of the coastal zone of China for the years around such as QuickBird and IKONOS available within Google Earth. Finally,
1984, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2016 (downloaded from http://glovis. the reference data obtained in 1984, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2016
usgs.gov). All of the images were atmospherically corrected through the consisted of 830, 850, 960, 1,250, and 2,171 samples, respectively.
Fast Line-of-sight Atmospheric Analysis of Spectral hypercubers
(FLAASH) model. Geometric correction was performed to improve the
geolocation with the registration error being less than half a pixel 2.4. Spatial-temporal analysis of aquaculture ponds maps
(< 15 m). The atmospheric and geometric corrections were completed
in the ENVI 5.0 software (ITT, 2010). All corrected images were pro- We analyzed the spatio-temporal dynamics of the coastal aqua-
jected into an Albers projection with a WGS-84 ellipsoid. culture ponds at provincial and national levels. The total area, change

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Fig. 1. Location of study area and field sampling sites.

area, and annual change rate (km2/year) of the coastal aquaculture Science Data Sharing Infrastructure, National Science & Technology
ponds were calculated at each spatial scale. The annual change rate Infrastructure of China (http://www.geodata.cn). The overall accuracy
(ACR) of aquaculture ponds is defined as follows: of this dataset is 92.9% based on evaluation by field survey patches (Liu
et al., 2005). The classification system of land cover data used in this
ACR = (Send – Sstart)/n (2)
study were modified into seven classes: arable land, forest, grassland,
2 2 settlement, wetland, other land, and sea water. The description of each
Where Send (km ) and Send (km ) represents the area of aquaculture
ponds at the end and start of the period, respectively, and n is the land cover class is given in Table 2. The newly developed aquaculture
duration between the start and end time. We further examined the ponds during 1984–2016 were extracted and then overlaid with land
aquaculture ponds dynamics using buffer analysis with 10 km interval cover data of 1984. The original land use types of those new ponds were
and the changes among offshore and inshore buffers were also com- identified for the conversion analysis.
pared. In addition, the statistical data including aquaculture area, aqua-
An overlay analysis was applied to create a conversion matrix be- culture production, total population, gross domestic product (GDP),
tween aquaculture ponds and other land cover types from 1984 to gross product of fisheries, and per capita fisheries income were col-
2016. Land cover data in 1984 was provided by National Earth System lected from the Chinese Fishery Statistical Yearbook (1979–2016), and

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Table 1 confusion. The accuracy assessments demonstrated that the mapping

List of Landsat OLI images used in 2016. results could meet the requirements for the spatial analysis in this
Path/Row Date Path/Row Date study.
The total area of coastal aquaculture ponds in China in 2016 was
117/39 Jul, 29 120/33 Jun, 16 13,075 km2, and was distributed unevenly. The average aquaculture
117/40 Aug, 30 120/34 Jun, 16
ponds area per unit land (ha/km2) in 2016 in Guangdong and the
118/32 May, 17 120/35 Jun, 16
118/37 May, 17 120/36 Apr, 29
provinces located in the north of Yangtze River were relatively higher
118/38 Aug, 3 120/43 May, 13 (Fig. 3A). Guangdong Province had the largest extent of coastal aqua-
118/39 May, 1 120/44 May, 28 culture ponds (3,485 km2, 26.7%), followed by Shandong Province
118/40 Jul, 20 121/32 Aug, 26 (2,291 km2, 17.6%), Jiangsu Province (1,663 km2, 12.7%), Liaoning
118/41 Jul, 20 121/33 Aug, 26
Province (1,449 km2, 11.1%) and Hebei Province (1,327 km2, 10.2%)
118/42 Jul, 20 121/34 Aug, 26
119/32 Sep, 29 121/44 Sep, 27 (Fig. 3B and C). Aquaculture ponds in those provinces accounted for
119/33 Aug, 28 121/45 Sep, 27 approximately 80% of total coastal aquaculture ponds in China.
119/34 Jun, 25 122/33 Oct, 2 Shanghai had the least area of aquaculture ponds (104.8 km2).
119/35 Jun, 25 122/44 Oct, 18
119/36 Jun, 25 122/45 Oct, 18
119/37 Oct, 13 123/45 Jul, 23
119/41 Sep, 29 124/45 Sep, 16 3.2. Spatial and temporal dynamics of coastal aquaculture ponds
119/42 Jul, 27 124/46 Jun, 12
119/43 Jul, 27 125/45 Oct, 9 The coastal aquaculture ponds in China have increased continuously
120/32 Jun, 16 during the 32-year period, from 2,612 km2 in 1984 to 13,075 km2 in
2016. The net increase of coastal aquaculture ponds was about
10,463 km2 with an overall rate of 327 km2/year during 1984–2016.
Thematic Database for Human-earth System (http://data.ac.cn/index.
The largest gain occurred from 1990 to 2000 (4,207 km2), followed by
asp).
the period of 1984–1990 (2,705 km2). The expansion rate of aqua-
culture ponds decreased after 2000 and the net increase area was ap-
3. Results proximately 2,143 km2 and 1,408 km2 for the period 2000–2010 and
2010–2016, respectively. The ACR (102 ha/year) from 1984 to 2016 in
3.1. Areas and spatial distribution of coastal aquaculture ponds in 2016 each province are shown in Fig. 4A and had a similar pattern with the
spatial distribution of area within per unit land (Fig. 3A). Guangdong,
The confusion matrix of the classification was calculated and the Shandong, and Jiangsu had relatively higher ACR and could be iden-
results showed that the map of aquaculture ponds in 2016 across the tified as the hotspots for the expansion of aquaculture ponds con-
coastal zone of China had high overall accuracy (94%) with a kappa sidering the quantity and changing rate.
coefficient of 0.91 (Table 3). Classification errors were mainly observed Among the coastal provinces, Guangdong, Shandong, Jiangsu,
between aquaculture ponds and salt pans. The similar regular shapes Liaoning, and Hebei accounted more than 83% of the coastal aqua-
and water reflection characteristics of them contributed to this culture ponds expansion that occurred between 1984 and 2016. The

Fig. 2. Flowchart of integrated updating and object-based classification method for aquaculture ponds.

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Table 2
The land cover classification system.
Class name Descriptions

Arable land Lands cultivated for crops, including paddy land and dry land.
Forest Lands growing trees including arbor, shrub, and for forestry use.
Grassland Lands covered by herbaceous plants with coverage greater than 5%.
Wetland Lands covered by water bodies, or lands with a permanent mixture of water and herbaceous or woody vegetation, including swampland, rivers, lakes, reservoirs,
mangrove, mudflat, etc.
Settlement Lands used for urban and rural settlements, factories and transportation facilities, oil field, stope, and salt pans, etc.
Other land Lands that are not put into practical use or are difficult to use, including sandy land, salina, bare soil, bare rock and others.
Sea water The open ocean overlying the continental shelf

Table 3 aquaculture ponds in Guangdong sharply expanded by 3,253 km2 from

The overall accuracies and Kappa coefficients for classification. 1984 to 2016, which was the largest increase among all provinces
Year Aquaculture ponds Accuracy (Fig. 4B). The ACR (km2/year) of aquaculture ponds in coastal pro-
vinces during different periods are shown in Fig. 4C. The most dramatic
Ground Classification results Overall Kappa expansion of aquaculture ponds, with a rate of 208 km2/year, occurred
truth accuracy coefficients in Guangdong (1990–2000), followed by Shandong (1984–1990) with a
1984 420 365 87% 0.80
rate of 164 km2/year. Although decreases were observed in Tianjin and
1990 561 500 89% 0.83 Shanghai since 2000, the reduced area was small and the net area of
2000 742 668 90% 0.84 aquaculture ponds in 2016 was nearly double that of 1984 in Tianjin
2010 823 765 93% 0.87 and Shanghai. In addition, the provinces located south of China’s
2016 966 908 94% 0.91
coastal zone, such as Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangxi, had a relatively
lower ACR (green color) compared with the provinces located north of
China’s coastal zone (yellow and red colors).

Fig. 3. Area within per unit land (ha/km2) (A), areal proportion (B) and total area (C) of aquaculture ponds in the coastal provinces of China in 2016.

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Fig. 4. Areal changes of coastal aquaculture ponds in the coastal zone of China and change hotspots during 1984–2016 (A: ACR of aquaculture ponds in coastal
provinces during 1984–2016; B: Increased area of aquaculture ponds in coastal provinces from 1984 to 2016; C: ACR of aquaculture ponds in coastal provinces during
four periods; Spatial dynamics of aquaculture ponds in the Yellow River Delta (D) and the Pearl River Delta (E)).

We selected the Yellow River Delta (YRD) (Fig. 4D) and Pearl River 81% of total aquaculture ponds area in 1984. The aquaculture ponds in
Delta (PRD) (Fig. 4E) to illustrate the spatial distribution and dynamics all buffers increased over the 32 years and the largest net increase was
of coastal aquaculture ponds from 1984 to 2016. The newly converted observed in the 0–10 km inshore buffer (6,610 km2), accounting for
aquaculture ponds in the YRD were mainly distributed near the 63% of total increased area in the study area. The aquaculture ponds in
shoreline and expanded seaward. In the PRD, most of newly converted the 10–20 km inshore buffer and 0–10 km offshore buffer increased
aquaculture ponds were in the riversides where water is abundant and almost five-fold and fifty times over that of 1984, respectively. The area
occurred before 2000. increased sharply during 1984–2000 in all buffers, and then pond area
The area changes of aquaculture ponds in different buffer zones of increased at a slower rate after 2000.
inshore versus offshore were listed in Table 4. The aquaculture ponds
were mostly concentrated within the 0–10 km inshore buffer, occupying

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Table 4
Area of aquaculture ponds in different buffers in China from 1984 to 2016.
Inshore buffers Offshore buffers

0–10km 10–20km 20–30km 30–40km 40–50km 0–10km 10–20km

1984 2120 263 92 37 36 26 16

1990 4034 596 207 140 139 151 23
2000 6914 1213 408 332 316 282 33
2010 8060 1457 582 388 487 623 42
2016 8730 1514 623 409 495 1206 43

Fig. 5. Percentage of land cover types converted into aquaculture pond in China’s coastal provinces during 1984–2016.

3.3. Land conversions contributing to the expansion of aquaculture ponds past 32 years. The statistical data for China and coastal provinces in-
volved the entire administrative domain of provinces, while our study
The percentage of different land cover types converted into the area only include the coastal zone defined by 50-km buffer from
coastal aquaculture ponds in China and coastal provinces were shown shoreline. Therefore, the amount of aquaculture area are not suitable to
in Fig. 5. Results indicated that the expansion of coastal aquaculture be directly compared. We listed the periodical increase area and ACR
ponds in China were mainly induced by the loss of wetland (30%), for China, coastal provinces and coastal zone defined in this study in
arable land (28%), settlement (14%) and reclamation from sea water Table 5. Our result confirms that the largest expansion of aquaculture
(11%). Wetland contributed more than 25% to the increase of aqua- ponds in the coastal zone occurred during 1990–2000, in accordance
culture ponds in all coastal provinces except for Hebei, Shandong and with the trends of that in China and coastal provinces. The ACR of
Jiangsu, and was especially high in Shanghai (51%) and Tianjin (50%). aquaculture from 1990 to 2000 was the highest in China and coastal
A remarkable amount of wetlands were transformed into aquaculture provinces but slowed down since 2000. However, the ACR of coastal
ponds in Guangdong (1,393 km2), Liaoning (403 km2), and Jiangsu zone during 1990–2000 was slightly lower than that in 1984–1990. The
(381 km2). Arable lands converted to aquaculture ponds in Guangxi, higher ACR was mainly attributed to short term expansion occurred in
Guangdong, Zhejiang and Tianjin occupied 52%, 45%, 37%, and 36% 1984–1990 in Shandong, Hebei, Tianjin, and Shanghai (Fig. 4C).
of provincial increased area, respectively. The noticeable conversion Previous studies found that aquaculture ponds in the Pearl River
from arable land to aquaculture ponds was observed in Guangdong Estuary (Guangdong) increased by 2.75 times from 1985 to 2000 (Gao
(1,539 km2), followed by Jiangsu (406 km2) and Zhejiang (256 km2). et al., 2010), and the largest expansion was observed during 1990–2000
The proportion of settlement converted into aquaculture ponds in (Sun et al., 2010). The aquaculture ponds in Shandong Province ex-
Shandong, Jiangsu, and Liaoning were relatively higher than that in perienced rapid expansion from 1980s to 2000 and the net increase in
other provinces, which may be attributed to the transformation from area from 1980s to 2010 was 4.35 times than that of 1980s (Xu et al.,
salt pans. In the land cover map of 1984, salt pans were classified into 2014). Our results showed that the coastal aquaculture ponds of
the settlement land cover type. Land reclamation from sea water to Guangdong increased by 12-fold from 1984 to 2000, and the net in-
aquaculture ponds was concentrated in Liaoning, Hebei, Zhejiang, and crease in area in Shandong from 1984 to 2010 was 5.8 times than in
Fujian. Images in Fig. 6 showed typical conversions from wetland 1984. Our results had higher area estimates of coastal aquaculture
(mudflat), sea water, and arable land. ponds compared to other studies, which are mostly attributed to the
different definitions of coastal zone. Although the study areas were
different, previous studies and our study have found the similar trends
4. Discussion
in the increase of coastal aquaculture ponds area and also validated that
the period of rapid expansion at hotspots was consistent with national
4.1. Expansion of coastal aquaculture ponds in China
scale statistics.
Additionally, our study explored the characteristics of the spatial
China’s coastal provinces cover 13% of the nation’s territory (Duan
distribution and expansion of aquaculture ponds in the coastal zone of
et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2014), hosts nearly half of aquaculture area,
China during 1984–2016. First, we found that Guangdong Province had
and contributes more than 60% of the aquaculture production of China
the largest extent of aquaculture ponds in the 0–10 km buffer area in
based on statistical data (Fig. 7). The aquaculture area and production
2016, followed by Shandong Province and Liaoning Province. The
of the coastal provinces in 2016 increased by 2.7 times and ˜36 fold
length of shoreline, complexity of estuaries, and river shapes were main
than that of 1980, which were much higher than the average annual
factors influencing the distribution of aquaculture ponds in Guangdong
growth rate of world aquaculture production during 1980–2016 (FAO,
and Shandong provinces (Fig. 4D and E). Second, our results revealed
2016).
that most expanded ponds were observed in the 0–10 km inshore buffer
Our estimates based on Landsat observations showed a sharp four-
area, followed by the 10–20 km inshore buffer area and 0–10 km
fold increase of aquaculture ponds in the coastal zone of China over the

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Fig. 6. Landsat image examples (false color composite) for the aquaculture ponds converted from wetland (a), sea water (b), and arable land (c).

offshore buffer area. The inland expansion rate and area were both the coast of Shandong Province from the 1980s to 2010 was higher than
significantly higher than those of seaward expansion at the coast of that of offshore areas (Xu et al., 2014). These studies proved that the
China over the past 32 years. In the PRD, the centroid of aquaculture spatial expansion of aquaculture ponds mainly occurred in inshore
patches showed obvious movement to the northwest of inshore areas areas at local scales, which is consistent with our results. Scientific
(Gao et al., 2010). The inshore change degree of aquaculture ponds in spatial planning of coastal development should consider the carrying

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Fig. 7. Temporal variation of aquaculture area and production in China and coastal provinces based on statistical data during 1980–2016.

capacity of specific inshore or offshore areas at provincial and national economy.

scales. Economic conditions have also played a significant role in the ex-
pansion of coastal aquaculture ponds due to high profitability and in-
4.2. Driving factors for the expansion of coastal aquaculture ponds creased demand for seafood. The implementation of the so-called
“Reform and Open-up” policy in China led to an increase in demand for
Coastal socio-economic development and associated land reclama- seafood for both domestic consumption and export to world market,
tion are the major driving factors of the expansion of aquaculture ponds which prompted a rapid expansion of mariculture (Wang et al., 2014).
in China. All coastal provinces and metropolises in China have experi- Furthermore, consumers’ demand for mariculture products is not only
enced severe coastal reclamation related to land scarcity caused by for high quality, but has also shifted from seasonal demand to perennial
rapid economic growth and urbanization (Tian et al., 2016). During the demand (Ren et al., 2018), which is a potential factor driving the
third stage of coastal land reclamation in China, from the 1980s to late continuous growth of aquaculture area. On the other hand, compared
1990s (Fig. 8a), vast patches of mudflat and sandy beach were re- with traditional industries and agriculture, reclamation for aquaculture
claimed for mariculture (Liu and Liu, 2008; Wang et al., 2014). It is is characterized by a low cost, simple process that has a high economic
estimated that the aquaculture ponds contributed the most to land re- benefit (MacKinnon et al., 2012). People would rather reclaim or con-
clamation during 1990–2000 (Gao et al., 2014). Ma et al. (2015) also vert land from mudflat, enclosed sea, or arable land to aquaculture
confirmed that the aquaculture ponds occupied the largest proportion ponds, especially in the coastal region which is rich in water resources.
of land reclaimed from wetland, arable land or sea water in the major In addition, based upon statistical data, we can see that population,
river deltas of China from 1990 to 2008. Local government policies gross domestic product, gross product of fishery and per capita income
promoted the development of the aquaculture industry in the coastal of fishery were strongly correlated with aquaculture areas in the coastal
provinces of China. For example, in 1985 Fujian Province issued provinces of China (Fig. 8(b) and (c)). Aquaculture provides high nu-
“Outline of Eight Bases Construction” and decided to focus attention on trition supply potential and has high economic benefit. That’s the
the development of mudflat aquaculture in the shallow sea, and by causes for the high correlation between aquaculture areas and popu-
1996 aquaculture was declared the pillar industry for Fujian Province. lation, gross product of fishery and per capita income of fishery.
In 2000, “Control Regulations of Mudflat Aquaculture in the Shallow
Sea of Fujian Province” encouraged the development and consolidation 4.3. Major ecological impacts of coastal aquaculture ponds expansion
abandoned mudflats for the aquaculture industry. Consequently, the
area of aquaculture ponds in Xiamen City of Fujian Province sharply The fast development of the coastal aquaculture sector required the
increased by 6654.97 hm2 during 1986–2001 (Lin et al., 2007). The conversion of coastal wetlands to ponds. Globally, more than a third of
central government of China put constraints on coastal reclamation by mangrove forests have disappeared over the last decades of the twen-
passing “Sea-Use Law” in 2002 (Song and Liu, 2013), and related po- tieth century (Valiela et al., 2001), and aquaculture is the major human
licies were further implemented to regulate coastal land reclamation in activity accounting for 50% of the decline (Kuenzer et al., 2011). Re-
China. Due to these changes in the aquaculture industry, urbanization, clamation for the purposes of aquaculture was listed as one of the major
and the rapid development of the coastal economy, reclaimed land was factors causing the decline of mangroves in southern China (Peng et al.,
mostly repurposed for urban development, ports, and manufacturing 2008, 2013). Aquaculture has rapidly increased in the major river
after 2000. Thus, the expansion rate of aquaculture ponds has slowed deltas and the initial expansion was followed by a coastward expansion
down since 2000 (Table 5), but the area of coastal aquaculture ponds which caused considerable loss of natural wetlands, especially mudflats
continues to increase due to the rapid development of China’s coastal (Zhu et al., 2016; Chen et al., 2017). Our results also demonstrated that

Table 5
Periodical changes of aquaculture area at different scales from 1984 to 2016.
1984–1990 1990–2000 2000–2010 2010–2016

Increase area ACR (104ha·yr−1) Increase area ACR (104ha·yr−1) Increase area ACR (104ha·yr−1) Increase area ACR
(104ha) (104ha) (104ha) (104ha) (104ha·yr−1)

China 76.15 12.69 225.78 22.58 112.48 11.25 70.01 11.67

Coastal provinces 37.86 6.31 121.65 12.17 110.27 11.03 13.64 2.27
Coastal zone 27.05 4.51 42.07 4.21 21.43 2.14 14.08 2.35

The bold number in Table 5 was the largest increase area and annual change rate among three periods for China, coastal provinces, and coastal zone, respectively.

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C. Ren, et al. Int J Appl  Earth Obs Geoinformation 82 (2019) 101902

Fig. 8. Socio-economic factors of the aquaculture expansion. (a) Stages of coastal land reclamation in China; (b) Correlations between aquaculture area and total
population, GDP of coastal provinces; (c) Correlations between aquaculture area and gross product of fishery, per capita income of fishery of coastal provinces.

the contribution of wetland to aquaculture ponds was approximately from mariculture ponds into the adjacent coastal zones across China,
30% in the coastal zone of China and loss of mudflat is the main con- which represents about 5% of the total nutrient loadings from the main
sequence attributed to those conversions. This pattern was highly rivers of China into the sea (State Oceanic Administration, People's
identical with the trends observed in other countries of America and Republic of China, 2015). Negative effects of waste from aquaculture to
Asia, particularly Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Ecuador and Hon- aquatic environment are increasingly recognized, though they are just a
duras, where wetlands destruction has been documented in correlation small proportion compared to land-based pollutants (Cao et al., 2007).
with the expansion of shrimp aquaculture (Berlanga-Robles et al., However, increasing demand for the services of aquatic ecosystems has
2011). Natural coastal wetlands such as mangroves, reeds and mudflats resulted in a huge increase in the development of aquaculture in China’s
are precious natural landscapes and ecological resources, and play an coastal areas and estuaries, eutrophic conditions and environmental
important role in maintaining biodiversity, controlling pollution, pro- degradation in the adjacent coastal waters will continue to occur or be
tecting coastlines from disaster (Jiang et al., 2015). The large amount exacerbated in the future. Effective treatment of aquaculture pond ef-
loss of coastal wetlands will lead to further environmental issues such fluents before discharge will become an important challenge in the
as landscape fragmentation, destruction of coastal biodiversity, decline future to alleviate the pressures of eutrophication in coastal zones
of ecosystem service value, salinization of coastal soils, increased ero- (Yang et al., 2017). Moreover, scientific planning and utilization of
sion, and decline in coastal disaster prevention capacity (Kuenzer et al., coastal areas for aquaculture production in China should be highlighted
2011). for sustainable development of economics and environmental protec-
To boost increase in production of aquaculture farms, huge amount tion.
of artificial feed, pesticides, chemical additives and antibiotics are
continuously added to the ponds (Pattanaik and Prasad, 2011). High 5. Conclusions
amounts of mariculture wastewater enriched with nutrients are re-
leased into coastal seawater without treatment, which affects the water We present the first comprehensive and consistent national coastal
quality of the coastal ecosystem (Li et al., 2017). It was reported that aquaculture ponds database, CAS_Coastal Aquaculture, at 30-m spatial
excessive nitrogen and phosphorous on the surface of wetlands after a resolution ever created. We developed and used an integrated updating
land reclamation project in Isahaya Bay of Japan led to growth of algae, and object-based classification approach and mapped aquaculture
a sharp increase in chlorophyll α, and a red tide algae bloom (Sato and ponds with coherent data sources, wall-to-wall coverage and ancillary
Kanazawa, 2004). Excessive and unrestricted use of antibiotics and data (field samples and Google Earth). Our high-spatial-resolution da-
chemicals is a general problem in the aquaculture sector, particularly in tabase delivers national maps of coastal aquaculture ponds, which
developing countries (Ottinger et al., 2016). Rico and Van den Brink substantially advances our understanding of the distribution, trajectory
(2014) calculated that on average 25% of the applied veterinary med- and status of these poorly known coastal ecosystems.
icines to aquaculture ponds is released into the environment. In China, Coastal aquaculture ponds in China significantly expanded during
large-scale and intensive aquaculture is listed as one of the major 1984–2016 by 10,463 km2, with an overall rate of 327 km2/year. Sharp
sources of coastal seawater pollution (Peng et al., 2013; Ottinger et al., expansion of aquaculture ponds were observed during 1990–2000 and
2016). It was estimated that 63 red tides occurred in a wide range along mostly occurred 0–10 km inshore. Most of the expanding aquaculture
the coast of China from 2001 to 2014 (SOA, 2002-2015SOA, -, ponds were converted from natural wetlands and arable land. The
2015SOA, 2002-2015), which were caused by eutrophic conditions coastal provinces of Guangdong, Shandong, and Jiangsu were identified
partly due to aquaculture activities. Effluent pollution from shrimp as hotspots of aquaculture ponds expansion and had inconsistent rates
farming contributed to strong local eutrophication processes and has of change at different periods. However, the general trend of expansion
been reported in several individual bays, such as the Bohai Bay, Rushan in the whole coastal zone accelerated from 1984 to 2000 and slowed
Bay, and the coast of Weihai in China (Li et al., 2017). Yang et al. down after 2000. Rapid expansion of coastal aquaculture ponds in
(2017) estimated that approximately 47.7 × 103 tons of total nitrogen China was mainly driven by socio-economic factors, such as govern-
and 3.75 × 103 tons of total phosphorus are being discharged annually mental policies related to land reclamation and ocean development,

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C. Ren, et al. Int J Appl  Earth Obs Geoinformation 82 (2019) 101902

economic development, and population growth. Large losses in natural Li, H., Li, X., Li, Q., Liu, Y., Song, J., Zhang, Y., 2017. Environmental response to long-
wetlands and water pollution have been the major ecological con- term mariculture activities in the Weihai coastal area, China. Sci. Total Environ.
601–602, 22–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.05.167.
sequences of the expansion of coastal aquaculture ponds. Scientific, Lin, Q., Lin, G., Chen, Z., Chen, Y., 2007. The analysis on spatial-temporal evolution of
knowledge-based, and sustainable coastal zone development is needed. beach cultivation and its policy driving in Xiamen in recent two decades. Geo-Inf. Sci.
Our conclusions provide useful information and scientific guidance to 9 (2), 9–13 In Chinese.
Liu, J., Liu, M., Tian, H., Zhuang, D., Zhang, Z., Zhang, W., et al., 2005. Spatial and
governments and conservationists to make policies that effectively temporal patterns of China’s cropland during 1990–2000: an analysis based on
protect coastal ecosystems. Landsat TM data. Remote Sens. Environ. 98 (4), 442–456. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
rse.2005.08.012.
Liu, W., Liu, B., 2008. Current situation and countermeasures of sea reclamation in China.
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Loberternos, R.A., Porpetcho, W.P., Graciosa, J.C.A., Violanda, R.R., Diola, A.G., Dy, D.T.,
The authors are grateful to the colleagues who participated in the Otadoy, R.E., 2016. An object-based workflow developed to extract aquaculture
ponds from airborne Lidar data: a test case in central Visayas, Philippines. ISPRS –
field investigations and data collection. This work is supported by the
International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial
Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Information Sciences, XLI-B8. pp. 1147–1152. https://doi.org/10.5194/
Sciences (NO. XDA19040500), the Strategic Planning Project of the isprsarchives-XLI-B8-1147-2016.
Institute of Northeast Geography and Agroecology (IGA), Chinese Long, X., Liu, L., Shao, T., Shao, H., Liu, Z., 2016. Developing and sustainably utilize the
coastal mudflat areas in China. Sci. Total Environ. 569–570, 1077–1086. https://doi.
Academy of Sciences (NO. Y6H2091000), and funding from the China org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.06.170.
Scholarship Council (CSC NO. 201804910337). Lu, C., Liu, J., Jia, M., Liu, M., Man, W., Fu, W., Zhong, L., Lin, X., Su, Y., Gao, Y., 2018.
Dynamic analysis of mangrove forests based on an optimal segmentation scale model
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