Abstract:
Habitat equivalency analysis(HEA) is a tool for assessing natural resource damage,and has been used in the United States and Europe to identify replacement habitats for a number of coastal habitats injured through oil spills,hazardous substance release,vessel groundings and other anthropogenic actions.Termed service-to-service,this habitat-based approach seeks to determine the amount of restoration needed to compensate for natural resource losses.This paper deduces the formula of the ecological damage and compensation in the field of reclamation based on the improved HEA model.Based on the ecological services of Luoyuan Bay in 1990 and 2004,assuming that the time of natural recovery of the damaged habitat is 10 years,and taking the seagrass beds as restored habitat with 3 years' time to reach the maximum level of ecological service,this article calculates the total damage of the main ecological indicators,the unit compensation of the habitat restoration project,and the total scale of restoration.The result shows that the damage to primary productivity,biological resources and environmental capacity is 30.73%,61.94% and 54.36% respectively.To achieve the reclaimed sea's initial ecological service level,the scale of restoration should be 109.79 km2 at the discount rate level of 3%.There is also a positive correlation between the extent of ecological damage and the scale of restoration.Sensitivity analysis shows that the sooner the compensation starts,the shorter the time that restored habitat reaches the maximum level of service is,the smaller the scale of restoration is.The discount rate also has a significant impact on the scale of restoration.The research results could help policy makers meet the necessary requirements for developing policies on marine ecological damage compensation and ecological restoration and also provide reference for other marine ecological damage assessments.