Continue to write the story of spring

Source: Economic Daily

The blending of seas and rivers, the play of gulls and herons, the white sand of the water, the fresh shrimp and crabs, and the singing of fishing boats are the true portrayal of the natural marine landscape of Yingkou City, Liaoning Province.

Who would have thought that the coastline here has been occupied by aquaculture for many years, the estuarine sea is polluted by siltation, the water substratum environment deteriorates, the beach is seriously eroded, and the environmental quality is poor... In recent years, Yingkou has been committed to the restoration of the marine ecosystem and promoting a virtuous cycle of coastal ecosystems, which has changed its appearance.

Comprehensive scientific governance

"This year's alkali grass is growing really well, and it can turn red in the summer; the sea is getting clearer, and it's getting better and better here." Ren Yu, director of the Beihai Service Center of Yingkou Gaizhou City, who is in charge of the ecological restoration project, was monitoring changes in water quality in offshore waters at Tuanshan National Marine Park in Yingkou City on April 14.

Ren Yu said, "There were originally more than 100 acres of breeding areas here, which were occupied by aquaculture around the sea, and the quality of the coastal environment was not good, but now the beach is clean and beautiful, thanks to Yingkou City's vigorous promotion of the comprehensive management of the Bohai Sea.

Yingkou City is located in the south of the Songliao Plain in the northeast, the northwest of the Liaodong Peninsula, the left bank of the mouth of the Daliao River, and the west of the Liaodong Bay of the Bohai Sea, which is one of the nearest outlets to the northeast inland and one of the important fulcrum cities of the Liaoning Coastal Economic Belt and the Shenda Economic Corridor. The coastline of Yingkou City is 122 kilometers long, starting from the mouth of the Floating Ferry River in the south and ending at the mouth of the Daliao River in the north, with a jurisdictional area of 1542 square kilometers. The importance of geographical location makes "bay clear, port city xing" become the consensus of Yingkou city.

"A game of chess!" This is an important idea of the Yingkou Municipal Party Committee and the Yingkou Municipal Government in recent years to carry out the battle to comprehensively control the Bohai Sea. Wang Luhong, director of the Yingkou Municipal Natural Resources Bureau, said: Yingkou City has included the key work of tackling tough problems in the city's assessment indicators of "stressing hard work, strengthening implementation, and grasping implementation," established and implemented the bay chief system, coordinated the functions of natural resources, agriculture and rural areas, ecological environment, forestry and grassland, housing construction, transportation, maritime affairs, public security, coast guard, and other departments, further consolidated and deepened the long-term work mechanism of land and sea overall planning, and all departments and counties and districts firmly established the idea of "one game of chess," performed their duties, and cooperated closely, and the whole city formed a joint grasp and joint management. Coordinate the new pattern of land and sea co-ordination of the sea, refine the tasks, and consolidate the responsibilities.

The ecological restoration project of Tuanshan National Marine Park, which Ren Yu is responsible for, is one of the typical projects implemented in the Bohai Sea Offensive. "The need for 'a game of chess' thinking, but also need to refine the task", Ren Yu said, the project through the implementation of a series of measures such as retiring to the beach, reeds, alkali wetland restoration, sand silkworm breeding, shoreline restoration and a total of 70.38 hectares of wetlands, restoration of shoreline, a total of 70.38 hectares of wetlands, restoration of shoreline of 2124 meters, all exceeded the design task indicators. After the restoration, the shoreline front has restored the natural properties of sand and mud, and the alkali canopy of the reeds and tidal flats on the shore has grown vigorously; the degradation of coastal wetlands and vegetation has been improved, the erosion of waves and water flows has been effectively prevented, the degradation of the shoreline has been curbed, and the shoreline protection ability has been enhanced. At the same time, it enhances the tourism value of the seaside, greatly increases the people's pro-sea space, and allows the local people and tourists to experience a real sense of ecological benefits.

Ecological effects are apparent

The sea breeze is gentle, the beach is beautiful, and the Bayuquan District Moon Lake Park in Liaodong Bay is like an ecological pearl on the coastline of Yingkou on this spring day.

"In the past, the seashore was overgrown with weeds and rocks..." Li Zhe, whose hometown is in the Bayuquan District of Yingkou City, said with emotion, "Now there are more and more tourists from Jilin, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei who come to play." ”

Since the 1980s, with the acceleration of industrialization, urbanization and the vigorous development of tourism, the problem of marine ecological damage caused by the development and utilization activities of Yingkou coastal counties (cities) has become increasingly prominent.

The occupation of aquaculture around the sea, the narrowing of the bay and the damage of the wetland function; the encroachment of waste fishing boats and construction waste on the natural shoreline of the coast; the silt pollution of the estuary and the deterioration of the substratum environment of the water body; the artificial split the seawater exchange, resulting in the gradual deterioration of the water quality in the bay; the edge of the nearshore beach in the bay is seriously muddyed, threatening the use function of the bath; the beach is more seriously eroded... Sun Jiaxiang, deputy director of the Yingkou Municipal Natural Resources Bureau, talked about the previous situation.

In view of the above problems, Yingkou City has vigorously promoted and implemented coastal zone protection and restoration projects with typical marine landforms and high-quality sandy coasts as the key protection objects since 2018, and achieved expected results.

Taking the coastal zone protection and restoration project as an example, from 2020, the Yingkou municipal government has invested 570.1935 million yuan to repair a total of 8,100 meters of shoreline, build a new offshore protective sand dam with a length of 2,500 meters, build a coastal zone ecological protection corridor of 175,000 square meters, repair 1,920 meters of estuary revetment, and simultaneously build an estuary-bay-coastal ecological disaster prevention monitoring and early warning system. "After the restoration, the disaster prevention and mitigation capacity of the coastal zone has increased by more than 20%, the vegetation coverage rate of the coastal zone has reached more than 50%, the carbon sequestration capacity of the ecosystem has been significantly improved, the safety and ecosystem of the coastal zone have reached a sustainable balance, and the service functions and economy of the coastal zone have been sustainable." Sun Jiaxiang said.

The development and utilization of yingkou city's coastal waters presents a spatial pattern of "one belt, one district, two nuclears and one synergy". "One Belt" is a coastal industrial belt, "One District" is an open aquaculture area near the sea, "two cores and one synergy" takes Yingkou Old Port Area and Yingkou Port (Bayuquan Port Area) as the core, Xianren Island Port coordinates, and the South and North Poles develop together.

"The coastal zone protection and restoration of bayuquan area mainly includes the bayuth pearl bay ecological restoration project and the bay bay ecological restoration project of bay bay." Zhao Shimin, deputy director of the Natural Resources Affairs Center of Bayuquan District of Yingkou City, introduced that the Pearl Bay Ecological Restoration Project restored 82 hectares of wetland area through measures such as demolition, dredging, waste fishing boats and garbage removal, and artificial sand replenishment, repaired 1350 meters of shoreline, and improved the risk prevention level of artificial shoreline by 750 meters; the Moon Bay Ecological Restoration Project restored 450 hectares of wetland area and 700.7 meters of shoreline through measures such as structure demolition, dredging, and artificial sand replenishment.

Strengthen the marine economy

As one of the important fulcrum cities of the Liaoning Coastal Economic Belt and the Shenyang-Dalian Economic Corridor, Yingkou has made certain achievements in port economy, park project construction, seafood aquaculture, and tourism. For example, in terms of seafood aquaculture, "Yingkou Jellyfish" is a well-known trademark in China, and jellyfish processing output is in a leading position in the country, and it is one of the largest jellyfish processing and sales distribution centers in the mainland.

With the gradual improvement of the marine ecological environment, the marine economic layout of Yingkou City has been continuously optimized, but there are still certain gaps and shortcomings in the benchmarking of advanced coastal cities.

"The main gap lies in three aspects: unreasonable industrial structure, weak innovation-driven development ability, and unscientific overall development planning." Wang Luhong said that in terms of industrial structure, Yingkou is still dominated by traditional industries such as fishing, coastal tourism, and marine transportation, while emerging industrial systems such as marine medicine, marine biological engineering, marine energy development, and comprehensive utilization of seawater have not yet been formed. In terms of innovation-driven, there are only 3 marine scientific research institutions in the city, with weak scientific research strength, insufficient marine industry talents, little investment in scientific research, and weak research and development capabilities of sea-related enterprises. In terms of overall development planning, some coastlines use extensive management methods, and the level of project development is low.

With the continuous standardization of sea area governance, how can Yingkou achieve the two-wheel drive of "strengthening ecological protection + developing marine economy"?

Wang Luhong said that the overall layout of the marine economy should be scientifically planned, based on Yingkou's coastal location advantages, scientific development plans should be formulated, and a marine industry system based on marine fisheries and marine salt industry should be built, with modern port logistics and coastal tourism as the leader, and Lingang petrochemical, marine equipment manufacturing, marine food and emerging industries as the backbone and future development direction. At the same time, we will strengthen pillar industries, upgrade traditional industries, develop emerging industries, cultivate and develop a number of projects with high industrial level, strong core competitiveness and large driving effect, enhance the total amount of marine economy, create a characteristic marine economic industrial system, and build a strong coastal economic city. The development, utilization and protection of coastal zones should also be strengthened. Combined with the development of the marine economy and the planning and layout of urban land use, clarify the planning of marine functional zoning and shoreline utilization, increase the construction of marine environmental protection infrastructure, strengthen the natural ecological restoration of coastline disaster prevention and mitigation, control the total amount of pollutant emissions in coastal waters, strengthen the environmental supervision of directly discharged sea enterprises, increase the environmental supervision of key coastal enterprises such as port terminals and petrochemicals, and prevent and curb the occurrence of marine pollution incidents. (Economic Daily reporter Wen Jicong)