Evaluation of the ecological status of shallow-water coral reefs in China using a novel method and identification of environmental factors for coral decline.

Coral reefs worldwide have faced extensive damage due to natural catastrophes and anthropogenic disturbances.The decline can cause their widespread collapse and an inability to recover from natural disturbances, highlighting the urgent need for their protection. This study conducted an extensive ecological condition assessment of seven coral reef regions in China's offshore. Our findings revealed the presence of 204 species of scleractinian corals belonging to 16 families. Massive corals were the predominant reef-building corals in all regions. The degradation of coral reef ecosystems was apparent in the present compared to historical reef conditions. The ecosystem suffered varying degrees of damage in surveyed regions according to a novel assessment approach, impling more effective measures should be taken to mitigate the local pressures. Our research establishes a baseline for understanding the status of coral reefs that can be used in future and provides a crucial foundation to designate protective zones for their conservation.

Radioactivity of inert construction and demolition waste from Hong Kong and environmental assessment for marine trial reclamation in Guanghai Bay.

Inert construction and demolition waste from Hong Kong (HK public fills) has been used for marine trial reclamation in the Guanghai Bay (GHWT) of the Chinese Mainland. However, an environmental assessment of HK public fills is necessary due to higher radioactivity in HK soils than typical global levels. Here, radiation dose rate, gamma radionuclides and gross beta of HK public fills were analyzed. The origin information was explored using natural primordial radionuclides as fingerprints. Our data show that radiation dose rate of HK public fills before disposal was 0.14-0.54 (0.33 ± 0.03) µSv/h (n = 16,722 data with 2787 ships) in 2014, which is less than the GHWT background. Monthly detection of 238U, 226Ra, 210Pb, 232Th, 228Th, 40K, and gross beta in HK public fills was conducted on three random ships. Their specific activities were <6.27-155.5, 58.7-98.7, <7.83-238.2,97.9-168.6, 87.1-136.0, 463.1-1,018, and 1047-1658 Bq/kgDW, respectively. These results suggest that the radioactivity levels of HK public fills are essentially the same as the GHWT background. The study assessed potential risks using various indices icluding Raeq (Radium equivalent activity), Hex (External radiation hazard index), Hin (Internal radiation hazard index), Iγ (Gamma index), AUI (Activity utilization index), AUI (Activity utilization index), E (Annual effective dose), AGDE (Annual gonadal dose equivalent), RLI (Representative level index), Din (Indoor air absorbed dose rate), Dout (Outdoor air absorbed dose rate), and ELCR (Excess lifetime cancer risk). The study suggests that HK public fills should be used for the trial reclamation rather than building-house materials. This provides valuable insights for the resource utilization and minimizing environmental pollution of HK public fills. The aim is to offer fundamental technical assistance for future waste resource utilization, ecological protection, and restoration in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Dynamics of the surface carbonate system in oil fields with a high concentration of wells on the northwestern South China Sea shelf.

Oil exploitation may pose adverse effects on marine ecosystems, but its impacts on surface carbonate dynamics remain unknown. In a carbonate system with low air-sea ∆pCO2, such as the South China Sea (SCS), human activities may affect the pCO2 distribution patterns and potentially alter CO2 sink or source at the surface. This study investigates the surface carbonate system in two oil fields, namely the Wenchang Oil Feld and Enping Oil Feld, located on the northwestern SCS (NWSCS) shelf. In Enping Oil Field, although there is a slight increase in surface pCO2 due to probable total alkalinity (TA) consumption from CaCO3 precipitation, strong biological production makes the plume water a strong CO2 sink. Similarly, the biological processes dominated the pCO2 variability in Wenchang Oil Feld, exhibiting high values in its central area. In NWSCS, the influence of shelf water was observed during both cruises. And the pCO2 drawdown caused by the decreased sea surface temperature (SST) and CO2 outgassing outweighed their increases via enhanced vertical mixing, leading to a pCO2 drawdown from September to October within this water mass. More importantly, there were no significant disparities observed in carbonate parameters at stations along transects with and without wells, and the observed parameter values in this study fell within the range reported previously on the nSCS shelf with similar controlling processes. Thus the impact of oil exploitation on carbonate dynamics is negligible, and the characteristics of the carbonate system in oil field are primarily governed by natural processes such as the mixing of plume water and basin water, CaCO3 precipitation and the changes in SST. The provided data establish a crucial baseline for detecting future alterations in carbonate chemistry within oil fields, and the rapid fluctuations in sea surface pCO2 highlight the need for higher spatiotemporal resolution observation.

The Ecological Status and Change in High-Latitude Coral Assemblages at the Xuwen Coral Reef, Northern South China Sea: Insight into the Status and Causes in 2020.

Taking the coral communities of the Xuwen coral reef in 2020 as the research object, we analyzed the species composition, diversity, and interspecific Spearman correlation of the scleractinian coral communities, investigated the features and spatial distribution of the scleractinian coral community, and discussed the correlation between the community composition and environmental factors to identify the affecting factors and their sources. These results showed that (1) compared with the survey in 2004, the coverage of corals in 2020 had significantly decreased, while the dominant genera were still Goniopora and Porites. The coral morphology was massive, and the diversity of the coral community (Shannon-Wiener index, H') was 2.87. The distribution of coral was uneven. The competition among some dominant species of coral was intense. (2) The mass coral bleaching event in the NSCS in August 2020 did not cause severe coral death in the short term on the Xuwen coral reef. (3) The growth of the coral community in 2020 might be greatly affected by high suspended solids and nutrient levels, which were related to the current, mariculture, and coastal erosion. (4) Anthropogenic activities such as coastal aquaculture and fishing were the major factors leading to the reduction in coral coverage on Xuwen coral reef in the past 10 years.

Low dissolved oxygen in the Pearl River estuary in summer: Long-term spatio-temporal patterns, trends, and regulating factors.

Several large semi-enclosed seas and coastal bodies have formed seasonal hypoxic water masses over large areas. The dominant cause for such formations is believed to be the increasing inflow of nutrients from watersheds and urban areas into estuaries and coastal waters. Several studies have reported hypoxic events in the Pearl River estuary (PRE). However, hypoxia events appear to be episodic, which are neither seasonal nor estuary-wide. The reasons for such occurrences are not understood fully. The objectives of this study are to use 24-year time series data obtained during 1988-2011 to analyze the long-term variability in dissolved oxygen (DO) in summer over the entire estuary from urban areas to estuarine coastal waters and examine regulating factors for the occurrences of hypoxia. The results showed that various regulating factors were responsible for the variability of DO in different regions of the PRE. DO decreased in the urban reach, upstream and main estuarine zones of the PRE from about 2000. It was hypoxic (DO <2.0 mg L-1) in the urban reach zone and periodic low DO (DO <3.5 mg L-1) and episodic hypoxic in the upstream zone after 2000, mainly influenced by the increasing sewage discharge. The main estuarine zone experienced episodic low DO and sporadic hypoxia after 2000. The ecosystem buffering capacity was characterized by turbidity, well vertical mixing and short residence time which diluted the pressure for the formation of hypoxia. The eastern shelf appeared to be more vulnerable to hypoxia because of its deeper topography, plume front position, and stratification of the water column compared with the western shelf. Its bottom waters experienced seasonal low DO but seldom hypoxia. In comparison, low DO rarely occurred in the western shelf because of its shallow topography and short residence time. In brief, 24-year series data captured from 1988 to 2011 showed a lack of seasonal and estuary-wide hypoxia in the PRE.

Bacterial Communities in the Rhizospheres of Three Mangrove Tree Species from Beilun Estuary, China.

The bacterial communities played important roles in the high productivity mangrove ecosystem. In this study, we investigated the vertical distributions of rhizosphere bacteria from three mangrove species (Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, Kandelia candel and Aegiceras corniculatum) in Beilun Estuary, China using high throughput DNA pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Phylogenetic analysis showed that bacterial communities from mangrove rhizosphere sediments were dominated by Proteobacteria (mostly Deltaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria), followed by Chloroflexi, Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes and Acidobacteria. However, the ANOVA analysis on Shannon and Chao1 indices indicated that bacterial communities among sediments of the three mangrove species varied more strongly than the sampling depths. In addition, the PCA result demonstrated that the bacterial communities could be separated into three groups according to the mangrove species. Moreover, the dominated orders Rhodospirillales, GCA004 and envOPS12 were significantly different among sediments of the three mangrove species. The results of this study provided valuable information about the distribution feature of rhizosphere bacteria from Chinese mangrove plants and shed insights into biogeochemical transformations driven by bacteria in rhizosphere sediments.

[Estimation of water clarity in offshore marine areas based on modified semi-analysis spectra model].

The main objectives of the research described in the present paper are to develop a semi-analysis model of water clarity for case 2 waters without inputting the absorption and scattering coefficient, which are not easy to be obtained for offshore marine areas so far. Based on the Zsd (Secchi depth)inversion theory, a simple semi-analysis spectra model was established for offshore seawater clarity by analyzing the relationship between vertical diffuse attenuation coefficient K(d) (490) and the beam attenuation coefficient c(490) with remote sensing reflectance. This semi-analysis spectra model needed two band reflectance ratios on- ly, while tidal correction was produced for this model to improve the precision of the retrieving results. The semi-analysis spectra model was applied to ASD hyperspectral reflectance data measured in the Pearl River Estuary Ecological Zone (October 21, 23, 2012, November 2, 2012; N=20) and the Xuwen Coral Reef Protection Zone (January 13, 14, 2013, N=25) which covered different water body of tidal times and different pollution sources. The results indicated that the changing tendency of predicted values was consistent with the synchronous measurement values after comparing them. However, water clarity calculated by the ASD hyperspectral reflectance measured in spring tidal time, generated 0. 4 m deviation compared with in-situ water clarity, while water clarity calculated by the ASD hyperspectral reflectance measured in neap tidal time is close to the in-situ water clarity. So the tidal correction coefficient of 0.4 was further applied for the model. After modification, the coefficient of determination between the inversed and measured water clarity was 0. 663, the average absolute error was 0. 14 m and the average relative error was 19.5%. Research demonstrated that this semi-analysis inversion algorithm just needs two band reflectance ratio to complete the inversion of water clarity, which is simple and works relatively well for lower clarity (less than 2 meters) waters compared to He' (2004) and Doron' (2011) algorithms.