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The comprehensive benefit evaluation of marine resources developmental model is of great significance to choose the appropriate types of marine resources development and promote the intensive utilization and sustainable development of marine resources. This article examined five types of marine resources development, such as marine protected areas, mariculture, offshore wind power, sewage dumping, and land reclamation, and constructed a three-level evaluation index system for the comprehensive benefits of marine resources development. The projection pursuit clustering model was used to evaluate and analyze the comprehensive benefits and main influencing factors of 15 marine resources development projects in Jiangsu Province, China. It was found that the comprehensive benefit projection values of marine protected areas and offshore wind power are higher. The projection value of comprehensive benefit of land reclamation is the lowest. The main influencing factors include but not limited to the change rate of total output of aquatic products, contradiction between management and marine use, negative impact on residents’ lives, etc. The research results have important guiding significance for promoting the rational development and utilization of marine resources and the high-quality development of the oceans.

Beatriz Morales-Nin is an expert in sclerochronology and fisheries resource management. She has been working at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies since 1989 and has conducted research at the University of Hawaii and the University of Bergen. Her research focuses on determining the age of fish through otoliths and using calcified tissues to obtain information about ocean conditions. Morales-Nin emphasizes the importance of regulating traditional fishing and recreational fishing, and points out that overfishing, pollution, climate change, and exploitation costs are threats to marine resources. She also highlights the need for integrated and responsible fisheries resource management. [Extracted from the article]

This study aims to find out the role of Saracen International as Private Military Company in overcoming the sea piracy that occurred in the Gulf of Aden. The research method used in this research is descriptive research method. Data collection techniques in this study are through literature studies, books, journals, articles, reports and internet sources. The concept used in this research is Private Military Company concept. This study illustrates on how the role of Saracen International in collaboration with the Puntland government in overcoming the existing pirate phenomena in the region. Based on the concept used, the phenomenon of pirates in the Gulf of Aden region pressures the local government to find a solution and one of them is to use Private Military Company services so that the number of piracies in the region decreased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea-level rise (SLR) induced flooding is often envisioned as solely originating from a direct marine source. This results in alternate sources such as groundwater inundation and storm-drain backflow being overlooked in studies that inform planning. Here a method is developed that identifies flooding extents and infrastructure vulnerabilities that are likely to result from alternate flood sources over coming decades. The method includes simulation of flood scenarios consisting of high-resolution raster datasets featuring flood-water depth generated by three mechanisms: (1) direct marine flooding, (2) storm-drain backflow, and (3) groundwater inundation. We apply the method to Honolulu's primary urban center based on its high density of vulnerable assets and present-day tidal flooding issues. Annual exceedance frequencies of simulated flood thresholds are established using a statistical model that considers predicted tide and projections of SLR. Through assessment of multi-mechanism flooding, we find that approaching decades will likely feature large and increasing percentages of flooded area impacted simultaneously by the three flood mechanisms, in which groundwater inundation and direct marine flooding represent the most and least substantial single-mechanism flood source, respectively. These results illustrate the need to reevaluate main sources of SLR induced flooding to promote the development of effective flood management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildlife dispersion patterns are responses of populations confronting variable environmental conditions. Additionally, industry depredation in oceans develops spatial patterns to optimize wildlife capture. Soft scaling conditions between protected and exploited marine zones define operative fractional dimensions for industry and wildlife. When reduction of the fractional dimension of industry ship trajectories is suitably established, the chances for wildlife to survive are increased. Accordingly, a protection strategy is proposed focusing on trajectory patterns rather than uniform areas. As a specific case, narwhals ( Monodon monoceros ) in the Arctic are considered. This approach best suits species with large-scale migratory patterns. Parameters are evaluated using current oceanic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhou, S.; Zhang, Y., and Yang, X., 2018. Modeling for the evaluation of marine economic development trends in Nansha free trade areas under the background of The Belt and Road policy. In: Ashraf, M.A. and Chowdhury, A.J.K. (eds.), Coastal Ecosystem Responses to Human and Climatic Changes throughout Asia. After the The Belt and Road policy is proposed, the marine economy of Nansha free trade area (FTA) has been an unprecedented development, but the evaluation of the economic development trend is inaccurate. Aiming at the problems, an evaluation model for marine economic development trend in the Nansha FTA is proposed. With the background of The Belt and Road policy, the development opportunity is analyzed, and the model of economic development trend is established through coordination degree. The example analysis of Zhongshan shows that the model presented in this paper accurately evaluates the marine economic development trend in Nansha FTA under The Belt and Road background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of licensing or permitting systems to sea areas is one of the most popular and effective regulatory approaches to sea area management worldwide. In 1993, China implemented a sea use fee (SUF) system, which has been gradually improved over time. China is one of the countries with the highest number of sea use activities and the most intensive sea area development. The SUF system is the most important economic tool to manage the waters, as well as to coordinate the relationship between resource allocation and marine environmental protection. In this context, the SUF is the charge for the license that a sea user is required to obtain for the right of exploiting sea areas from the state. This article focuses on the Chinese SUF system, which is based on area grading and use types. Moreover, policies and regulations related to the fee and use of SUF in the country are introduced, and an analysis of problems that have arisen in implementation of the SUF system is presented. Finally, a prediction on the future focus of the reform of the Chinese SUF system is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal law gives states an important voice and role in defining the Outer Continental Shelf 5-Year Lease Program. This article reviews selected written state responses to the Trump Administrations Draft 2019-2024 Draft Program issued by Bureau of Ocean Energy Management pursuant to President Trump's April 28, 2017 "Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy" Executive Order. The states' comments outline the contours of the upcoming political and court battles over the 5-year program. In addition, the comments illustrate how stakeholders use a variety of legal arguments and policy developments to influence ocean use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the rapid growth of the coastal economy as well as the broadening and deepening of ocean exploration, the extensive growth pattern of China's marine economy led to such problems as more consumption of marine resources, more waste emissions, and the deterioration of the marine ecological system. Therefore, the study of marine economic efficiency has great significance for achieving cleaner production and sustainable development of China's marine economy. Based on the global Malmquist-Luenberger index model, this paper brings undesirable output into the measurement of total factor productivity to evaluate the green efficiency of China's marine economy under environmental constraints. In order to better depict the dynamic nature of marine economic efficiency, eleven coastal regions in China were selected as the objects of this study, with data collected from 2006 to 2014. The results indicate that total factor productivity of China's marine economy without considering undesirable output is markedly higher than that considering it. China's coastal regions differed in the green efficiency of the marine economy. The green efficiency of the marine economy in Tianjin rose the fastest, while in Guangxi it dropped the fastest, and the average annual growth rate varied by 8.18% between the two provinces. Moreover, the green efficiency of the East China Sea Economic Circle is the highest in the three coastal regions followed by the Bohai Economic Rim, while that of the South China Sea Economic Circle is the lowest. The improvement of the green efficiency of China's marine economy mainly stems from technological progress, while the improvement of technical efficiency has little influence on it, sometimes even adversely affecting it. Based on these findings, we discuss the corresponding policy suggestions on the sustainable development of China's marine economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An objective and comprehensive understanding of the development intensity of China's coastal area is of great significance to China's planning and marine management. On the basis of specifying the impact factors and characteristic indexes of the development intensity of China's coastal area, this paper constructs a model for ocean development intensity evaluation, comprehensively evaluates the development intensity of China's coastal area and summarizes the distribution features and patterns of ocean development intensities of different areas by fully using the relative data of sea area use and management, providing reference for future ocean development and protection policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Squalls are sudden changes in wind conditions. They are attracting increasing attention in ocean development in tropical regions such as West Africa, which are not hit by typhoons and hurricanes, when designing the mooring systems of floating production, storage, and offloading facilities. In general, a squall may not be very strong and may only last for a short time. Hence, it has not been considered a hazardous design condition for ships, offshore structures, and mooring systems in such regions. However, because of its unpredictability and suddenness, a squall can pose a threat to marine operations that require a fairly calm sea state. In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey of experienced offshore workers in Japan to clarify the potential risk to marine operations from squalls. Then, weather observatory data for more than 10 years at remote islands were investigated to identify the occurrence of squalls in the sea off coast of Japan. The results suggest that mid-latitude squalls have different characteristics of time evolution to those documented in West Africa. An extreme value analysis of the peak wind and rate of wind change were conducted to quantify the possible magnitudes of squalls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ocean GDP has been the dominant indicator for measuring ocean wealth and ocean economy development in China since the implementation of the Ocean GDP Accounting System in 2006. However, ocean GDP has indicated plenty of limitations over time, such as expressing excessive concern about material production rather than resource and environmental costs. Further, it is an income-based flow concept rather than a wealth-based stock accounting concept. This paper explores a new metric of measuring China's ocean wealth from the perspective of sustainable development. The inclusive wealth approach is introduced in the national ocean wealth measurement of China based on the expansion of the scope of the traditional concept of ocean wealth. In addition, the ocean manufactured capital, ocean human capital, ocean natural capital, the total value of ocean inclusive wealth, and the wealth composition are calculated. The results show that China's ocean inclusive wealth decreased over the years except for a slight growth in 2013 and 2014, and it is unsustainable as a whole. The value of ocean natural capital far exceeded ocean manufactured capital and ocean human capital. Although ocean manufactured capital and ocean human capital experienced an absolute growth, ocean natural capital declined notwithstanding its value, proportion or per capita value. Ocean inclusive wealth of China dropped at a higher rate when both CO 2 damage and demographic growth were taken into account. As compared to ocean GDP, the ocean inclusive wealth is much larger, but relatively stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blue Growth is a relatively new term that is meant to realize economic growth based on the exploitation of marine resources, while at the same time preventing their degradation, overuse, and pollution. This article discusses the relevance and usefulness of this new concept for the development of capture fisheries, a sector where growth largely seems impossible without ecological devastation. An analytical distinction between intensive and extensive growth is used to argue that certain development trajectories of capture fisheries might qualify as Blue Growth. Such trajectories of growth are illustrated with the development of the Swedish bleak roe trawl fishery in the Bothnian Bay and Norwegian whitefish fishery in the Barents Sea. Comparison of the cases highlights aspects that Blue Growth advocates might want to include if they choose to consider capture fisheries as a relevant economic activity. These aspects include: a) adding value through certification; b) technological development to make more efficient use of resources used up in the fishing operation, and to upgrade their fish as commodity; and c) specialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the surface signatures of Mediterranean water eddies (Meddies) in the context of a regional, primitive equations model simulation (using the Regional Oceanic Modeling System, ROMS). This model simulation was previously performed to study the mean characteristics and pathways of Meddies during their evolution in the Atlantic Ocean. The advantage of our approach is to take into account different physical mechanisms acting on the evolution of Meddies and their surface signature, having full information on the 3D distribution of all physical variables of interest. The evolution of around 90 long-lived Meddies (whose lifetimes exceeded one year) was investigated. In particular, their surface signature was determined in sea-surface height, temperature and salinity. The Meddy-induced anomalies were studied as a function of the Meddy structure and of the oceanic background. We show that the Meddies can generate positive anomalies in the elevation of the oceanic free-surface and that these anomalies are principally related to the Meddies potential vorticity structure at depth (around 1000 m below the sea-surface). On the contrary, the Meddies thermohaline surface signatures proved to be mostly dominated by local surface conditions and little correlated to the Meddy structure at depth. This work essentially points out that satellite altimetry is the most suitable approach to track subsurface vortices from observations of the sea-surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of ocean development, the technology for maritime communication system is a hot research field, of which information security is vital for the normal operation of the whole system, and that is also one of the difficulties in the research of maritime communication system. In this paper, a kind of maritime communication cryptographic SOC(system on chip) is introduced, and its compiler framework is put forward through analysis of working mode and problems faced by compiler front end. Then, a loop unrolling factor calculating algorithm based on queue theory, named UFBOQ (unrolling factor based on queue), is proposed to make parallel optimization in the compiler frontend with consideration of the instruction memory capacity limit. Finally, the scalar replacement method is used to optimize unrolled code to solve the memory access latency on the parallel computing efficiency, for continuous data storage characteristics of cryptographic algorithm. The UFBOQ algorithm and scalar replacement prove effective and appropriate, of which the effect achieves the linear speedup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an introduction to the contributions in this special issue ofOcean Development & International Law. It offers an overview of the dispute settlement provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, placing them in the context of dispute settlement in international law generally, and explaining the extent to which they have been used so far. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Biodiversity offsetting is used in diverse policy contexts to reduce, halt or reverse losses of biodiversity arising from development or other uses of the natural environment. Despite increasing interest in the concept of biodiversity offsetting, relatively little attention has been devoted to investigating its use in marine environments. This paper presents a systematic review of documents evidencing the application or inclusion of biodiversity offset principles in policy frameworks concerning the marine environment, and in marine development projects. Biodiversity offsetting policies applicable to marine environments were found to exist in six countries (US, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Colombia) and have been actively considered in at least 27 others. Outside of these, a wide range of other approaches promoting uptake of biodiversity offsetting principles in a marine context were identified. These range from preliminary studies to identify potential compensatory habitat, to nascent biodiversity markets, and project-level application of corporate standards of no net loss. Evidence suggests that where offsetting policy is developed for specific marine application, the preferred approach is to pool financial contributions from developers into funds for strategic action for biodiversity benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islands, which provide multiple ecosystem services, are subject to increasing urbanization pressure due to the ongoing marine development, especially in developing countries. Insights into the island urbanization mechanism and its ecological consequences are essential to sustainable development. In the present paper, the satellite images, nighttime lights, and topographic data were integrated to characterize the spatially explicit urbanization process and mechanism during 1995–2011 in the Zhoushan Island, East China. Furthermore, the corresponding spatially explicit changes in ecosystem services, including net primary productivity (NPP), carbon sequestration and oxygen production (CSOP), nutrient cycling, crop production, and habitat quality, were quantified based on the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford Approach (CASA) and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) models. The results showed that the Zhoushan Island had experienced a rapid urbanization over the years, with significant urban encroachment on the farmland and tidal flat. Moreover, the urban land expansion was positively correlated with that of the nighttime lights and negatively correlated with the elevation, slope, and the distance to shoreline. These indicated that the urban expansion was resulted from the enhancement of socioeconomic activities, and concentrated in the near-shore areas with low altitude and gentle slope. The urban encroachment on other land use types resulted in a decrease of 3.4 Gg C a −1 NPP, 8.7 Gg a −1 CSOP, 13.2 Gg a −1 nutrient cycling, and 12.3 t a −1 crop production, respectively. In addition, the habitat quality in 11% area of this island degraded substantially. Therefore, to achieve sustainable development of islands, it is urgent to implement more stringent policies, such as island spatial regulation, environmental impact assessment, intensive land use, and urban greening, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In studies of changes in island geographic information, a key topic is island land cover change detection using multitemporal remote sensing images; such information can provide good reference for island exploitation, marine resource conservation, marine economic development, and national defense building. This study proposes a fast and easy-to-implement algorithm of object-oriented change detection based on iteratively reweighted multivariate statistical analysis with high-resolution remote sensing images and vector data, improving effects of normal multivariate alternative detection by combining object-oriented technology with probability density function of chi-square distribution. This method builds vectors in feature space with spectral, texture, and spatial structure information of objects segmented based on boundaries and categories of features in vector data. By feature optimization and iterative extension to multivariate statistical analysis for change detection, change regions can be extracted. Experiments on Zhaoshu Island area show that the proposed method is highly effective and accurate in detection of change regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an annual report of the International Ocean Institute (IOI). It mentions that IOI is working towards achieving the ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); and need to implement the actions needed to achieve several goals such as conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources.

The article presents information on developments at the the International seabed Authority (ISA). Topics discussed include organizing, controlling and principles for deep seabed mining; effects of legal developments for the deep seabed mining regime; and working draft for regulations for mining exploitation published by Legal and Technical Commission (LTC). The article also mentions the review of institutional structure and performance enumerated by ISA.

The article reports on the Deep Seabed Mining Law 2016 of China on exploration and exploitation of resources in the International Seabed Area. Topics discussed include standards made by International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for compliance of the states with the international obligations, shifting interest of China in the area ocean development and China's take on sponsoring the states for United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Most projects of similar research are applied and become known mainly due to their commercial implementation. Undoubtedly, in the modern realities, it is more and more difficult to conduct scientific research regardless of the urgent production problems. Thus, cooperation of commercial structures, research institutions, military departments, etc. is required for the successful implementation of most projects. Certainly, the results of such projects can be effectively used by all the organizations listed above. For example, almost any innovation in the surveillance and search, under-ice and other studies in one form or another can be used for strategic or tactical military purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking advantage of coastal wave environment to carry out scaled ship model test is an effective testing technology for ship performance. In this paper, the method of spectral analysis is adopted to calculate the significant wave height, period, wave spectrum and some other parameters of some places along the North Sea area of China. The measured wave spectrum and the ocean spectrum are handled into non-dimensional form to evaluate their similarity. The influence of wind direction and tide on coastal waves was analyzed. And the results indicate that the coastal wave spectrum is similar to the ocean spectrum under some specific conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]