Marine eco-civilization performance evaluation in Oujiang Estuary, Zhejiang Province, China

Estuaries usually experience the most intense anthropogenic influences among coastal areas due to their geographical and physical attributes, and they represent important parts of marine eco-civilization construction in China. Although assessments of the eco-civilization performance in estuaries are important, few methodologies or case studies related to marine eco-civilization assessments are available. This study aimed to formulate both an index system and an evaluation model for assessing the eco-civilization performance of the Oujiang Estuary. The index system consisted of six subsystems, including society, economy, resources, ecology, culture, and governance, based on the requirements of "marine eco-civilization construction" and the attributes of the estuary area. The evaluation model was developed based on a 3-D space state model. The results showed that the overall performance of marine eco-civilization construction in the Oujiang Estuary was good but that the development of the six subsystems was not balanced. The performance of the culture and ecology subsystems was relatively lower than that of the other four subsystems, indicating that the local government could focus more on developing marine culture and restoring the marine ecological environment in the future.