An index-based spatial evaluation model of exploitative intensity: A case study of coastal zone in Vietnam

Coastal zones play a major role in the conservation of marine ecosystems and the sustainable use of resources not only because of their special geographical environment but also because of their high temporal and spatial variability. With the development of urbanization, the exploitation and utilization of coasts have become important issues in the debate. To evaluate variations in the intensity of the land resource exploitation of coastal zones, an index-based model has been proposed in this paper, and coastal Vietnam has been established as the study area. The model is based on four normalized indexes to realize rapid evaluation of the spatial distribution of the exploitative intensity after zoning. The model was established to characterize the different exploitative intensities in different segments of the coast and to graphically present a sequence of decision choices for decision-makers. The results are as follows. (1) The simplicity and rapidity of the index operations can address the fast-changing characteristics of coastal exploitation and meet the desired precision. (2) The choices of the landward buffers fit well with the banded characteristics of the coastal zone. The buffers are horizontally divided into equidistant subregions, which can quantify the spatial differentiation of the exploitative intensity along the coast and perpendicular to the coast. (3) The average exploitative intensity is low, and the proportion of area that is to be exploited accounts for approximately 50%.Considering its spatial variation from north to south, the land exploitative intensity in the north is higher than that in the south. Compared to the intensity of land resource exploitation in the 20 km and 10 km buffers, the land exploitative intensity in the 5 km buffer is higher. The state of the intensity of land resource exploitation and how it can be used by stakeholders to manage coastal resources are then discussed.