The Bohai Sea Oil Exploration and Environmental Protection

Abstract A comprehensive review is given in this paper on marine pollution and its management in the Bohai Sea-a internal sea of China. With fast industrialization in the last two decades along the coast of the Bohai Sea, more and more pollutants discharged into the coastal waters and caused environmental disaster-a dying sea. The monitoring results have shown that 90% of the pollutants come from land-based pollution sources, which have a fundamental impacts on marine environmental quality, on marine organisms and resources and on human health. During the last ten years, the government and scientists had set up many projects including monitoring network, environmental survey, loading capacity study and formulation of management framework. However, all the projects have a little effective on the Bohai Sea environmental quality as a whole. In the late of 90's, integrated coastal zone management (ICM) was introduced into China under the support of International Maritime Organization. The approach and methodologies have changed towards the comprehensive Bohai Sea pollution control and environmental management including international organizations, central government, local authorities and stakeholders. Presently, the central government has paid a great attention to the Bohai Sea pollution problems and initiated a "Blue Sea Action Plan" which lays a foundation to the ICM. Finally, pollution control measures are listed including the laws, regulations and environmental quality standards, as well as stipulation of marine environmental management measures. Some suggestions to improve marine environmental quality and to control oil pollution in the Bohai Sea are discussed.