Heralded as China's second Great Wall, a vast seawall running more than half of the nation's coastline was built for the purpose of reclaiming land from the seabed for development. The environmental impact, however, has created a firestorm of protest from leading ecologists worldwide.

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A group of international sustainability scholars, including Jianguo "Jack" Liu, director of Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, in a paper published in November in Science magazine, outline the sweeping downsides of one of China's efforts to fuel its booming economy, downsides that extend beyond China.

While amounting to only 13 percent of China's land area, the coastline contributes to 60 percent of the Middle Kingdom's economy. Its largest economic engines, the cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, are all on the coast. The economic potential has created a push to turn the nation's wetlands into viable real estate.

Yet the scientists of the study, coming from the World Wildlife Fund, Fudan University in Shanghai, and Beijing Forestry University, outline vast ecological costs that do not appear on balance sheets, nor the extreme damage China's coast already suffers. Short-term gain, however, often outweighs long-term effects.

"These coastal areas are a perfect example of coupled human and natural systems. They are also a telling example of how 'telecoupled' our world is," said Liu, who holds the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at Michigan State. "The decisions being made in China are having enormous consequences to people and ecosystem services in China and the rest of the world. We must bring ecosystem services to the business table for a sustainable future."

The Chinese coastlines as they exist now produce 28 million tons of fishery products, nearly 20 percent of the world's total. Looking deeper reveals abundant biodiversity and a support system that also provides other invaluable but underappreciated services for people; wetland ecosystems support a daunting number of birds, millions of which rely on the coastlines as they migrate. More over, coastal wetlands absorb pollutants and carbon and protect people from extreme weather.

Although laws exist to protect China's wetlands, critics contend they lack teeth, and that corrupt local officials look the other way if bribed enough. 

Tagswetlands, shore, coast, World Wildlife Fund, Michigan State University