Implementation of Marine Environmental Impact Assessment Mechanism for Marine Spatial Planning in Taiwan

To undertake a detailed and comprehensive research on the marine environmental impact assessment mechanism of marine spatial planning in Taiwan with a specific focus on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) technique. The present research adopts methodological model based on the principles of environmental impact assessment (EIA) for analysis of the Taiwan marine ecosystem. The cumulative environmental impact of human activities within the area of scope of the study is computed as the sum of the impacts of identified human activities on selected components of the ecosystem. The collection of data related to the human activities and ecosystem components variables was limited to the last five years, between 2018 and 2023, and the pre-existing data that were openly available were sourced from different sources including the Taiwan marine spatial planning (MSP) related governmental agencies, consultancies and academic research. The impactful human activities on the Taiwan marine environment include ocean bottom trawls, oil spill shipping and sand loss extraction activities as well as turbidity ocean bottom trawl, boating effects, mining activities and marine infrastructural projects and the most affected ecosystem components include the artificial and natural coastal reefs, the shoreline shallows, the deep ocean spaces and the biological components which include the plants and the animals. The most impactful human activity on the Taiwan marine environment is attributed to dumping activities within the coast zone areas which has had the most significant impact on the coastal zone ecosystem.