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Fuzzy Logic Method for Evaluating Habitat Suitability in an Estuary Affected

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DOI: 10.1007/s13157-014-0606-2

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Fuzzy Logic Method for Evaluating Habitat
Suitability in an Estuary Affected by Land
Reclamation

Heyue Zhang, Tao Sun, Dongdong Shao

& Wei Yang

Wetlands
Official Scholarly Journal of the Society
of Wetland Scientists

ISSN 0277-5212

Wetlands
DOI 10.1007/s13157-014-0606-2

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 Author's personal copy
Wetlands
DOI 10.1007/s13157-014-0606-2

CHINA COASTAL WETLANDS

Fuzzy Logic Method for Evaluating Habitat Suitability

in an Estuary Affected by Land Reclamation
Heyue Zhang & Tao Sun & Dongdong Shao & Wei Yang

Received: 31 March 2014 / Accepted: 20 November 2014

# Society of Wetland Scientists 2014

Abstract This paper proposes an integrated approach to the Introduction

assessment of estuarine habitat suitability based on a fuzzy logic
method. Specifically, fuzzy logic is used to construct the Habitat The shortage of land resources has become the main factor
Suitability Index (HSI) as a supplementary metric when field that now restricts the development of coastal areas. Hence, the
data is scarce. The HSI is used in turn to build the Habitat creation of new land for urban development has become an
Aggregation Index (HAI) that considers the internal patches important strategy for resolving the conflict between people
and fragmentation of the habitat. We applied the proposed tool and land (Kuang et al. 2013). Large-scale reclamation activity
to the Yellow River Estuary to demonstrate its implementation can produce great social and economic benefits, nevertheless,
and efficacy. The habitat suitability of the estuary was evaluated it also significantly influences the marine ecological environ-
under a host of scenarios with different terrain conditions to ment, breaking down suitable estuarine habitat and destroying
simulate the consequences of the long term land reclamation its integrity (Lee et al. 1999; Kang 1999).
activities it has experienced during the past two decades. The Habitat suitability evaluation has emerged as an important
findings indicate that from 1989 to 1999, the suitable habitat aspect of estuarine habitat protection. The Minimum Value
area (HSI≥0.6) for jellyfish decreased by 2–6 % when flow was Methodology (Bovee 1986; Beecher et al. 2002), Weighted
less than 500 m3/s, but increased 5–6.5 % when flow was greater Summation Methodology (Poulos et al. 2012), and Weighted
than 800 m3/s. The suitable habitat area decreased by more than Geometric Mean Methodology (Inglis et al. 2006) were intro-
30 % under the land reclamation that occurred from 1999 to duced to calculate the Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) of an
2009. The suitable habitat area for Chinese shrimp decreased by estuary. These methods require that the preference curve of a
9–13 % from 1989 to 1999 and 67–78 % from 1999 to 2009. species is well known. In addition, they need large amounts of
Both the HAI of the habitat for jellyfish and Chinese shrimp highly accurate data. There are many inherent uncertainties in
decreased during 1989 to 1999 and then increased in 2009, ecology, including the existence of random variables, incom-
indicating that the degree of habitat fragmentation that worsened plete or inaccurate measurements, and the use of estimated
under the reclamation during 1989–1999 was ameliorated dur- results instead of direct measurements.
ing 1999–2009. This proposed approach provides a novel eval- To date, estuarine habitat evaluations are usually for certain
uation tool for habitat suitability in estuaries. species and focus on their habitat quality or suitability at
different spatial positions. Relevant evaluation results only
reflect the average quality of the habitat area, ignoring the
Keywords Habitat suitability evaluation . Fuzzy logic internal habitat patchiness and fragmentation. Such evaluation
method . Habitat suitability index . Habitat aggregation index . results do not fully describe the spatial and temporal distribu-
Land reclamation . Yellow river estuary tion of habitats or their continuity. How to combine suitable
habitat spatial distribution simulation with habitat fragmenta-
tion analysis and understand the impact of human activities on
H. Zhang : T. Sun (*) : D. Shao (*) : W. Yang spatial and temporal habitat changes has become an important
State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of
issue that needs to be studied.
Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
e-mail: [email protected] The limitations of the current methods have fostered an
e-mail: [email protected] interest in fuzzy logic, a method that can process uncertainties.
 Author's personal copy
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Fig. 1 General outline of the

algorithm proposed in this study.
Algorithm 1 computes the HSI
using the fuzzy inference system,
whereas Algorithm 2 computes
the HAI based on the different
habitat types calculated by
Algorithm 1

An important advantage of fuzzy logic is that it can better use methods (Van Broekhoven et al. 2006). As fuzzy rule-based
imprecise and uncertain measurement results as well as fuzzy models can be designed using qualitative knowledge and have
expert knowledge (Marsililibelli et al., 2013). The core ele- an interpretable structure, they have been applied in many
ments of fuzzy logic are fuzzy sets and fuzzy rules. When studies (Bosserman and Ragade 1982; Zhang et al. 2004;
expressing the uncertainty of habitat simulation, fuzzy sets Legleiter and Goodchild 2005; Rüger et al. 2005; Chou
utilize imprecise or vague information. Easily accessed expert et al. 2007; Mouton et al. 2008; Mouton et al. 2009; Fukuda
knowledge is expressed as a preference data set (Prato 2007; et al. 2011).
Fraternali et al. 2012). By reasoning via fuzzy sets and rules, This study aims to build a estuarine habitat suitability
we can express transitional boundaries or qualitative knowl- evaluation model and assess the quality of an estuarine habitat
edge, and then make a fuzzy comprehensive judgment that is affected by reclamation. The innovative features of this study
similar to the human thought process. In this way, we can are: (a) considering the unique ecological features of estuaries
solve rule-based fuzzy problems that are difficult for general and the uncertainty of ecological variables, we incorporated

1 1 1 1

L M H L M H L M H L ML M MH H

0 0 0 0
a m bm cm dm am bm cm dm am bm c m dm
Depth m Water temperature Salinity PPT HSI
a b c d
1 1 1 1
ML

M H M
0 0 0 0 1
Depth m Water temperature Salinity PPT HSI ML
e f g h Union set M
Rule 1: IF depth IS moderate AND water temperature IS high AND salinity IS moderate THEN HSI IS medium low

1 1 1 1 0

M COG
HSI
H M H
(m)
0 0 0 0
Depth m Water temperature Salinity PPT HSI
i j k l
Rule 2: IF depth IS high AND water temperature IS moderate AND salinity IS high THEN HSI IS moderate

Fig. 2 HSI inference and calculation (L represents the value of the represents the fuzzy set that inference through Rule1 and Rule2.) (Zhao
environmental factor is low, M represents moderate, H represents High, et al. 2013)
ML represents medium low, MH represents medium high, gray area
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fuzzy logic into the estuarine habitat evaluation and (b) we set; this real number is called its membership degree.
combined the HSI with the Habitat Aggregation Index (HAI) A membership function can transform a common set
to analyze the fragmentation of different suitability levels of into a fuzzy set described by membership degree. In
estuarine habitat based on a comprehensive index. addition, a given value may belong to two adjacent
fuzzy sets to different degrees because the member-
ship functions have overlapping boundaries. The
Methods membership functions we built in this study have
trapezoidal and triangle shapes that have been suc-
Computing the HSI Based on Fuzzy Logic Inference cessfully applied in many studies (Van Broekhoven
et al. 2006; Fukuda 2009; Gutiérrez García and
The general structure of the HSI algorithm is shown in Fig. 1. Romaguera 2011; Muñoz-Mas et al. 2012). All mem-
The calculation can be started after the hydraulic and water bership functions are defined by four parameters (am,
quality data for the prescribed area has been generated. bm, cm, and dm): the membership degree linearly
increases from 0 to 1 between am and bm, is equal
Step1: Define membership functions. to 1 between bm and cm, and decreases from 1 to 0
We define a set of membership functions to between cm and dm (Fig. 2a and c).
fuzzify the suitability of the species for different
environments. This is the input for the fuzzy infer- Step2: Fuzzy logic inference according to fuzzy rules.
ence. The fuzzy rules connect the input variables to the
To fuzzify means to converse crisp values into the species suitability using the IF-THEN form, for ex-
linguistic values such as “low,” “moderate,” or ample, “IF depth IS ‘high’ AND water temperature
“high” (Zadeh 1965). All these linguistic values have IS ‘moderate’ AND salinity IS ‘low’, THEN habitat
a range of membership degree. Fuzzy mathematics suitability IS ‘high’”. The fuzzy rules are defined
often uses a real number that ranges from 0 to 1 to based on expert advice, and the fuzzy input can be
reflect the extent that an element belongs to the fuzzy transformed to fuzzy output using these rules.

Fig. 3 Locations of the measurement stations in the Yellow River Estuary, Laizhou Bay, and Bohai Sea in China
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Fig. 4 Variations in river mouth

and shoreline changes in the
coastal area

The process for calculating habitat suitability the Maximum-Minimum inference method in this
using fuzzy logic inference is shown in Fig. 2 (all study, and three environmental factors are considered
vertical axes represent membership degree). We use in this inference. The inference process is based on

Fig. 5 Observed and calculated 2 2

Calculation Calculation
tidal heights at different stations 1.5 1.5
Measurement Measurement
in the Bohai Sea 1 1
Tidal height(m)

Tidal height(m)

0.5 0.5
0 0
- 0.5 0 12 24 36 48 -0.5 0 12 24 36 48
-1 -1
- 1.5 -1.5 Time (h)…
Time (h)
-2 -2
CKWH WWGK

2
Calculation
1.5
Measurement
1
Tidal height(m)

0.5
0
0 12 24 36 48
-0.5
-1
-1.5 Time (h)
-2 TJD
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Fig. 6 Observed and calculated 0.5 0.5

Calculation Calculation
velocities and directions at
0.4 Measurement 0.4 Measurement
different stations in the Bohai Sea

Velocity (m/s)

Velocity (m/s)
0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
0 12 24 36 48 0 12 24 36 48
Time (h) Time (h)
V1 V2

250 Calculation Calculation

250
Measurement Measurement
150 150
Angle (e)

Angle (e)
50 50

-50 0 12 24 36 48 -50 0 12 24 36 48

-150 Time (h) -150

Time (h)
-250 V2 -250 V2

the first and second rules, as shown in Fig. 2e, h, i and maximum of Z, respectively, μ c(z) represents the
l, respectively. Considering three membership func- membership of linguistic variable C, and VCOG is
tions for each of the three parameters, the complete the crisp HSI value.
inference set would consist of 33 =27 rules, hence we
only illustrate the inference process using two rules.

Step3: Defuzzify the fuzzy subset. HAI Computation

The output of the above inference process is a
fuzzy subset. We can calculate the crisp value by The estuary habitat is divided into regions according to five
defuzzification (Fig. 2m). The Center of Gravity HSI levels: 0–0.2, 0.2–0.4, 0.4–0.6, 0.6–0.8, and 0.8–1.0.
(COG) method is commonly used in this process, Different habitat types in the study area can be regarded as a
expressed as: plaque distribution, and the HAI represents the degree of
habitat fragmentation. This be calculated as (Li and Wu 1992):

Z zmax .Z zmax HAI ¼ 1−C Cmax
V COG ¼ zμc ðzÞdz μc ðzÞdz
zmin zmin

Where Z represents the crisp value of the linguistic where the HAI ranges from 0 to 1, C is the complex index,
variable, Zmin and Zmax represent the minimum and and Cmax is the maximum value of C. Complex index C is

Fig. 7 Observed and calculated 2 2

Calculation Calculation
tidal heights at different stations 1.5 Measurement 1.5 Measurement
in Laizhou Bay 1 1
Tidal height(m)

Tidal height(m)

0.5 0.5
0 0
0 12 24 36 48 0 12 24 36 48
-0.5 -0.5
-1 -1
-1.5
Time (h) -1.5 Time (h)
-2 WFG -2 LZG
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Fig. 8 Observed and calculated 35 35

salinities and temperatures at 30 30
different stations in the Yellow 25 25

Salinity (ppt)
Sslinity (ppt)
River Estuary
20 20
15 15
10 Calculation 10 Calculation
5 Measurement 5 Measurement
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Time (h) Time (h)

S1 S2
15

12
Temperature ( )

6
Calculation
3
Measurement
0
0 6 12 18 24

Time (h)
T1

expressed as: Where P (i, j) represents the adjacent proportion of habitat i

Xm Xm and j, m is the number of total habitat types in the study area,
C¼− i¼1 j¼1
Pði; jÞlog½Pði; jÞ and P (i, j) can be approximated as:

Pði; jÞ ¼ Eði; jÞ=Nb

Cmax ¼ mlogðmÞ

(a)

(b)
Fig. 9 Membership functions (blue, orange, red, yellow, and green lines indicate Low, Medium Low, Medium, Medium High, and High, respectively)
used to fuzzify the preference curve of (a) jellyfish and (b) Chinese shrimp
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Table 1 Environmental factor requirements of the target species

Target species Depth (m) Water temperature (°C) Salinity (ppt) Critical period

min suitable max min suitable max min suitable max

Jellyfish 5 20 5 24 30 16 24 30 April– May

Chinese shrimp 1 15 25 34 8.77 25 30 June– July

Where E (i, j) is length of the common boundary between We determined the changes of shoreline and subaqueous
adjacent habitats i and j and Nb is the total boundary length of elevation over the last 20 years using LANDSAT images and
different habitat types. bathymetric data (Fig. 4). In 1989, the river mouth faced
A high HAI value indicates that the habitat in the study area southeast. In 1996, the main channel was artificially shifted
is composed of a few gathering habitats with a large area, and northeastward to facilitate oil drilling in the river mouth area.
a low HAI value indicates that the habitat is composed of By 1999, the new river mouth had stretched northeastward by
many fragmentary habitats with a small area. In this case, the 5 km (Wang et al. 2010). By 2009, the end of the channel had
habitat is seriously fragmented. turned completely toward the north and the shoreline extended
further seawards.
The Chinese shrimp (Penaeuschinensis) and jellyfish
Study Area and Target Species (Rhopilemaesculenta Kishinouye) were selected as targets
because of their wide distribution and special status in the
The Yellow River Estuary is located in the eastern Shandong study region (Deng et al. 1990; Dong et al. 2007;
Province, west of the Bohai Sea (Fig. 3). With the character- Pasztalenieca and Poniewozik 2010). Habitat suitability is
istics of weak brine mixing and nutrient enrichment, the based on depth, water temperature, and salinity. These param-
Yellow River Estuary has become an important habitat for eters were selected on the practical basis of data availability
many marine economic organisms (Sklar and Browder 1998; and the values were determined from a survey of the literature
Deng and Jin 2001; Able 2005; Dong et al. 2007). However, (Ruiz et al. 1997; Kurup et al. 1998; Koch 2001; Robins et al.
the ecological environment of the river estuary has been 2005; Poff and Zimmerman 2010; Sun et al. 2012). From
affected by the intensified reclamation activity of recent years. early May to July, Chinese shrimp spawn mostly in estuaries
The major types of reclamation in the Yellow River Delta and coastal waters where the depth is less than 15 m, and the
include port construction, oil exploitation, breed aquatics, and maximum growth rate of the larvae is maintained in a water
salt pans (Song and Liu 2013). Such various reclamation salinity of 8.77–25.8 ppt (Hu and Lu 1990; Wang et al. 2006).
activities have changed the coastline of the Yellow River Delta Generally, June to July is the critical fattening period when the
to different degrees. fertilized egg of the Chinese shrimp develops into mysis. For
this, the Chinese Shrimp needs water that ranges in tempera-
Table 2 Fuzzy inference engine rules for jellyfish. H, MH, M, ML, and ture from 23to 25 °C. There is a spawning peak for jellyfish that
L indicate high, medium high, medium, medium low, and low, lasts from April to May. The depth for a suitable jellyfish
respectively
spawning habitat is 5–20 m and salinity is 16–22 ppt, which
No. Depth Water temperature Salinity HSI corresponds to the environment of the estuaries in April and May
(Lu et al. 1989; Zhao et al. 2006; Chen et al. 1994) (Table 1).
1 H H H ML
2 H H M L
3 H H L L Validation of the Hydraulic and Water Quality Model
4 H M H M
5 M H H M Because the suitability index critically depends on the hydrau-
6 M M M MH lic and water quality simulation, the validation process of the
7 M M H H model is detailed here. The Environmental Fluid Dynamics
8 M M L M Code (EFDC) that has been adopted by many researchers as a
9 M H M ML simulation tool (Peng et al. 2011; Seo and Ahn 2012) was
10 H M M ML applied to simulate the distribution of environmental factors
11 H M L ML under the combined action of river inflows and tidal currents.
12 M H L ML We divided the study area into 3,000 grid and the grid spacing
13 L L M MH ranged from 690 m to 4,500 m, the simulation time step is 2 s.
The established model is two-dimensional and only has one
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Fig. 10 Suitable habitat areas of 3000

Jellyfish 5300 Chinese Shrimp

Suitable Habitat Area˄km2˅

1989 1999 2009

˄km2˅
(a) jellyfish and (b) Chinese 2600 4900 1989 1999 2009

shrimp under different land 4500

2200

Suitable Habitat Area˄

4100
reclamation scenarios in coastal 3700
1800
areas 3300
1400 2900
2500
1000 2100
600 1700
1300
200 900
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1000 1250 1500 1750 2000 2250 2500 2750 3000
Inflow m3/s Inflow m3/s

(a) (b)

layer. We first verified the calculated tidal heights and veloc- shows the validation result of the salinity and water tempera-
ities using observed data from the Bohai Sea, which is a semi- ture at stations S1, S2, and T1. The performance of the model
enclosed interior sea located in the northeast of China. The sea has been evaluated with relative errors:
is composed of three bays: Liaodong, Bohai, and Laizhou
jX measure ‐X calculate j
(Fig. 3). S¼
Figure 5 compares the calculated tidal heights with the X measure
values observed at WWGK, TJD, and CKWH stations. Ob-
served velocities and directions are compared with the calcu-
lated results in Fig. 6. The verification results prove that the A maximum of Ssalinity in S1 is 0.051 and its minimum is
model is a reliable tool to simulate the distribution of tidal 0.00045, a maximum of Ssalinity in S2 is 0.35 and its minimum
heights and velocities. The boundary conditions for simulat- is 0.00039, a maximum of Stemperature in T1 is 0.00046 and its
ing the hydrodynamic processes in the Yellow River Estuary minimum is 0.063. In general, the simulation results agree
and Laizhou Bay were then determined on the basis of the well with the observed data.
results obtained from the Bohai Sea model. Calculated tidal
heights, water temperature, and salinity were validated using
data obtained in the Yellow River Estuary from 22 to 23 Results
October, 2013. Calculated tidal heights are compared with
the data observed at LZG and WFG stations in Fig. 7. Figure 8 Computation of Suitable Habitat Area for the Yellow River
Estuary
Table 3 Rules of the fuzzy inference engine for Chinese shrimp. H,
MH, M, ML, and L are as defined in Table 2 The flow is divided into nine gradients based on the daily
NO. Depth Water Temperature Salinity HSI variations of freshwater inflow in the Yellow River Estuary.
According to the flow changes at Lijin Station during 2011–
1 H H H ML 2014, the flow varies from 200 to 1,000 m3/s during April to
2 H H M ML May and from 1,000 to 3,000 m3/s during June to July. We use
3 H M H M the changing inflow combined with the tidal fluctuation dur-
4 H L H ML ing the same time as the boundary conditions of the hydrody-
5 M H H M namic model and the simulated results of each environmental
6 L H H L factor are used to calculate the HSI.
7 M M M H The estuarine hydrodynamic and water quality factors were
8 M M H H simulated as described in Section 2.4, and the membership
9 M H M ML functions (Fig. 9) and fuzzy inference rules (Tables 1 and 2)
10 M L M MH for the target species were defined as described in Algorithm
11 H M M ML 1. The resulting suitable habitat (HSI≥0.6) area is shown in
12 L M M ML Fig. 10. For jellyfish, when the flow is less than 500 m3/s, the
13 L L M ML suitable habitat area decreased by 2–6%during the land recla-
14 H L M ML mation that occurred from 1989 to 1999. The suitable habitat
15 L H M ML area did not change significantly when the flow was 500–
16 L M H M 800 m3/s, but when flow was greater than 800 m3/s, the
17 M L H MH suitable habitat area increased 5–6.5 %. For the land reclama-
tion from 1999 to 2009, suitable habitat area was similarly
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Fig. 11 HAI of (a) jellyfish and 0.7 0.55

Jellyfish Chinese Shrimp
1989 1999 2009 1989 1999 2009
(b) Chinese shrimp under 0.65 0.5

Habitat Aggregation Index

Habitat Aggregation Index

different land reclamation 0.6 0.45
scenarios in coastal areas
0.55 0.4

0.5 0.35

0.45 0.3

0.4 0.25

0.35 0.2
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1000 1250 1500 1750 2000 2250 2500 2750 3000
Inflow m3/s Inflow m3/s

(a) (b)

affected, especially when the flow ranged from 600 to 0.4–1.0. The HAIs of jellyfish and Chinese shrimp
1,000 m3/s and the suitable habitat area subsequently de- under different land reclamation scenarios are shown
creased by more than 30 %. For Chinese shrimp, the suitable in Fig. 11 by applying Algorithm 2, as described in
habitat area fluctuated significantly in 1999 and decreased by Section 2.2. The HAI of jellyfish has decreased under
9–13 % compared to 1989. The suitable habitat area decreased the reclamation from 1989 to 1999, but the situation is
67–78%from the reclamation that occurred from 1999 to more complicated after 1999. From 1999 to 2009, when
2009. Table 3. the flow was less than 400 m3/s, the HAI decreased
significantly. However, when the flow was greater than
HAI Computation for the Yellow River Estuary 400 m3/s, the HAI in 2009 was greater than in 1999,
even greater than 1989at some points. For Chinese
Given that the habitat area with an HSI lower than shrimp, the HAI decreased during 1989 to 1999, but
0.4has a relatively concentrated distribution, we comput- increased from 1999 to 2009, except when the flow was
ed the HAI based on the habitat types with a HSI of 3,000 m3/s.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 12 Spatial variation of HSI for (a) jellyfish and (b) Chinese shrimp under different land reclamation scenarios in coastal areas
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Discussion River Estuary mainly affects the coastal area near the river
estuary and Laizhou Bay, and there is no obvious change in
Land reclamation is a practical way to obtain land for sustain- the habitat of the offshore waters. All types of habitats are
able urban development, but it must be implemented with a close to a zonal distribution, as shown in Fig. 12. The habitats
certain range of intensity with good planning. Excessive and with medium high quality (0.8≥HSI≥0.6) for jellyfish are
disordered reclamation activity may severely destroy the es- concentrated in Laizhou Bay and the river estuary waters,
tuary and offshore habitat environment. In this study, the they had no obvious changes in area during the last twenty
transformation of the coastline and terrain of the Yellow River years. The high quality habitat (HSI≥0.8) was mainly distrib-
Estuary has been shown to be a consequence of large-scale uted in the waters near the Yellow River Estuary in 1989 and
reclamation during the last twenty years. Suitable habitat areas 1999, but it then disappeared in 2009. For Chinese shrimp, the
have been calculated under a variety of scenarios involving spatial distribution of suitable habitat has not changed gener-
different terrain conditions by applying a fuzzy logic method. ally from 1989 to 1999, but the habitat with high quality
The Yellow River Estuary has a high sediment content, and (HSI≥0.8) increased, with a large area in Laizhou Bay that
because the shift of the freshwater inflow direction may replaced the habitat with medium high quality (HSI≥0.6). In
change the migration and deposition of suspended sediment 2009, the suitable habitat for Chinese shrimp mostly disap-
in the estuary, the water depth near the mouth is changed as peared in the Laizhou Bay and only occurred in the near
result of the terrain transformation. The different position of estuary waters.
the plume may also lead to a variation in the salinity structure. Laizhou Bay is the most affected area, the north transfor-
In addition, the spatial distribution of suitable habitat may also mation of the Yellow River Estuary may lead to a rise of
affected by land reclamation. Fig. 12 shows the change in salinity in Laizhou Bay. Fig. 13 showed the change of salinity
spatial distribution of the habitat under different terrain con- distribution under different land reclamation scenarios during
ditions. The transformation of the coastline in the Yellow 1989 to 2009. For April, the salinity in the Laizhou Bay

Fig. 13 Spatial variation of salinity of April and July under different land reclamation
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ranged –from 25 to 28 in 1989 and 26–28 in 1999, but it rose deteriorated as a result of the reclamation during the last
to 29–30 ppt in 2009, the most suitable salinity range for twenty years. Although land reclamation may reduce the
jellyfish is 18–27, therefore the rise of the salinity is the main suitable habitat area, the HAI increased under the different
reason for the habitat degradation for jellyfish. For July, the terrain conditions of 2009.
salinity ranged from 20 to 21 in 1989 and 21–23 in 1999, the This paper has presented an estuarine habitat evaluation
most suitable salinity for Chinese shrimp is 22–25, the salinity method based on fuzzy logic and synthetic hydraulic, water
ranged from 24-26 in 2009, hence the HSI in the Laizhou Bay temperature, and salinity data. In addition, we considered the
increased under the reclamation from 1989 to 1999 and de- internal fragmentation of the estuarine habitat in the HAI. The
creased from 1999 to 2009. method we proposed in this study can be used in other areas,
When the flow is less than 500 m3/s, the suitable habitat especially for areas that lack field data.
area for jellyfish decreased, but when the flow is greater than
800 m3/s, habitat area increased. So is HAI for jellyfish. The Acknowledgments This work was supported by the National Basic
impacts of the land reclamation on certain species may be Research Program of China (973) (2013CB430402), the National Science
weakened under an appropriate flow. Considering that fresh- Foundation for Innovative Research Group (No. 51121003), and the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51279007).
water inflow play an important role in the estuarine environ-
ment, estuarine habitat protection for estuary with a serious
land use conflict should be conducted in conjunction with
environmental flow allocations. References
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