Analysis of Decoupling of Economic Growth and Resource Consumption in China’s Marine Fishery

Abstract

The marine fishery resources are declining with the increase of fishing intensity, and the sustainable development of marine fishery economy has become the focus of attention. In this paper, the economic loss of marine natural fishery resources is taken as the undesired output. The SBM model is used to evaluate the economic efficiency of marine fisheries in 11 provinces and cities in China’s coastal areas from 2004 to 2015. Based on this, decoupling theory is adopted to analyze the spatial and temporal evolution pattern of marine fishery economic efficiency and resource consumption in various provinces and cities. The results show that: 1) Based on the perspective of time and space, the economic efficiency of marine fisheries in 11 provinces and cities along the coast of China is polarized and has not been effectively improved, indicating that the level of fishery economic development in China’s coastal areas is unbalanced; 2) Based on the overall perspective, the overall economic efficiency of China’s marine fisheries is low, indicating that China’s marine fishery economy is developing at a slower rate; 3) Based on the perspective of decoupling theory, the economic efficiency of marine fisheries in China and the consumption of fishery resources have shown a trend in the research period. The structure of China’s marine fishery industry, which is dominated by traditional fisheries, needs to be adjusted