Ecological basis assessment of artificial reef site selection in Liuniu coastal waters of Zhelin Bay, Eastern Guangdong

The AHP was employed to evaluate the stock protection artificial reef site selection based on ecosystem effect. We selected 30 marine environment and marine biological factors (hydrology, water quality, sediment, macrobenthos, swimming animals, primary productivity, intertidal macrobenthos, etc.) to establish an ecological evaluation model for artificial reef site selection. This paper tracked and monitored the selected factors at artificial reef site in the Liuniu coastal waters of Zhelin Bay in spring, summer, autumn and winter. The suitability of this area for building artificial reefs was discussed. According to the calculation results by this model, indices of ecological basis assessment for artificial reef site selection in each season were 0.65, 0.71, 0.63 and 0.64 with an average value of 0.66. The results show that there is a good ecological foundation for building artificial reef, and it is a suitable site to construct artificial reefs. The optimal ecological foundation is in summer.