Yang-Chi Chang | National Sun Yat-sen University (original) (raw)

Papers by Yang-Chi Chang

Ocean & Coastal Management, 2018

Kaohsiung is the largest port city in Taiwan, where the offshore island of Cijin forms a natural ... more Kaohsiung is the largest port city in Taiwan, where the offshore island of Cijin forms a natural breakwater for the Kaohsiung harbor. With its abundant recreational resources and convenient accessibility, the small island of Cijin attracts many tourists during weekends. Although the highly developed tourism has led to significant economic benefits, it has also caused pollution and unbalanced development, which have severely degraded the coastal environment and marine ecosystem. By using the System Dynamics (SD) approach, we developed an effective integrated coastal zone management Decision Support System (DSS) to address this problem. A SD model, based on the driving-force, state, and response indicator set, was employed to enable integration of the numerous interlinked factors causing this problem. A user-friendly DSS based on the SD model was implemented using the STELLA software. This DSS enables decision makers to perform scenario analysis easily by allowing them to incorporate their decision preferences. Several policies were developed in this study and the DSS was used to assess their performance regarding the sustainable development of coastal tourism in Cijin.

Applied Sciences

The surrounding waters of Taiwan are evaluated as a moderate risk environment by Casualty Return,... more The surrounding waters of Taiwan are evaluated as a moderate risk environment by Casualty Return, Lloyd’s Registry of Shipping. Among all types of maritime accidents, ship collisions occur most often, which has severe consequences, including ship damage, sinking and death of crews, and destruction of marine environments. It is, therefore, imperative to mitigate the risk of ship collision by exploring the risk factors and then providing preventive measures. This study invited domain experts to form a decision-making group, which helped with the risk assessment. The initial set of risk factors was selected from the literature. The expert group then identified seven representative risk factors using rough set theory (RST). The researchers worked with the experts to delineate the diagram of a bow-tie analysis (BTA), which provided the causes, consequences, and preventive and mitigation measures for ship collision incidents. The results show an integrated research framework for the risk ...

Frontiers in Environmental Science

Coastal erosion in the lagoon systems is concerned as they are dynamic landscapes, often highly p... more Coastal erosion in the lagoon systems is concerned as they are dynamic landscapes, often highly productive and beneficial to humankind. Cigu Lagoon contains rich and diverse ecosystems ranging from mangroves to salt fields, and from fish to birds (e.g., endangered black-faced spoonbill). As well as forming part of the country’s natural defenses against typhoons and storm surges, it is also economically important for oyster farming, fish-pond aquaculture and ecotourism. However, with the construction of reservoir, fishery harbors and breakwaters, sediment transport decreases and sand barrier islands have eroded, narrowed, lowered and moved landwards. Cigu is a rural area with decreasing, aging population, becoming a “super-aged society” as defined by World Health Organization. Therefore, it is imperative to study the socioeconomic impacts of these changes, and then to explore critical adaptation factors and potential adaptation strategies. In this research, we conducted interviews an...

The region aggregation problem is one of selecting, from the region of interest, that sub-set of ... more The region aggregation problem is one of selecting, from the region of interest, that sub-set of grid cells that best meets the need for a particular use or purpose, and that does so within a set of pre-specified physical and logical constraints. The goal of this research is to extend the methodologies presently available to solve the region aggregation problem. This is particularly important in light of parallel advances in the use of spatial grid-based databases afforded by geographic information systems (GIS) and new developments in the area of suitability assessment. An efficient heuristic procedure is developed to generate a solution that provides a good starting point for Tabu Search and Simulated Annealing to identify a global optimum. The heuristic is shown to be satisfactory for handling large sized problems with up to 10,000 cells. Potential applications of the region aggregation problem that will benefit from the current research are discussed

(In 2 Volumes, with CD-ROM), 2004

Oceanography Open Access, 2016

Journal of Marine Science and Technology, 2008

This paper introduces a web-based information management system which has been set up as a collab... more This paper introduces a web-based information management system which has been set up as a collaborative facility to allow key environmental and ecological information access for the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) in Kenting, Taiwan. The coral reef ecosystem degradation in Kenting has concerned both public and private sectors, for which a LTER team was formed to investigate the problem. A multi-functional web-based system integrates diverse data collections and analyses efforts of team members during the project span. It also provides authorities with effective information and knowledge for sustainable coral reef management. Three information technologies, web Database Management System (DBMS), web geographic information system (GIS), and Data Warehousing (DW), successfully implement the complex system. Web DBMS is to provide the fundamental data transaction and query, while DW is to support advanced data query by aggregating available datasets. Web GIS, on the other hand, facilitates map-based spatial data visualization and query. Detailed discussions regarding system data integrations and operational functions are presented. I. INTRODUCTION Kenting, on Hengchun Peninsula, is located at the southern tip of Taiwan, to the west of the pacific, east of the Taiwan Strait, and bordering the Bashi Strait to its south. The Kuroshio warm current passes through the peninsula, and splits into two streams, thus making Kenting a unique location. One stream flows directly into the Kenting coastal water, bringing abundant marine

International journal of environmental research and public health, Jan 6, 2018

This paper describes a group model building activity designed to elicit the potential effects a p... more This paper describes a group model building activity designed to elicit the potential effects a projected multi-use deep water offshore platform may have on its local environment, including ecological and socio-economic issues. As such a platform is proposed for construction around the island of Hsiao-Liu-Chiu, Taiwan, we organized several meetings with the local stakeholders and structured the debates using group modeling methods to promote consensus. During the process, the participants iteratively built and revised a causal-loop diagram that summarizes their opinions. Overall, local stakeholders concluded that a multi-use deep water offshore marine platform might have beneficial effects for Hsiao-Liu-Chiu because more tourists and fish could be attracted by the structure, but they also raised some potential problems regarding the law in Taiwan and the design of the offshore platform, especially its resistance to extreme weather. We report the method used and the main results and ...

Sustainability, 2016

Surrounded by the ocean, Taiwan has been increasingly developing coastal tourism projects. Concer... more Surrounded by the ocean, Taiwan has been increasingly developing coastal tourism projects. Concerns that negative impacts might be brought about by prosperous tourism have resulted in a recent focus on sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism involves policies that acknowledge the interdependences among the environment, the community, and the economy. The goal of sustainable tourism is to enhance and protect the environment while satisfying basic human requirements, as well as those of the contemporary and future tourism industries to improve quality of life. On the other hand, unsustainable coastal tourism might undermine the natural environment and society, resulting in air, water, and soil pollution, wildlife habitat disruption, and changes of local community cultural characteristics. Therefore, performance evaluation of coastal tourism, using an indicator framework to facilitate sustainable development and enhance the effectiveness of coastal resources exploitation, is critical. Through a literature review and expert surveys using the methods of the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) and the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), this study builds a performance indicator framework and identifies the key factors affecting the sustainable development of coastal tourism in Taiwan. The results can serve as a reference for the public sector to be used for the sustainable planning and development of coastal tourism.

Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 2015

The sound development of marine resource usage relies on a strong maritime engineering industry. ... more The sound development of marine resource usage relies on a strong maritime engineering industry. The perilous marine environment poses the highest risk to all maritime work. It is therefore imperative to reduce the risk associated with maritime work by using some analytical methods other than engineering techniques. This study addresses this issue by using an integrated interpretive structure modeling (ISM) and Bayesian network (BN) approach in a risk assessment context. Mitigating or managing maritime risk relies primarily on domain expert experience and knowledge. ISM can be used to incorporate expert knowledge in a systematic manner and helps to impose order and direction on complex relationships that exist among system elements. Working with experts, this research used ISM to clearly specify an engineering risk factor relationship represented by a cause–effect diagram, which forms the structure of the BN. The expert subjective judgments were further transformed into a prior and conditional probability set to be embedded in the BN. We used the BN to evaluate the risks of two offshore pipeline projects in Taiwan. The results indicated that the BN can provide explicit risk information to support better project management.

Ocean & Coastal Management

Systematic approaches to designing marine protected areas (MPA) have recently garnered more atten... more Systematic approaches to designing marine protected areas (MPA) have recently garnered more attention as an efficient planning tool. In particular, spatial zoning for various types of MPA designs could accommodate several demands for ecological conservation while minimizing socioeconomic impact. Most spatial zoning approaches are formulated as nonlinear Multi-Objective Decision-Making (MODM) models, which are solved using stochastic search algorithms, such as the popular Marxan with Zones. Due to the stochastic nature of these algorithms, the final MPA design is the composite result of several modeling experiments, and the solution is often suboptimal. For the current study, two MODM models were developed based on Multi-Objective Integer Linear Programming (MOILP) for MPA spatial zoning. The proposed models are referred to as a buffer cells model (BCM) and an external border cells model (EBCM). BCM allocates two types of cells to an MPA zone, covering core and buffer cells. The EBCM...

Ecological Modelling, 2015

ABSTRACT The high growth of marine cage culture faces challenges for sustainable development. Thi... more ABSTRACT The high growth of marine cage culture faces challenges for sustainable development. This study applied system dynamics modeling for an integrated assessment of nitrogenous nutrient enrichment caused by marine cage culture on the surrounding environment in Magong Bay, Penghu Archipelago, Taiwan, along with its consequences to farm profitability. Simulations were run to explore the effect of the relationship between the farm and its environment on higher production levels. Results showed that there exist a production level for which the farm profitability is highest and that this level might lead to a dissolved oxygen level that is lower than the standard of the Environmental Protection Agency of Taiwan. Consequently, an estimation of the maximal production level that abides the rule was made. We argue that although this level of production is legally reachable, it may not be environmentally sustainable.

The Science of the total environment, Jan 15, 2012

This paper describes a Group Model Building (GMB) initiative that was designed to discuss the var... more This paper describes a Group Model Building (GMB) initiative that was designed to discuss the various potential effects that an offshore wind-farm may have on its local ecology and socioeconomic development. The representatives of various organizations in the study area, Lu-Kang, Taiwan, have held several meetings, and structured debates have been organized to promote the emergence of a consensual view on the main issues and their implications. A System Dynamics (SD) model has been built and corrected iteratively with the participants through the GMB process. The diverse interests within the group led the process toward the design of multifunctional wind-farms with different modalities. The scenario analyses, using the SD model under various policies, including no wind-farm policy, objectively articulates the vision of the local stakeholders. The results of the SD simulations show that the multifunctional wind-farms may have superior economic effects and the larger wind-farms with b...

Highly developed industry and livestock breeding in the watershed of Kao-Ping River have inevitab... more Highly developed industry and livestock breeding in the watershed of Kao-Ping River have inevitably degraded marine environment by discharging tremendous amounts of pollution into the near shore water through rivers and ocean outfall pipes. In order to assess such terrestrial impact, several projects had been conducted to acquire water quality and sediment data. Direct data interpretations with written text were usually made which cannot provide much insight into the data and be appreciated by decision makers. Therefore, the current study applied spatial analysis to this problem using the statistical analysis, in particular factor analysis and spatial interpolation, along with Geographic Information Systems. In consequence, more refined and concise information can be extracted and visualized for better understanding of marine environment. Two specific case studies are presented in this paper using the coastal water quality and marine sediment data.

Ocean & Coastal Management, 2015

ABSTRACT Establishing marine-protected areas (MPA) is important for maintaining biodiversity and ... more ABSTRACT Establishing marine-protected areas (MPA) is important for maintaining biodiversity and protecting endangered species. MPAs can also effectively inhibit human interference, such as tourism and pollution. MPA implementation is a feasible measure to fulfill the sustainable management goal that is to conserve marine habitats for achieving an integrative ecosystem and higher biodiversity. However, how to design an MPA under these concerns remains an important research issue to be explored. A spatial resource allocation modeling approach has been developed by integrating some earlier study efforts. The integer linear programming technique was used to develop the models, and they account for the spatial attribute of the compactness in terms of boundary length. Two models (the minimal protected area model and the maximal biodiversity conservation model) were formulated to address 2 major MPA design objectives. The models show the reciprocal relationship between MPA compactness and the 2 objectives: area size and the biodiversity value. In particular, the modeling results show that a more compact MPA contains less biodiversity. This tradeoff relationship, which is easily explored using the spatial resource allocation modeling approach, enables an MPA design to allow decision makers to select various non-inferior solutions to meet their decision preferences. This study uses the Kaomei coastal wetland in Taiwan as a case study to demonstrate the proposed modeling approach.

Ecological Informatics, 2015

Interactions between zooplankton not only affect the world's carbon fixation but also have a dire... more Interactions between zooplankton not only affect the world's carbon fixation but also have a direct impact on the yields of the fishing industry. Both copepods and ciliates have a crucial linkage role in constituting the marine food web. Analyzing the predator-prey interactions between these two species helps us to understand the productivity of oceans better. In this study, we explored the interactive patterns between copepods and ciliates and used the locomotion indicator net-to-gross displacement ratio (NGDR) to conduct quantitative analyses on the swimming patterns of copepods. We discovered that the movement trails of copepods are more distorted in undisturbed environments where the NGDR was significantly lower. In an environment where ciliates were present, the NGDR of copepods was significantly higher. This result indicated that the movement trails in the latter scenario were more linear and that the NGDR can clearly distinguish the swimming patterns of copepods. In addition, this study developed a qualitative motion description to be embedded in the interactive trail data of copepods and ciliates, which facilitates the data mining technologies needed to perform advanced analyses. The results of the association rules and decision tree analyses clearly demonstrated the interactive characteristics that could not be explored solely using locomotion indicators. The most obvious characteristic is that the swimming patterns employed by copepods to approach ciliates were either a downward vertical sinking or a horizontal movement. Upward movements for the copepods were not typically observed. More detailed swimming patterns of interactions between copepods and ciliates were revealed using the rule-based forms.

Coral reef is a key coastal resource to indicate the integrity and soundness of the marine enviro... more Coral reef is a key coastal resource to indicate the integrity and soundness of the marine environment. Inappropriate coastal management practices are likely to weaken coral reef ability to cope with disturbances and may therefore lead to undesirable phase shifts in ecosystem composition. Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) is now recognized as being the most appropriate tool for the sustainable use of coastal resources. To incorporate EBM in coastal management for resource conservation, interdisciplinary modelling approaches are needed. This study develops a spatiotemporal modelling framework based on the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) software for sustainable coral reef management in Nanwan bay, Kenting, Taiwan. The System Dynamics (SD) approach is used to integrate socioeconomic and ecological systems and perform scenarios analysis. Preliminary results suggests that an integrated Marine Protected Area (MPA) (no take + no waste water discharge) might have more beneficial effects on both t...

A system dynamics model is built in order to study the sustainability of marine cage aquaculture.... more A system dynamics model is built in order to study the sustainability of marine cage aquaculture. Profitability is assumed to be influenced by the availability of dissolved oxygen in the water, which is itself influenced by the farm’s effluents. The base run suggests that as long as the farm releases organic matter in the water, the level of dissolved oxygen will tend to decrease thus increasing the fish death rate and therefore jeopardizing the aquaculture venture. Three policy options are tested and their effects on the company sustainability are discussed: - Any improvement in feed floatability is not likely to lead to any major change in the farm sustainability; - The introduction of a delay between two production seasons leads to a modification in the pattern of the total profits of the company which tends to take a more linear shape; - The cancellation of one whole season if the amount of dissolved oxygen appears to be under the threshold level of 5 mg/l leads to cancel one se...

Journal of Environmental Management, 2014

The wetland system possesses diverse functions such as preserving water sources, mediating floodi... more The wetland system possesses diverse functions such as preserving water sources, mediating flooding, providing habitats for wildlife and stabilizing coastlines. Nonetheless, rapid economic growth and the increasing population have significantly deteriorated the wetland environment. To secure the sustainability of the wetland, it is essential to introduce integrated and systematic management. This paper examines the resource management of the Jiading Wetland by applying group model building (GMB) and system dynamics (SD). We systematically identify local stakeholders&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; mental model regarding the impact brought by the yacht industry, and further establish a SD model to simulate the dynamic wetland environment. The GMB process improves the stakeholders&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; understanding about the interaction between the wetland environment and management policies. Differences between the stakeholders&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; perceptions and the behaviors shown by the SD model also suggest that our analysis would facilitate the stakeholders to broaden their horizons and achieve consensus on the wetland resource management.

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings, 2011

ABSTRACT At 10:20 PM, on November 10th, 2008, the Panamanian-registered cargo ship, M/V Morning S... more ABSTRACT At 10:20 PM, on November 10th, 2008, the Panamanian-registered cargo ship, M/V Morning Sun, grounded outside of Shihmen Township, Taipei County, Taiwan. The ship carried 493 tons of fuel oil and 66 tons of diesel. The grounding caused a 200-ton oil spill that impacted 3-kilometers of shoreline. The spill occurred during a violent weather in winter time in a highly sensitive locale with important geological formation, a local fishing port, and a power plant coolant inlet. The response consisted of shore protection strategies, using local manpower and the ship’s crew, and ship dismantling work. This case study reviews the response and discusses the results for further improvement of marine incident response in Taiwan, including the considerations of ship dismantling, use of local manpower, sensitive area pre-planning, and retaining responder expertise.