Ecological Security Evaluation of Marine Ranching Based on DEMATEL-Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation

Marine ranching plays an integral role in providing fishery resources. Given the critical importance of protecting the marine ecological system, the ecological security evaluation of marine ranching is significant. However, the existing research rarely involves marine ranching ecological security (MRES) evaluation and does not provide a complete evaluation index system. The purpose of the present study was to estimate MRES through several steps and evaluate it scientifically by fully considering the relationship between the factors. First, the evaluation index system was structured using the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework by following certain principles. Second, the study applied the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) method to assess MRES. Third, a case study of a marine ranching in the Shandong Province was discussed to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method. This also illustrated the steps of the evaluation. In this case study, the result of the MRES evaluation was graded as excellent. The results demonstrate that using these methods to evaluate MRES can account for the complex relationships between the factors and the cognitive ability of the experts and thus integrate the experts’ information comprehensively, which adds to the credibility of the evaluation results.