Dual pathways of human influence on island social-ecological systems: Evidence from China’s Zhoushan Archipelago

This study characterizes the dual pathways through which human activities shape island social-ecological systems. It offers actionable insights for integrated island management and advances theoretical frameworks for human-land interrelations. China’ s largest archipelago, Zhoushan Archipelago, was employed as the study area, and human activity intensity and social-ecological systems were accurately quantified and spatialized by proposing four new indices. Two pathways of human influence on island social-ecological systems, namely, human interference with ecological health and human assistance to social development, were tracked. Results indicated that ecological health responds sensitively and rapidly to human interference, initially declining sharply and then recovering slightly. Social development showed time-lagged and cumulative responses to human assistance, accelerating after initial slow growth. As human activity intensified, the dominance of human interference first increased and finally decreased while that of human assistance presented an inverse pattern, demonstrating the need for sustained human engagement. Smaller and more isolated islands exhibited higher ecological sensitivity to human interference but lower social responsiveness to human assistance. Overall, human activity has driven the spatial reconfiguration of island social-ecological systems within Zhoushan Archipelago, establishing dual pathways that contribute to the system evolution. The results have provided a theoretical basis for harmonious development of island social-ecological systems and implied the importance of humans in enhancing the systems.