Coordination Mechanism and Empirical Research on Marine Science Technology Innovation and Marine Eco-civilization: A Case Study of Coastal Areas of China

Marine science technology innovation provides power and guarantees for marine eco-civilization construction, which provides direction and material support for marine science technology innovation. Therefore, the coordinated development of the two is of great significance to the marine economy sustainable development in China’s coastal areas. On the basis of clarifying the connotations of marine science technology innovation and marine eco-civilization in China’s coastal areas from 2006 to 2019, the mechanism for their coordinated development was analysed. A comprehensive indicator system based on the connotation of the two was constructed, and the coordinated development relationship was empirically tested using the coupled coordination model and the panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model. The results show that: 1) the level of China’s coastal marine science technology innovation continues to improve, gradually forming the core of the development of marine science technology innovation in the north, east and south of Shandong, Shanghai and Guangdong; the level of marine eco-civilization development fluctuating upward trend, showing obvious spatial differentiation characteristics. 2) The degree of coordination of marine science technology innovation and marine eco-civilization is growing over time. There is no causal relationship between marine science technology innovation and marine eco-civilization in the northern marine economic circle, but there is a two-way causal relationship between the two in the eastern and southern marine economic circles. 3) Marine eco-civilization shows a significant positive and continuous impact on marine science technology innovation, and marine science technology innovation shows a long-term, continuous, fluctuating, and lagging impact on marine eco-civilization. The overall role of marine eco-civilization on marine science technology innovation is dominant, and there are significant differences in the impact effects of the two major marine economic circles.