Progress and prospects of coastal geological work at Qingdao Institute of Marine Geology

The coastal zone is the most active geological zone within the Earth’s multiple lithospheric interactions and the most densely populated area with frequent human activities. It is a key region for conducting comprehensive geological surveys and research, and promoting high-quality economic and social development. Since the establishment of the coastal geological work in the institute, it has always been guided to support national needs from economic and social development, and has mainly gone through three stages of initial development, rapid development, and vigorous development. As one of the main leading units of the coastal zone work of the China Geological Survey, a series of coastal geological surveys and mappings in different scales have been organized and implemented, especially in coastal areas in Liaodong Bay, the western coast of Bohai Bay, the Yellow River Delta, Laizhou Bay, Shandong Peninsula, Jiangsu coast, Yangtze River Delta, and the coast of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. Significant large-scale surveys have been conducted, greatly improving the level of coastal geological surveys in China, enhancing the basic geological understanding of the coastal zone, fully playing the fundamental, public welfare, and strategic roles of geological work, and providing strong supports for the implementation of major national strategies and high-quality economic and social development. In the new era, we should vigorously strengthen the geological scientific and technological innovation capabilities for the coastal zones, comprehensively improve the level of basic geological surveys in China’s coastal zones, accelerate the construction of a comprehensive geological monitoring system in the national coastal areas, rapidly enhance the public welfare service level of coastal zone works, and promote the high-quality development of geological work in the coastal regions of China.