Coastal use accelerated the regional sea-level rise

• The relationship between coastal use and regional sea-level rise in China coastal area is discussed.
• There is a close correlation between coastal use and sea-level rise in Bohai Sea, especially coastal reclamation.
• Our findings can provide new insights to both coastal area management and adaptation to sea-level rise.

Coastal zones are highly threatened by global sea-level rise (SLR), but human-induced change in SLR is often neglected in many studies. Identifying the influences of coastal use on regional SLR and their interactions is helpful to effectively respond to SLR. In this paper, we analyzed the relationship between SLR, coastal use and rising temperature at the provincial level in mainland China since 2000. The results show that there is significant correlation between increasing coastal use and SLR, but that relationship between temperature rising and SLR is not significant. This supports our hypothesis that coastal use can accelerate regional SLR on Chinese coasts, especially in the Bohai Sea. We also discuss the potentially influential mechanism of one important coastal use, reclamation, on SLR in the Bohai Sea and present suggestions for both coastal use management and adaptation to SLR for this region.