Evaluating the effectiveness of marine ecological red lines: an integrated assessment of ecological outcomes and governance performance

Marine protected areas worldwide often exhibit uneven conservation outcomes, largely due to differences in governance effectiveness and management implementation. As a large-scale spatial conservation policy, Marine Ecological Red Lines (MERLs) have been widely implemented in China to regulate human activities and safeguard critical marine ecosystems. However, their protection effectiveness remains insufficiently evaluated using quantitative and scalable approaches. In this study, we develop an indicator-based assessment framework grounded in the Pressure–State–Response (PSR) model to evaluate the effectiveness of MERLs. The framework integrates indicators of anthropogenic pressures, ecosystem conditions, and management responses, enabling spatially explicit and temporally comparable assessment. We apply this framework to MERLs in Hainan Province over a five-year period (2020–2024) and conduct systematic comparisons with adjacent non-protected areas. Furthermore, correlation analysis is used to examine the relationships between pressure reduction and ecological state changes, providing preliminary insight into the associations between management actions and ecological outcomes. The results show that MERLs are associated with reduced anthropogenic pressures and improved ecological conditions relative to surrounding areas, although spatial heterogeneity in outcomes persists. The proposed framework provides a structured approach for examining interactions among pressures, ecosystem states, and governance responses, and provides quantitative evidence supporting conservation effectiveness assessment at a provincial scale. The proposed framework may also support adaptive management and policy optimization for MERLs and provide practical reference for the implementation of Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs).