BEIJING - Soaring investment in coastal construction projects may endanger the biological diversity of the ecosystem and increase the risk of flooding, authorities said on Tuesday.

The construction of offshore projects in the country last year reached 66 billion yuan ($9.7 billion), an increase of 32 percent year on year, according to State Oceanic Administration (SOA) figures.

As coastal development has recently become a new growth area in China, land reclamation is increasingly claiming offshore wetland, which damages the fragile marine ecosystem.