Coastal Zone Facing Climate Change: Knowledge Towards New Solutions

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Humanity’s impact on the Earth system has become comparable to planetary-scale geological processes, such as ice ages. Consensus is growing that we have driven the planet into a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which many Earth-system processes and the living fabric of ecosystems are now dominated by human activities. That the Earth has experienced large-scale, abrupt changes in the past indicates that it could experience similar changes in the future. This recognition has led researchers to take the first step to identify planetary and regional thresholds, and boundaries that, if crossed, could generate unacceptable environmental and social change [1]. Galvanized by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development meeting of 1992, there has been a search for methods to build capacity of coastal nations and communities to manage their coastal and estuarine resources in a sustainable manner. Countries are now increasingly being affected mostly by hydro-meteorological hazards and disasters, namely, floods, mass movements (e.g. erosion, landslides and siltation), heat waves, wildfires, tropical cyclones, tsunamis, swells and dust storms [2,3]. Research now demonstrates that the continued functioning of the Earth system, as it has supported the well-being of human civilization in recent centuries is at risk. Without urgent action, we could face threats to water, food, biodiversity and other critical resources: these threats risk intensifying economic, ecological and social crises, creating the potential for a humanitarian emergency on a global scale. Nutrients are now the largest pollution problem in coastal marine ecosystems globally, and in the US, some 60% of estuaries are moderately to severely degraded, primarily from nutrients like nitrates and phosphates [4-7]. Developing economies tend to be dominated by resource-based activities with degrading and overexploitive uses of land, water and other coastal resources, with disruption of environmental processes through degradation of environmental quality and loss of critical terrestrial and aquatic habitats, leading to serious deleterious impacts on the health and productivity of coastal ecosystems. Studies have also showed that estuaries are particularly vulnerable to nutrient over-enrichment and trace metal contamination [8-12].