Management of coastal lagoons under climate change

Abstract

Global climate change is a reality that is rendering the concept of ‘background conditions’ meaningless. We can no longer attempt to maintain the environmental status quo. What we can do is to attempt to maintain ecosystem services despite climate-driven environmental change. There is a pressing need for proactive management that purposefully changes ecosystems to maintain ecosystem services before uncontrolled, detrimental changes occur. Such management would go beyond the bounds of current management efforts and could include, for example, introduction of species, bioengineering, and physical engineering. I suggest that this approach be applied first to coastal lagoons as they are clearly defined geographic areas where this approach can, hopefully, be demonstrated such that it can be applied more widely – when it is accepted, which unfortunately will most probably not occur until the adverse impacts of global climate change become much more apparent.