The Athens Terra-Posidonia Project: Lessons Learned and Future Directions in Metropolitan Coastal Planning

Coastal habitat quality assessment and mapping in the terrestrial-marine continuum: Simulating effects of coastal management decisions

ABSTRACTGlobal climate change is giving rise to a world characterised by novel human-environment interactions. At the coast, higher than average population growth, concentrated within static conurbations means that climatic changes here are likely to generate high-risk outcomes. Coastal erosion and flooding are two such outcomes with the potential to cause trillions of pounds worth of losses in the near future. Many studies have sought to quantify the extent of erosion and flooding in various locations. However, there is a lack of research into the interaction between erosion and flooding. This article explores the importance of erosion-flooding interaction for effective coastal risk management policy. Blakeney Point, a mixed sand-gravel barrier on the UK's North Norfolk coast, is used to explore three expressions of erosion-flooding interaction: the role of coastal morphology, the importance of shoreline position, and the occurrence of extreme storm events. At Blakeney Point, and elsewhere, the potential for unforeseen risk-generating scenarios suggests that erosion- flooding interaction ought to be incorporated into future coastal risk management policy.

The parallel evolution of ocean and coastal management policies in Portugal

The success of any coastal zone management policy is dependent on, among other things, effective legislation and its enforcement. This article examines some possible legal constraints on the implementation of an integrated coastal zone management policy in Ireland. An introduction to the existing legal framework is provided, and the inconsistencies and ambiguities related, in particular, to jurisdiction and area of responsibility are highlighted. In particular the effect of land ownership and property rights on coastal zone management are examined with reference to two popular resort beaches in County Donegal, Ireland. While a revision of the relevant legislation is desirable, it is probably unrealistic; however, powers are available to the various institutions involved in coastal management that are currently unused. These are reviewed and their potential to improve coastal zone management is discussed.

This paper introduces the need, in Italian countries, of a real integration of scientific knowledge into coastal policy. Actually, in Italy, still exists a gap between Science and Policy, interfering the implementation of an Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) process, while there is no coordination between local, regional and national authorities. This lack of an overall strategy has induced some regions to adopt regional plans for the sustainable development of their coastal areas, to compensate the shortcomings of a national planning. Besides, along Italian coasts, there is a heavy landscape urbanization producing conditions of environmental decay and highlighting the risk of erosions in littoral areas. In this critical context, it is necessary to adopt an effective Integrated Coastal Zone Management policy, to connect ecosystem and environmental approaches with the social and economic development of coastal areas. So, in Italian landscape, it is necessary to integrate the national cultural heritage into coastal management, joining scientific and cultural issues. In this framework, ICZM process could play an important role connecting scientists and policy makers towards an effective integration for the social and economic growth of local people.

The coastal regions had a great ecosystem and potential for the sustainability of life. At the same time, growing human and environmental pressures in coastal areas significantly impact coastal systems. Various problems arise in the development and utilisation of the coastal regions. The issues have prompted the importance of studying coastal area management policies. Specifically, legal uncertainty in the management of utilisation has initiated the formulation of the RZWP3K policy. This study uses stakeholder analysis to map the actors involved and their influence on coastal area management policies. This study was conducted using a qualitative method and stakeholder analysis to explore and classify the actors shaping coastal area management policies. The stakeholder analysis method classified constituents into important actors, contextual fixers, users, and audiences using variables of interest and impact. Developing policies for coastal management is hampered by the conflicting agendas of many parties and their multiple goals and worries. This study recommends that the government maintain stakeholders by keeping them informed, actively groomed, monitored and managed, or satisfied. This paper contributes to conceptual stakeholder analysis literature to analyse coastal area management policies.

For almost two decades, marine protected areas (MPAs) have been a central instrument of coastal conservation and management policies, but concerns about their abilities to meet conservation goals have grown as the number and sizes of MPAs have dramatically increased. This paper describes how a large (15 year) program of transdisciplinary research was used to successfully measure MPA management effectiveness (ME) - how well an MPA is managed, how well it is protecting values, and how well it is achieving the various goals and objectives for which it was created. This paper addresses the coproduction and uptake of monitoring-based evidence for assessing ME in coastal MPAs by synthesizing the experiences of this program conducted with MPA managers. I present the main outcomes of the program, many were novel, and discuss four ingredients (learned lessons) that underpinned the successful uptake of science during and after the research program: (i) early and inclusive co-design of the project with MPA partners and scientists from all disciplines; (ii) co-construction of common references transcending the boundaries of disciplines, and standardized methodologies and tools; (iii) focus on outcomes that are management-oriented and understandable by end-users; and (iv) ensuring that capacity building and dissemination activities occurred during and persisted beyond the program. Standardized monitoring protocols and data management procedures, a user-friendly interface for indicator analysis, and dashboards of indicators related to biodiversity, uses and governance, were the most valued practical outcomes. Seventy-five students were trained during the projects and most of the monitoring work was conducted with MPA rangers. Such outcomes were made possible by the extended timeline offered by the three successive projects. MPA managers’ and scientists a posteriori perceptions strongly supported the relevance of such collaboration. Local monitoring and assessment meets the needs of MPA managers and forms the basis for large-scale assessments through upscaling. A long-term synergistic transdisciplinary collaboration between coastal MPA managers and research into social-ecological systems (SESs) would simultaneously i) address the lack of long-term resources for coastal monitoring and SES-oriented research; ii) increase science uptake by coastal managers, and iii) benefit assessments at higher levels or at broader geographic scales.

Beach hazards are traditionally associated with damage to structures, property and the environment. In this paper, however, we address every day beach conditions including surf zone topography, water depth, waves and rip currents that in Australia annually result in up to 50 drownings and over 10,000 rescues. Using the Wright and Short (1984) beach model, the morphodynamics and bathing hazards associated with each of the six beach states are identified and the states rated accordingly from the safest (1) to least safe (10). The rating is then used to grade all 721 ocean beaches along the New South Wales coast. Seventy percent of the beaches are dominated by rip currents with 61% of all beaches rating 5 and higher. A survey of several hundred beach rescues on these same beaches found that 89% occurred in rips. Finally, field experiments during average wave conditions verified the speed at which rip currents can transport bathers rapidly beyond the surf zone into deep water. The level of public beach risk was then assessed using the beach safety rating in combination with the level of beach usage. Coastal management policies need to be cognisant of the relationship between beach type, beach usage and public beach risk. This can be achieved by coastal management policies that consider the impact coastal development has in increasing beach usage and thereby the level of public risk on adjacent beaches, and the allocation of appropriate beach safety resources to mitigate this risk.

In 1953 the Netherlands saw the worst devastating coastal flood of the last century. The government stepped in and pledged that this should never happen again, brining science and technology, engineering and construction to create the most sophisticated and reliable flood defense protection system in the world. However, the government did not realize that it stepped into a vicious circle: the better the land in coastal areas is protected, the more attractive it becomes for people to locate, the higher the demand for and economic value of these flood prone areas are, and, therefore, the more government needs to invest in the protection of these areas. This could have been avoided if there was a better understanding of the feedbacks and relationships between the macro-scale governmental policies and the micro-scale individual homeowners behavior in a land market.<br/><br/>Coastal zone management policy in the Netherlands aims at reducing risk, which is defined as the probability of a disaster multiplied by economic damage. Direct economic damage depends on land patterns and value of properties under risk, which, in turn, are the outcomes of individual microeconomic interactions in a land market. Governmental policy might use instruments (e.g. taxes, insurance, educational programs) to affect individual motivations and rules of local interaction in order to direct land markets in coastal areas towards desired macroscopic outcomes (e.g. more safe allocations).<br/>However, the transition from micro-behavior to macro-measures used by policy-makers is discontinuous, non-linear and may be associated with new, emergent effects and properties. Lack of understanding of micro-foundations of micro-phenomena (such as total economic value of the area and spatial pattern of location) can make coastal zone management and spatial planning policies inefficient and unpredictable.<br/><br/>The main goal of this thesis is to get insights into how aggregated economic phenomena in space emerge from interactions of individual economic agents in a land market.<br/>Specifically, this study seeks to indentify traceable connections between micro and macroeconomic scales exploring a hypothetic city, which replicates the structure and complexity of a typical Dutch coastal town. Although the application is specific, the model is flexible and can be used in many other cases where economic behavior needs to be modeled in a spatially explicit way that involves consideration of environmental amenities, natural hazards and spatial externalities. The conventional economic approach assumes a representative rational agent and a unique equilibrium in the system. To accomodate more spatial and agent heterogeneity and to allow the study to be spatially explicit, this thesis adopts an agent-based approach, which helps to understand the effects of relaxing some of the conventional economic assumptions and their implications for coastal risk management policy.<br/>

National policy and management responses to the hazard of coastal erosion in Britain and the United States

연안구역 관리지표는 연안통합관리의 정책수립 이행과정에 중요한 의사결정수단으로 활용되며, 통합적 관점에서 평가하고 부문별 상호작용을 이해하고 분석할 수 있는 유용한 도구이다. 이에 대부분의 국제사회기구와 선진 연안국들은 현 연안환경과 사회 경제적 상태를 정기적으로 점검하고 연안구역관리정책의 효과성을 파악하기 위하여 연안구역관리 지표체계를 개발하고 있는 추세이다. 따라서 본 연구는 국내외 연안구역관리 지표체계를 크게 자연 환경적측면, 사회 경제적 측면, 네트워크 측면으로 구분해 각 차원별 연안구역관리 지표체계의 장 단점을 파악하고 비교 분석해 연안구역관리 지표체계의 특성을 도출하였다. 이를 통해 이 연구는 지속가능한 연안구역관리의 실현을 위한 관리수단, 다양한 이해관계자들의 과학적 의사결정수단, 연안통합관리의 실효성 평가수단, 연안구역관리 지표체계의 이원화 등을 선진사례의 공통된 특성으로 도출하였다. 마지막으로 본 연구는 국내외 연안구역관리 지표체계에서 나타난 공통의 가치를 바탕으로, 지역차원에서 국내 연안구역관리 지표의 올바른 설정을 위한 시사점을 제시하였다. Coastal zone management indicators are being used as an important means of decision making in the process of policy establishment for integrated coastal management and implementation, and these indicators are very useful tools that enable the evaluation of the coastal zone management from an integrated perspective, the understanding and analysis of interactions according to each department. Accordingly, most of organizations in international society and advanced coastal states tend to develop coastal zone management indicator system in order to check current coastal environment, social and economic status, also to grasp effectiveness of the coastal zone management policy. In this research, therefore, the characteristics of coastal zone management indicator system was drawn through understanding of strength and weakness, and conducting comparative analysis of the coastal zone management indicator system according to each level having classified domestic and international coastal zone management indicator system into three aspects at large: natural and environmental aspect; social and economic aspect; and network aspect. As a result, following features were drawn as the common characteristics among the cases in the advanced coastal states: the management means for realization of sustainable coastal zone management; scientific decision making tools for various stakeholders; evaluation means for effectiveness of coastal zone integrated management; and dualization of coastal zone management indicator system; etc. Lastly, based on these common values revealed in the domestic and international coastal management indicator system, a suggestion for correct establishment of the domestic coastal management indicators was proposed in the regional aspect.

Serious attempts have been made to manage the highly populated Indian coast during the last 25 years in terms of regulating the activities and managing disasters. This has lead to formulation of various policies to maintain environmental quality and sustainably manage the coastal resources. Basically, the coastal zone needs to address the demands of all the stakeholders starting from traditional local communities, administrators, to academic researchers etc. India has faced tremendous challenges in implementing regulatory measures like Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) issued in 1991 by demarcating countries coast in to four different zones with provisions and prohibitions for various activities. The concept of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) has been taken with the support of spatial decision-support tools derived from satellite data including national programmes on inter-sectoral approaches towards ICZM. 2004 onwards a series of disasters have reminded the necessity of having regulatory measures through implementable approaches. Subsequently, the CRZ 2011 notification has been a new addition to the list of policies using bottom-up approach as a good governance tool. The country has strengthened its potential in coastal management, disaster management and several community based field projects to enhance participation of stakeholders. This paper is aimed to critically review the processes that are made during the last two decades including the future challenges towards sustainable management of coastal zone with special emphasis on the three coastal areas from eastern, western and southern coast of India.

Coastal aquaculture in South Australia has been going through a period of unprecedented growth during the past seven years. The value of the South Australian aqua‐culture industry has increased from US$1.3 million in 1990–1991 to an estimated US$31 million in 1996–1997. This growth has led to the implementation of planning and management policies by the state government. South Australian coastal waters have been divided into regions, and regional aquaculture management plans have been prepared. These management policies have generated concerns among interest groups and the community. The recent coastal aquaculture planning and management policies are described and analyzed, focusing on their contribution to the development of an ecologically sustainable industry. The need for an integrated approach to management is emphasized, especially given the great interest of the state government on the development of the industry.

Coastal ecosystems are exposed to unprecedented levels of human pressure and to the cumulative effects of climate change. Altogether, these threats have been exposing coastal areas to augmented hazardous processes, leaving communities highly vulnerable to coastal risks and challenging the coastal management paradigm. Disregarding public perceptions of coastal risk management may be myopic and, thus, an obstacle to the success of the efforts towards coastal risks' mitigation and adaptation. Therefore, this study aims at comprehensively ascertain public perception and preferences for coastal risk management, through a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative study accounted for 3028 participants that enrolled in the population-based survey. The qualitative study accounted for 320 participants that responded to the e-interview. Data were analysed independently and triangulated for further interpretation. Evidence from this study suggests that citizens prioritize the intrinsic value of coastal systems, when favouring a risk adaptation strategy. Therefore, ecosystem-based adaptation measures were highlighted, in detriment of grey infrastructure. Additionally, and due to the reported high levels of public authorities' distrust, the public seems to urge for a transition from a technocratic to a participatory coastal management, in which public's preferences are legitimized. Consequently, and in order to decentralize coastal governance, citizens demonstrated a proactive disposition to actively engage in coastal management. Findings from this study were discussed in order to provide guidance to the development of tailored coastal management initiatives and policy tools, which are expected to be effective at enhancing coastal communities' resilience to hazardous processes and augmenting citizens' engagement in coastal management.

Progress and problems in coastal and marine environment management are identified and evaluated with regard to decision-making mechanisms, coastal management regime, policy and law, technical standards and selected programme areas. Based on the evaluation, recommendations are made in each of these aspects. Giving priority to the local governments in the application of integrated coastal management (ICM) system is considered as an important workable strategy.