Perspectives on integrated coastal zone management

This volume discusses the basic principles underpinning a more integrated approach to coastal management and highlights the obstacles that may be met in practice in both developed and developing countries. Successful strategies will have to encompass all the elements of management, from planning and design through financing and implementation, as highlighted in this book.This book includes a CD-ROM with computer visualisation of field data and water quality modelling.There are also movie clips of spectacular scenes. Coastal zone management is practised in some way or another in all coastal regions of the world. Historically, these practices have been dominated by the construction and deployment of engineering structures to defend economically valuable coastal assets against flooding and erosion. More recently the continued expansion of a range of, often competing, socio-economic activities at or close to the coastline such as fisheries, tourism, oil and gas extraction, nature conservation, industrial and urban development, has served to complicate the management task. Given the acceptance by governments of the general goal of sustainable development, a more sustainable coastal resources utilisation strategy will require a more interdisciplinary and integrated man-. agement process. Two recent conferences focused on the need for and the characteristics of integrated coastal management. The EERO-GKSS CONFERENCE "Changing Estuarine and Coastal Environments: sustainability and biodiversity in relation to economic aspects" addressed European issues; while the CDG-GKSS conference "Socio-economic Benefits of Integrated Coastal Zone Management" concentrated more on * developing countries.