45
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
P. B. Roös, Regenerative-Adaptive Design for Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development
Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53234-5_4
Chapter 4
Affinity to Water: The Coastal Zone and Coastal
Settlements
Abstract Humans have an affinity with water, especially with the coast and the sea. This is not surprising because the coastal zone provides many resources for human use, including economic benefits
that accrue from access to ocean navigation, coastal ports at river mouths, fisheries, tourism and recreation. Historically settlements have been established around these resources, and are scattered along
coastlines world-wide. In the context of landscape, it is the beauty and visual attributes of coastal
areas that attract humans, resulting in more and more people settling on the coast. This human-coastal
interface sounds simplistic, but in fact it is an interface that is a complex social-ecological system
characterized by natural ecological processes and human-induced changes. The discussions in this
chapter investigate the beauty and visual attributes of coastal areas, the landscape and the coastal
place character that attracts humans to the coast, and analyse the meaning of ‘sense of place’, where
settlements are inherently part of the surrounding natural environment. The chapter also further
explores the complex patterns of human-ecological systems and conclude with the importance to
manage and plan the interface between these human and nature systems towards a sustainable future.
The chapter concludes with the fundamental pattern Affinity To Water [4], instructing us how to
deal with the complexities of environments next to water.
Keywords Coastal settlements · Nature systems · Sense of place · Affinity to water · Coastal
ecosystems · Sea level rise · Coastal change · Human systems · Climate change
Upward links:
… the coastal environment is a complex interface of natural ecological processes and human-induced changes,
and is extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts. As a result, we need to follow a process of Climate
Change Co-Adaptation [3]. However, we need to understand the complex attractions of humans to large bodies of water – Affinity To Water [4] – to be able to plan and develop sustainable settlements close to water.
4.1 Introduction
There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is a society, where none
intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar – Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (in Green, 2010, p. xi).
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
P. B. Roös, Regenerative-Adaptive Design for Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development
Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53234-5_4
Chapter 4
Affinity to Water: The Coastal Zone and Coastal
Settlements
Abstract Humans have an affinity with water, especially with the coast and the sea. This is not surprising because the coastal zone provides many resources for human use, including economic benefits
that accrue from access to ocean navigation, coastal ports at river mouths, fisheries, tourism and recreation. Historically settlements have been established around these resources, and are scattered along
coastlines world-wide. In the context of landscape, it is the beauty and visual attributes of coastal
areas that attract humans, resulting in more and more people settling on the coast. This human-coastal
interface sounds simplistic, but in fact it is an interface that is a complex social-ecological system
characterized by natural ecological processes and human-induced changes. The discussions in this
chapter investigate the beauty and visual attributes of coastal areas, the landscape and the coastal
place character that attracts humans to the coast, and analyse the meaning of ‘sense of place’, where
settlements are inherently part of the surrounding natural environment. The chapter also further
explores the complex patterns of human-ecological systems and conclude with the importance to
manage and plan the interface between these human and nature systems towards a sustainable future.
The chapter concludes with the fundamental pattern Affinity To Water [4], instructing us how to
deal with the complexities of environments next to water.
Keywords Coastal settlements · Nature systems · Sense of place · Affinity to water · Coastal
ecosystems · Sea level rise · Coastal change · Human systems · Climate change
Upward links:
… the coastal environment is a complex interface of natural ecological processes and human-induced changes,
and is extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts. As a result, we need to follow a process of Climate
Change Co-Adaptation [3]. However, we need to understand the complex attractions of humans to large bodies of water – Affinity To Water [4] – to be able to plan and develop sustainable settlements close to water.
4.1 Introduction
There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is a society, where none
intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar – Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (in Green, 2010, p. xi).