Today, more than half or the global population or in absolute figures well above 2½ billion people, and many of the world's major cities are located in coastal areas. Although estimates vary considerably, UNCED's Agenda 21 suggests that up to three-quarters of the global population could be living within 60 km from the coast by 2020. Increasing population density, industrial development, and economic growth have given rise to a variety of additional economic activities, the combined effects of which increase the pressure on coastal areas and their resources. This frequently results in cumulative and complex impacts on the environment, depletion of resources and intensified conflict between competing user groups.
There is a limit to the capacity of coastal as well as other environments to sustain human activities without deterioration, and various coastal areas today show signs of severe degradation. One example is exploitation of coastal fish stocks, providing more than 95% of world wide marine fish harvests, which has exceeded sustainable levels in a number of fishing zones. Another is the loss at an alarming rate of coastal wetland due to amongst other things, interference with hydraulic patterns, conversion to aquaculture, pollution, coastal erosion, land reclamation and harbour development. Coastal wetland such as mangrove swamps, seagrass meadows and lagoons and estuaries are critically important as nursery grounds for a number of coastal fish and shrimp species, they assist in shore protection, and their high biological productivity plays a significant role in impairing or diminishing the effects of organic and nutrient pollution.
In order to alleviate effects of unsustainable exploitation in threatened areas and in order to avoid similar developments elsewhere, coastal management practices need careful examination and adjustment. Management of coastal development has for many years been performed in a reactive manner to prevent or reverse degradation of the environment. A proactive approach allowing for better and co-ordinated exploitation of renewable resources is required in order to meet the demands imposed by the rapidly increasing global population.
Within the past 30 years there has been a growing recognition of the need for coastal zone management at national as well as international levels and the development of coastal management programs and plans are on the increase world-wide. The earliest significant efforts in the 1970s were given in Europe and USA out of concern over the quality of coastal and marine environments prompting amongst others the US Coastal Zone Management Act in 1972. The 1980s saw a number of CZM programmes take of in developing countries some associated with technical assistance (UNEP´s Mediterranean Action Plan, USAID/URI programmes in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Ecuador and USAID/ICLARM programme in the ASEAN Countries including the development of the Johor Bahru CZM Plan) and some evolving independently (Brazil, Costa Rica, China, Argentina, Colombia and others). In the 1990s the progress continues and to day CZM Programmes offer a wide range of examples in terms of policy goals, approaches and techniques. Especially within the past decade an increasing number of fora have been focusing on CZM issues. Important international events include UNCED (1992), and World Coast Conference (1993).
WB, ADB and AfDB all recognise the special importance of coastal areas and resources by dedicating efforts towards developing guidelines for coastal project development (i.e. Environmental Impact Assessment Guidelines for coastal and marine resources) and all are involved in coastal zone management programmes). Organisations like UNEP, UNDP, FAO, OECD, EC and others have explored conceptual approaches to ICZM. An increasing number of bilateral development agencies are adopting CZM strategies in project development in coastal areas (SIDA, USAID, Danida, DANCED and others).
The trend in these efforts have been towards more comprehensive and integrated coastal programmes considering the coastal zone as a distinct region with resources and activities that require special attention.
The Coastal Zone can physically and geographically be defined as a corridor where the land and adjacent ocean space meet. Functionally it is the broad interface between land and water where production, consumption, recreation and exchange processes occur at high rates of intensity. Ecologically, the coastal zone is an area of dynamic biological, hydraulic, geological and chemical activities often with considerable but always limited capacity for supporting various forms of human use. It is frequently a dynamic and vulnerable area which both nature and man have and will muscle in both constructive and destructive ways.
Ideally management area boundaries should delimit the area which includes all relevant biophysical, economic and other social interactions. This would imply a coastal zone extending at least from the oceanward edge of the exclusive economic zone, usually 200 nautical miles, to the inland limit of climatic influence. For most but the smallest countries however the scale puts a practical limit on the extent of a manageable area and other boundaries have to be defined as far as possible incorporating all relevant factors. Planning for such an area should take into account the biophysical, economic and social linkages with the outside.
Figure 2: Overlapping biophysical, economic, institutional and organizational boundaries in coastal areas.
There are a number of landward and seaward boundaries which may be considered using geophysical, political, economic, ecological, institutional and organisational criteria as indicated in Figure 2 . The high degree of overlap between delimited areas provides no obvious choice and management programmes have adopted a wide range of definitions according to the issues triggering the management process. Physical criteria such as a certain isobath or the edge of the continental shelf have been used as well as physical landmarks in the landward direction. Political and administrative boundaries have the advantage of being easily understood, readily representable and legislatively viable. Delineation using environmental criteria such as tidally influenced areas, may have sound ecological and scientific basis but would often prove difficult to define accurately.
In many cases arbitrary land- or seaward boundaries are chosen defined as a certain distance from physical references such as for instance the Mean Low Water Mark (MLWM) or Mean High Water Mark (MHWM).
Although the delineation of coastal areas has been discussed on many occasions, no international agreement has been achieved. Indeed a rigid approach to the determination of coastal boundaries would defeat the purpose given the high variability in coastal environments, in terms of geophysics, climate, natural resources, ecology, socio-economy and history creating ever changing sets of local issues to be addressed by a management effort. The boundaries of coastal regions may well be pragmatically defined to include areas and activities that are related to the management issues upon which the programme will focus.
In the preparation for the World Coast Conference in 1993 it was estimated that 57 coastal sovereign nations or semi-sovereign states as well as 96 sub-national units either had been or were involved in the development of ICZM programmes. In order to illustrate the diversity of zone delineation, boundaries of selected examples are presented in Table 1 .
The most common inland boundary is an arbitrary distance from mean high tide and the most common offshore boundary is the limit of state or provincial jurisdiction. Programmes can have at least two different inland boundaries, the planning zone and the regulation zone. The planning area should cover all lands on which development may generate impacts that significantly effect coastal resources or environments. Often the planning area extends a considerable distance inland (e.g. to the limits of coastal and estuary watershed). In the regulation zone the government has the power to issue or deny development permits. If there are two zones the planning zone will always be larger than the regulation zone.
In summary coastal area delimitation may consider administrative issues in order to designate management responsibilities, ecological boundaries in order to capture interrelated processes, distribution of resources [5] attracting specific activities and demand issues originating within or outside the area. As different issues require different size management areas and as issues change along the coast, such considerations are likely to lead to variable boundaries notably inland.
Whatever the basis for selecting boundaries management considerations should include inevitable trans-boundary issues [6].
Figure 2 includes an assessment of property rights and the relative degree of national government influence for different areas.
Table 1: Selected examples of coastal area boundaries from coastal zone management programs
In international waters outside the EEZ control is pursued through a number of international conventions many of which may affect the jurisdiction closer to the shore or even on land. Within the territorial sea and the EEZ, national government control is exercised. Some authority is frequently delegated to coastal sub-national governments. For the intertidal zone , the public trust is asserted, which in turn carries predominant government control.
The shore lands , are often subject to extensive government control. Exclusion zones are sometimes imposed in this land (e.g. Malaysia) to prohibit private encroachment in wetlands, beaches, or to guarantee unrestricted public access to the shore.
For the coastal uplands , the tradition in most nations is to exercise less control than in the more shoreward areas. Exceptions are nations with strong programmes for land use planning (UK) or nations with a major commitment to economic development in a specific coastal region such as France’s development plan for the Aquitane.
Finally, areas which have traditionally enjoyed no government control with respect to coastal resources are usually located inland of the coastal watershed boundary or beyond the most ocean-ward jurisdictional claim.
Almost all developing nations apply several of the management strategies identified below.
In spite of the increased understanding for integrated approaches to coastal area management, most of the world’s coastal nations either:
Current approaches in coastal resources management may be classified in the following groups:
The extensive literature accumulating on coastal management has produced a comprehensive terminology, which however is not consistently applied. A workable glossary of some of the most used terms were compiled in the preparation for the World Coast Conference in 1993:
Coastal Ecosystem is an area that contains a set of characteristic physical, chemical and biological properties. Examples include: mangrove forests, intertidal mud flats, cypress swamps, coral reefs, sea grass beds.
Coastal Environment refers to natural and man-made conditions that are either specific to the coastal zone (e.g. estuaries) or to those zones whose attributes are significantly determined by its location.
Coastal Resources are commodities for the production of goods and services in response to final demand from society, including natural, renewable and non-renewable resources, human resources, constructed resources and cultural, historic and archaeological values.
Coastal Sub-system is the relatively narrow and dynamic transitional zone between the marine and land sub-systems. It includes the foreshore, the beach area and natural coastal protection systems such as dunes and mangroves.
Coastal Zone is a geographically delineated area, which is distinctively characterised by the aggregation of interacting coastal environments and corresponding natural and man-made structural systems.
Coastal Zone Management is essentially a 'production function' that combines 'inputs' (labour, natural resources, capital, time) to produce desired 'outputs', e.g. public beaches for recreation, navigation facilities, a specified level of water quality, mean annual fish harvests, the preservation of a marine sanctuary.
Coastal Zone Management Plan is designed to be the basic guide that determines how coastal resources and environments should be allocated among the many competing interests of society by means of setting and establishing goals and measures
Coastal Zone Management. The core of such a programme consists of the development stage for the Coastal Zone Management plan. Surrounding the core are a number of strategies that deal with other aspects such as a public participation strategy and an applied research strategy.
Coastal Zone System is an integrated complex of marine, coastal and land sub-systems.
Coastal Zone Typology : the transitional area between land and sea can be characterised according to three distinct types of zones: deltas, small islands and continental coasts.
Government Structure refers to the structure, capacities and mandates (responsibilities and tasks) of both government and non-government entities; and the modes of their interaction, such as co-ordinating arrangements.
Implementation is the realisation of a plan which specifies a set of measures (or strategy) to reach an identified goal. Implementation involves the detailed design of measures; the installation of selected measures; the operation, maintenance and adaptation of implemented measures; and monitoring and evaluation.
Institutional Arrangements include the composite of laws, customs and organisations and management strategies established by society to allocate scarce resources and competing values for a social purpose, such as to manage a nation's coastal resources and environments.
Integrated Management at the operational level refers to the co-ordination, among all the responsible agencies, of all the tasks necessary to plan and implement CZM activities, including the acquisition and allocation of resources on which they depend. Integrated management entails careful and co-ordinated planning, the involvement and support of all parties involved and the proper implementation of selected and agreed actions.
Issues are matters in dispute (such as pollution of coastal waters) and the opportunities (such as mariculture development) that are motivating factors for creating a programme.
Land Sub-system is the band of land adjacent to the ocean in which marine processes and uses directly affect terrestrial processes and land uses.
Linkage Mechanisms include interdepartmental, inter-ministerial, inter-organisational working groups, meetings, communication methods such as newsletters and networks, and other co-ordinating bodies.
Management Arrangements refer to the totality of institutional arrangements and management instruments available to policy and decision makers and managers in the development and implementation of a management programme.
Management Instruments consist of structural and regulatory measures that enable managers to achieve the goals and objectives articulated in the management plan. Structural measures involve hard and soft structures and, when relevant, corresponding rules of operation. Regulatory instruments are measures to induce users of the coastal resources to a desired behaviour. Such measures are established by law or other forms of 'authority', such as presidential decrees or social traditions.
Management Strategies are part of a management plan and relate to specific possible actions with respect to the application of management instruments.
Marine Sub-system is the band of ocean (water and submerged land) adjacent to the land and in which terrestrial processes and land uses directly affect marine processes and uses.
Non-renewable Resources include goods (oil, gas, mineral resources, sand and gravel) and services (dumping of persistent toxic materials).
Planning is the formulation, analysis, evaluation and adoption (selection) of a preferred set of measures (strategy) implementation and the corresponding specification of clear and verifiable goals to be achieved.
Renewable Resources include goods (fish, sand and gravel in morphologically dynamic areas) and services (dumping and assimilation of biodegradable wastes, safety, scenic beauty, navigation facilities, energy production).
Stakeholders are individuals, organisations or groups with vested interests in the allocation of the resources of the coastal zone.
Strategies are combinations of specific management measures or actions, applied individually or as a combination of several management instruments, including structural instruments (dikes, groins, landfills, sluices and locks). Their corresponding operating rules consist of regulatory instruments or implementation incentives, encouraging users of the natural system to adopt desired behaviour. These include permits, standards, quotas and subsidies.
Sustainable Exploitation means collecting the interest on the world's natural capital while not touching the capital itself.
A saying in Denmark goes: “A beloved child has many names”. Indeed coastal management approaches have used a range of different labels [7] for programmes with very similar objectives and activities.
The present project has adopted the label Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) which can be defined [8] as the co-ordinated management of the coastal zone as a whole in relation to local, regional, national, and international goals, with a particular focus on the interactions between the various activities and resource demands that occur within the coastal zone and between coastal zone activities and activities that occur in neighbouring regions. It implies the integration of environmental protection goals into economic and technical decision making processes with the objective of achieving sustainable development.
ICZM intends to offer alternatives to conventional planning approaches by; formulating holistic coastal area development scenarios; more actively involving inhabitants in the area as well as relevant national and local authorities; having proactive as well as reactive potential; and by considering needs and interests of all major groups in the coastal zone which should participate in the process. ICZM does however, not intend to establish new institutions, but should as a general rule be integrated in existing structures in a manner that facilitates cross-sectoral and vertical co-ordination.
The words integration, coastal, zone and management which are used in various combinations in programme titles merit further examination.
Coastal systems have certain characteristics which need to be addressed in the design of management programmes:
In this context the word integration has been used with the following meanings:
The earlier discussion on management boundaries illustrated some of the practical difficulties in determining the coastal zone. Coastal areas however can be categorised as one of the following types:
Coastal waters [9] as the area measured oceanward from the tidal and/or tidal influence mark and/or a salinity mark to an offshore boundary such as the oceanward boundary of a coastal nation or state or the boundary between a coastal ecosystem and a marine ecosystem or an arbitrary boundary such as to the depth of 200 meters or 12 nautical miles oceanward from the coastline or coastal baseline [10]. A coastal area can include coastal seas and regional seas.
Coastline as the area between high and low tides, which can extend oceanward to extreme low tide and extend inland to include the area covered by extreme high tides and/or coastal flooding events and/or the most seaward extent of permanent vegetation
Coast lands [11] as the area extending inland from a tidal mark and/or tidal influence mark and/or a salinity mark and/or seaward extend of permanent vegetation to a boundary which is inland of the direct physical influence (tidal, salinity, coastal flooding) of coastal waters such as: an arbitrary inland distance from mean high tide, a physical boundary such as a highway, the inland boundary of a local unit of government, or all lands, the use of which may have a direct and significant impact on coastal waters.
Or any feasible combinations of these.
An integrated coastal management programme can be any programme which is directed at any one the types of coastal areas. A coastal zone management programme will include three geographic components:
Looking world wide the literature and practices indicate that planing is often subsumed in the concept of management, but not vice versa. However, a number of the ICM programmes do not include a planning component. Therefore, planning must be distinguished from management.
Generally, planning is a process of comprehensively analysing coastal systems, environments, natural resources and uses in order to produce a framework (or plan) to guide decision makers in the immediate and future allocation of scarce resources (e.g. space, land, capital investments, fish, water) among competing interests (stakeholders). In the ICM history there have been three major motivations for the preparation of plans:
In order to adequately manage coastal systems, particular the control of cumulative impacts, one must have a land (land and water) use plan.
[5] e.g. mineral resources, fisheries, habitats
[6] Landward trans-boundary issues would include coastal impacts of inland activities from rivers such as siltation and pollution, seaward issues could include fisheries resources dependence on coastal nursery areas, pollution associated with marine transportation, offshore waste disposal.
[7] Coastal Area Management and Development, Coastal Area Management and Planning, Coastal Management, Coastal Resources Management, Coastal Zone Management, Cross-sectoral, Integrated Coastal Area Planning, Integrated Management and Sustainable Development of Coastal and Marine Areas, including Exclusive Economic Zones, Integrated Coastal Zone Management, Integrated Coastal Zone Planning and Management.
[8] Definition adopted in the DANCED ICZM concept development activities in 1994.
[9] A distinction may be made for the waters directly adjacent to the coastline or shoreline. This area has been termed near shore waters and extends oceanward approximately 100 metres from mean low tide or to the three metres isobath, whichever distance offshore is greater. This area is important for water contact, recreation and surf fishing.
[10] The coastal baseline is a series of straight lines that interconnect coastal headlands and promontories . It is the reference point used to map the oceanward boundaries of both the territorial sea and the EEZ.
[11] A distinction needs to be made for land immediately adjacent to the coastline (or shoreline). These lands have been termed shore-lands and generally do not extend inland for more than 200 metres.