Management of Estuaries and Coasts

• Main Authors: Wolanski, Eric, McLusky, Donald, Kremer, H.H., Pinckney, J.L.
• Format: Book
• Language: unknown
• Published: Academic Press 2011
• Subjects: Arctic; Climate change
• Online Access: https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/21561/2/21561_Wolanski_2011_Book_Cover.jpg; https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/21561/1/21561_Wolanski_2011_Front_Pages.pdf

[Extract] The central theme of this volume is to provide insight into coastal change and resource use influenced by land-based drivers, oceanic and atmospheric influences as well as, to some extent, the role of global issues and economy. The topics featured in some chapters may include whole regions such as the Arctic or large parts of the African continent or may highlight the interaction between humans and nature in rather local case studies. These case studies are complemented by fundamental and conceptual discussions with respect to coastal zone management in general and the role of institutions and individual actions to improve governance of coastal systems. Anthropogenic forcing is central to the studies but climate change is addressed as an additional driver of observed and anticipated changes. An underlying theme is that the understanding of the interactions between humans and nature in the coastal zone is often influenced by far upstream processes. Thus, a coupled social–ecological system (SES) perspective is applied that addresses the drivers, pressures, states, and impacts along the whole water cascade from source to sea. A special effort in this volume is dedicated to a theoretical work that elaborates on the complexity and problems in conceptualizing the social component in a holistic system assessment approach. Underpinned by experiences on a regional and local scale in the tropics, this work identifies key criteria and derived indicators that enable the inclusion of a social component into holistic system analysis.