ICM Basics
ICM Basics
What Is the Coast?
What Is Integrated Coastal Management?
What Triggers the Need for ICM?
What Are Its Guiding Principles?
What Are the Functions of ICM?
What Capacity Is Needed for ICM?
What Kinds of Institutions Carry Out ICM?
More than half the world's population lives within 60 km of the shoreline.
Coastal regions encompass less than 10 percent of the world's inhabited land space
Two-thirds of the world's largest cities are situated on coasts.
Within the next three decades, as many as 6.3 million people may reside in coastal areas &endash; 500 million more people than exist on the planet today.
Less than a third of the world's coral reefs remain in a stable or undegraded condition, and 10 percent are degraded beyond recognition.
"The coastal area contains diverse and productive habitats important for human settlements, development and local subsistence. More than half the world's population lives within 60 km of the shoreline, and this could rise to three quarters by the year 2020. Many of the world's poor are crowded in coastal areas. Coastal resources are vital for many local communities and indigenous people. The exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is also an important marine area where the States manage the development and conservation of natural resources for the benefit of their people. For small island States of countries, these are the areas most available for development activities" (UNCED, Agenda 2 1, Ch. 17.3, 1992)."The coastal zone is viewed in its entirety as a special geographical area wherein its productive and natural defense functions are intimately linked with the physical and socioeconomic conditions far beyond its physical boundary" (Chua, 1993: 91).
"At a minimum, the designated coastal zone includes all the intertidal and supratidal areas of the water's edge; specifically all the coastal floodplains, mangroves, marshes and tideflats as well as beaches and dunes and fringing coral reefs. This is the transition zone where government agency authority changes abruptly, where storms hit, where waterfront development locates, where boats make their landfalls, and where some of the richest aquatic habitat is found. It is the core of the coastal zone. It is also the place where terrestrial-type planning and management programs are at their weakest" (Clark, 1996: 195).
In its essence, Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) constitutes a spatially defined management process. It is essential, therefore, that we first develop a clear understanding of the ICM geographical reference by clarifying "what" and "where" is to be managed before we approach the question of "how" to manage.
The Coasts - Unique, Valuable, and Threatened
The place where the waters of the seas meet the land - the coasts - are indeed unique places in our global geography. They are unique in a very real economic sense as sites for port and harbor facilities that capture the large monetary benefits associated with waterborne commerce and as locations for industrial processes requiring water cooling, such as power generation plants. A mosaic of rich and diverse ecosystems and resources, the coasts are strategically important to the economic and social well-being and development of all nations. The combination of freshwater and salt water in coastal estuaries creates some of the most productive and richest habitats on earth; the resulting bounty in fishes and other marine life can be of great value to coastal nations. The coasts are highly valued and greatly attractive as sites for resorts and as vacation destinations. In many locations, the coastal topography formed over the millennia provides significant protection from hurricanes, typhoons, and their ocean-related disturbances. Hence, for most coastal nations, the coasts are an asset of incalculable value, an important part of the national patrimony (Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1998).
Beyond these values, and perhaps more important, the coasts are home to more than half of the world's population. Approximately half of humanity is already concentrated in a narrow ribbon of land around the planet's oceans, seas and great lakes. At the same time, the coastal regions encompass less than 10 percent of the inhabited land space (Pernetta and Elder, 1993). Two-thirds of the world's largest cities are situated on coasts and populations of coastal areas are growing faster than inland populations. In 1994, World Bank experts estimated that two-thirds of the population of developing nations would be living along coasts by the end of the twentieth century (WCC 1994).
The presence of large and growing populations in the world's coastal areas exercises increasing pressure on these areas; pressure that threatens to diminish or even obliterate the values of the coasts. With half of the world's populations comes about half of the infrastructure for the manufacturing, transportation, energy processing and consumption that these populations require, as well as more than half of the waste products and tourism (Olsen, Tobey, and Kerr, 1998). Pollution of coastal waters can greatly reduce the production of fish, as can degradation of coastal nursery grounds and other valuable wetland habitat. The storm protection afforded by fringing coral reefs and mangrove forests can be lost if the corals die or the mangroves are removed. Inappropriate development and accompanying despoilment reduce the attractiveness of the coastal environment, greatly affecting tourism potential. Even ports and harbors require active and informed management if they are to remain productive and successful enterprises over the long term. Rapid urbanization and economic development in many countries of the world spawn a host of complex resource-use conflicts and environmental degradation problems. The issues have become more serious in many coastal developing nations beset with hunger, unemployment, poverty and rapid population growth (Chua, 1993: 81).
In developed countries, needs are generated for ever larger sewage treatment plants, expanded landfills for the disposal of solid waste, and increased recreational facilities, to mention only a few. In developing countries, with less infrastructure in place and heavier dependence on scarce coastal resources, more people in the coastal zones means more pollution of coastal waters, more pressure on nearby natural resources (for example, mangrove forests for firewood and beach sand for construction), and more pressure on fishery resources. Clearly, the tendency for ever greater numbers of people to migrate to the world's coasts is exerting serious pressure on these areas that could put the value and productivity of many of them at risk.
The Coasts - Special and Functional
Reference
(section drawn from Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1998)
As noted by L. F. Scura and colleagues, the coastal zone represents the interface between the land and the sea, "but concern and interest are concentrated on that area in which human activities are interlinked with both the land and the marine environments" (Scura et al. 1992, 17). The coastal zone has the following characteristics (Scura et al. 1992):
* Contains habitats and ecosystems (such as estuaries, coral reefs, sea grass beds) that provide goods (e.g., fish, oil, minerals) and services (e.g., natural protection from storms and tidal waves, recreation) to coastal communities.* Characterized by competition for land and sea resources and space by various stakeholders, often resulting in severe conflicts and destruction of the functional integrity of the resource system. Stakeholders are groups in the communities having a special interest or involvement in the use of the resources as common property.
* Serves as the source or backbone of the national economy of coastal states where a substantial proportion of the gross national product depends on activities such as shipping, oil and gas development, coastal tourism, and the like.
* Usually is densely populated and is a preferred site for urbanization.
Five main zones can be identified in the coastal-marine spectrum: inland areas, which affect the oceans mainly via rivers and nonpoint sources of pollution; coastal lands--wetlands, marshes, and the like--where human activity is concentrated and directly affects adjacent waters; coastal waters--generally estuaries, lagoons, and shallow waters--where the effects of land-based activities are dominant, offshore waters, mainly out to the edge of national jurisdiction (200 nautical-miles offshore); and high seas, beyond the limit of national jurisdiction.
The coastal management area is usually designated through a political process explicitly or implicitly to be managed as a single unit. The management boundaries of the area usually do not coincide with the boundaries of a single ecosystem, because typically a number of ecosystems of varying sizes exist within, and may extend beyond, the designated management area. The management boundaries may or may not coincide with the boundaries of governments of general jurisdiction, i.e., governments that have powers of implementation. The boundaries will coincide with only some of the areas from which demands are imposed on the resources of the coastal area. Finally, the boundaries are not likely to delimit the influences of coastal processes on the designated area, such as sediment transport and atmospheric deposition of contaminants. Thus, the boundaries for planning and analysis for integrated coastal management (ICM) often will not (and do not have to) coincide with the boundaries for management. (Bower, Ehler, & Basta, 1994: 1)
The coastal management system, in turn, can be thought of as a system of relationships among (1) people who live, use, or otherwise are concerned (in their beliefs or behaviors) with the coastal environment, (2) policy makers and managers whose decisions and actions affect the behavior of coastal peoples, and (3) members of the scientific community: natural scientists who study the coastal environment and social scientists who study human behavior in coastal zones (adapted from Orbach 1995). This system of relationships-the "cultural ecology of coastal public policy making," as M. Orbach calls it, is depicted in figure 1.2.
Figure 1.2. Cultural Ecology of Coastal Public Policy Making
