ICM Basics
ICM Basics
Introduction
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?
"Social demands for outputs from a coastal area usually exceed the capacity of the area to meet all demands simultaneously"
Interest in integrated coastal zone management or ICM is high following a number of international meetings including (1) the 1992 "Earth Summit" and its Agenda 21, particularly Chapter 17 on "Protection of the Oceans, All kinds of Seas, including Closed and Semi-Closed Seas, and Coastal Areas and the Protection, Rational Use and Development of Their Living Resources" (2) the continuing work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, especially its working group on Coastal Zones and Small Islands, (3) the 1993 World Coast Conference, held in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, (4) the U.N. Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, and (5) the 1995 Conference on "Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Activities" in Washington, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme. All of these meetings have concluded that ICM is the appropriate approach with which to manage the diverse problems of coastal areas, from the pressing problems of coastal pollution and habitat degradation to the long-term implications of changing sea level. Additional impetus to create a "new" integrated paradigm for coastal management is added by renewed interest, in many countries, in "watershed" and/or "ecosystem" management.
Management of coastal areas involves multiple problems and sources of those problems, multiple objectives to produce desired (and often conflicting) outputs from the use of coastal resources, different productive capacities over space and time, greater or lesser linkages to upstream areas and beyond (pressures on the resources of a coastal area may be greater from activities outside the coastal area than from activities within it), multiple constituencies, stakeholders, and institutions with varying responsibilities for different elements of management.
Social demands for outputs from a coastal area usually exceed the capacity of the area to meet all of the demands simultaneously. Because not all of the outputs from coastal areas can be expressed in monetary terms, free markets cannot perform the allocation task. Some process must be used to decide what mix of outputs will be produced for the coastal area. That process is ICM.
Integrated management is a continuous, interactive, adaptive, participatory, consensus-building process comprised of a related set of tasks, all of which must be carried out to achieve a desired set of goals and objectives, however they are specified. The various tasks of management can be subsumed under the following elements: (1) analysis, including problem identification, specification of objectives, delineation of analytic and management boundaries; (2) design of alternative management strategies; (3) research and long-term data collection; (4) installation of management practices or technologies; (5) operation and maintenance of the management strategies; (6) enforcement; (7) monitoring; (8) evaluation; and (9) financing. Elements 1-3 are generally classified as "planning" activities; elements 4-8 as "implementation." None of these elements can be conducted without adequate financing over time (Bower, Ehler, and Basta, 1994).
The relevant context for ICM is one that is continuous over time and adaptive to new information and changed circumstances (e.g., public preferences and policies, economic conditions, new technology, new scientific understanding). ICM planning and implementation cannot be a one-time activity, but part of an adaptive management process. Simply determining what can be done to manage current conditions and the costs to achieve desired objectives today is not sufficient. Attention must be given to (1) effective institutional arrangements for continuous management, (2) new incentives, positive and negative, to induce changes that will fulfill desired objectives, and (3) creative means for financing ICM over time (Bower, Ehler, and Basta, 1994).
If ICM is to be achieved, a common framework must exist across coastal planning sectors for making economic and demographic projections, developing future scenarios, and using similar analytical techniques for analyzing benefits and costs of alternative management strategies. Achieving such a common framework is difficult, since rarely does a single institution exist--at any level of government--with overall responsibility for integrated planning and development of action programs across the various sectors of coastal economies.