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Coastal basins on the edge: Cumulative effects of multiple human activities where land and ocean meet

Policy Brief No. 7 from UNESCO, SCOPE, and UNEP

Semi-enclosed coastal seas, bays and gulfs provide services that are critical for sustaining marine life, and human development and well-being. These dynamic, diverse and productive ecosystems are affected by a concentration of human activities around the watersheds, along the coasts and in the water bodies, with profound consequences for the environment and society. Their integrated management and governance involving multiple stakeholders across national boundaries and political jurisdictions are necessary to ensure the continued provision of vital ecosystem services into the future.

Download Policy Brief No. 7: Coastal basins on the edge: Cumulative effects of multiple human activities where land and ocean meet

Today, many semi-arid enclosed marine systems (SEMS) are under heavy land- and ocean-based pressures from different types of pollution, transformation and exploitation. In the near future, climate change will most likely further change many of the present characteristics of SEMS, including average and extreme temperatures of their waters, intensity and timing of precipitation and freshwater input, salinity distribution, patterns of circulation, stratifi cation and mixing, as well as chemical properties. Human activities result in land-derived nutrient and man-made chemical loading to coastal waters. This can lead to oxygen depletion, dead zones and coastal ecosystem alteration including changes in species abundance and diversity, fisheries, habitat availability, and water quality.

Recommendations

  • Decision-makers at all levels should recognize that SEMS are the most threatened, yet critical parts of the global ocean for the livelihoods and well-being of human populations worldwide.
  • Science and management should jointly identify approaches that increase ecosystem resilience, reduce the potential for adverse consequences and prevent irreversible threshold effects.
  • Regional assessments should evaluate the state of individual SEMS, identify relevant ecological, economic and social issues, and the prevalent human threats to ecosystem services, in order to develop integrated management and governance options.
  • Management and governance should follow an integrated approach that (i) considers all human activities and their threats to ecosystem services, and (ii) takes all ecosystem components and their interactions into account.
  • The specifi c problems of SEMS highlight the need to overcome traditional boundaries in management and governance. In particular, they suggest a coupling of ocean and coastal zone management with watershed and land-use management.

Categories

  • Coast
English