During the last century the Italian coastal system has been involved in a strong anthropic process (i.e. process of colonization by man of natural habitat, with consequent modification and alteration of the same ones), which remarkably has transformed the natural and enviromental characteristics of the territory. In order to define protection programs and development plans, One of the most impo...

The Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) is the method most commonly used for the assessment of the costs and effectiveness of alternative policy options on the environment. The objective of this paper is to describe the priority of the policy area “coastal water pollution control from land uses, in catchment area” in the frame of an Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). The evaluation of rel...

Estimating the current risk of coastal flooding requires adequate information on extreme sea levels. For over a decade, the only global data available was the DINAS-COAST Extreme Sea Levels (DCESL) dataset, which applies a static approximation to estimate extreme sea levels. Recently, a dynamically derived dataset was developed: the Global Tide and Surge Reanalysis (GTSR) dataset. Here, we comp...

INTRODUCTION: Flooding resulting from hurricanes and other extreme storm events is a prominent risk along the coasts. These coastal areas are typically of low elevation and relief, making land and infrastructure highly susceptible to inundation by storm surge and waves. The severity of this threat is exacerbated by sea level rise and a possible increase in storm frequency and strength due to cl...

Evaluating the significance of protected areas for biodiversity and ecosystem services is important for nature conservation. In a recent issue of PNAS, Xu et al. (1) present valuable information on provision of biodiversity and ecosystem services by China’s nature reserves. They conclude that reserves serve bird populations moderately well. However, the importance of coastal wetlands for migrat...

A participatory land use planning approach (PLUP) was carried out in two villages of the Mekong Delta coastal area. The PLUP was done twice (2002 and 2003). A geographic information system (GIS) was used for analyzing the land use change, the realization of the farmers’ preference, the preference change and the preference conflicts between groups of aquaculture and agriculture farmers. Results ...

Although the aspects of both land use and coastal management represent part of the larger concept of sustainable development, the strength and interest with which these aspects are received varies considerably among countries. It is well known that land use planning can facilitate the allocation of land to those use(s) that provide the greatest sustainable benefits. However, in order to achieve...

The Southwest Washington Coastal Erosion Study is a five-year, multi-disciplinary research project designed to build a knowledge foundation as a sound basis for addressing coastal management objectives. The purpose of the Study is to gain an understanding of a regional coastal sediment system, the Columbia River littoral cell, in order to support local, state, and federal decision-making in lan...

Coastal zones are exposed to a range of coastal hazards including sea-level rise with its related effects. At the same time, they are more densely populated than the hinterland and exhibit higher rates of population growth and urbanisation. As this trend is expected to continue into the future, we investigate how coastal populations will be affected by such impacts at global and regional scales...

Caspian Sea is the largest land locked water body in the world and has been characterized by significant relative sea-level changes since the Pliocene. The sea-level oscillations have strongly impacted the coastal areas depending on geomorphological setting. This study aims to investigate the impacts of sea level oscillations on low-lying coasts of the southeastern flank of the Caspian Sea...