The Coast
Before we start to dive into the complexity of integrated coastal zone management, because the understanding or even the definition of these four words would take us on a long journey, a short introduction of the term coast should be given. I don’t want t
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The Coast
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Introduction
Before we start to dive into the complexity of integrated coastal zone management, because the understanding or even the definition of these four words would take us on a long journey, a short introduction of the term coast should be given. I don’t want to repeat most of the words that have already been written either by poets or scientists, it’s only to get a somewhat clearer picture of what is meant when we talk about the coast or the coastal zone. Lengthy definitions exist for these terms and I’d like to present a selection of them to, afterwards, come to a conclusion on how this understanding might resonate through this book. The chapter “Encircling the beginning – where (I)CZM started” falls back on two starting points one in Australia and the other one in the USA, at San Francisco Bay. At the end of the first steps according to Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in the USA there was the enactment of the Coastal Zone Management Act in 1972. Also in 1972 a workshop was conducted to identify critical problems in the coastal zone – see Ketchum (1972). The participants don’t only concentrate on the collection and identification of problems and challenges they also provided a working definition for the term coastal zone (Ketchum, 1972, p. 4– 5): The coastal zone is the band of dry land and adjacent ocean space (water and submerged land) in which land ecology and use directly affect ocean space ecology, and vice versa. The coastal zone is a band of variable width which borders the continents, the inland seas, and the Great Lakes. Functionally, it is the broad interface between land and water where production, consumption, and exchange processes occur at high rates of intensity. Ecologically, it is an area of dynamic biogeochemical activity but with limited capacity for supporting various forms of human use. Geographically, the landward boundary of the coastal zone is necessarily vague. The oceans may affect climate far inland from the sea. Ocean salt penetrates estuaries to various extents, depending largely upon geometry of the estuary and river flow, and the ocean tides may c Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2018 F. Ahlhorn, Integrated Coastal Zone Management, Wasser: Ökologie und Bewirtschaftung, DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-17052-3_1
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The Coast
extend even farther upstream than the salt penetration. Pollutants added even to the freshwater part of a river ultimately reach the sea after passing through the estuary. The seaward boundary is easier to define scientifically, but it has been the cause of extensive political argument and disagreement. Coastal waters differ chemically from those of the open sea, even in areas where man’s impact is minimal. Generally, the coastal water can be identified at least to the edge of the Continental Shelf (depth of about 200 m), but the influence or major rivers may extend many miles beyond this boundary [. . . ].
Within this working definition a distinction was made between functional, ecological and geographical aspects. Here, the
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