Coastal Planning and Management [Library Binding]

Robert Kay (Author), Jaqueline Alder (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0419243402 | ISBN-13: 978-0419243403 | Publication Date: February 11, 1999 | Edition: 1

The first comprehensive tool-kit for coastal planners and those aiming to achieve effective coastal management worldwide. The purpose of the book is to assist in the sustainable development and use of the world's coastal zones by providing a blueprint for planners and managers who want to produce integrated coastal management plans. Coastal Planning and Management provides a link between planning and management tools, so including all stages in the process, from development through evaluation to implementation. Drawing on examples of successful coastal planning and management from around the world (including Europe, North America, Asia, Indo-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East), the authors are able to provide clear and practical guidelines for the people who make daily decisions about the world's coastlines. Coastal Planning and Management will prove an invaluable resource for professionals in environmental and planning consultancies, international organizations and governmental departments, as well as for academics and researchers in the fields of geography, marine and environmental science, marine and coastal engineering, and marine policy and planning.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The rapid increase in population across the globe, large-scale exploitation of coastal resources and rapid development of infrastructure has often resulted in severe degradation and decline in the quality of the coastal environment. These pressures on the coastal zone are certain to intensify in the future.

Mangroves, coral reefs, cliffs, beaches, tidal flats and estuaries are just some of the coastlines on which pressure is exerted. The complexity of these ecosystems and their variety across the Asia-Pacific region makes simple management solutions difficult to find. I am pleased this book not only recognises these problems but also offers a range of planning and management approaches and tools of immense practical value to those responsible for our valuable coastal resources.

The book has a global perspective and will play a significant part in assisting the sustainable development of all coastal nations around the world. Moreover, the coast plays an important part in the lives of many people living in the Asia-Pacific Region, with over two-thirds of its 3.2 billion people living within the coastal zone. As a result, I believe the book has particular value to this region.

The links between global and local activities related to coastal management and planning are important, and are well illustrated in the book. I am pleased the roles of the various UNEP programs in facilitating these linkages are well recognised. The book will be a valuable resource in assisting the Coastal Zone Management theme of UNEP's Network for Environmental Training at the Tertiary Level in the Asia-Pacific.

The mixture of theory and practice of coastal planning and management, demonstrates the importance of combining abstract and technical elements to achieve the best outcome for the coastal zone. The use of case studies shows examples of sound practice and differences in approaches around the world. The case studies also demonstrate the linkage between scales of coastal planning. Many of these case studies are from developing and developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region including Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Western Samoa.

The great strength of this book is its emphasis on coastal planning at different scales. This approach will appeal to all those involved in coastal zone management, from fisherfolk to government ministers. -- Dr Suvit Yodmani, Regional Director and Representative for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Environment Programme

From the Author

Writing a coastal zone management book is both an enlightening and sobering experience. The sheer diversity and magnitude of the problems in global coastal zones sometimes left us with a sense of hopelessness that coastal management initiatives, however well thought out, will never really make a substantial impact.

Then just when the problems of the coast seemed to be crowding in on us, we would write about coastal management successes from the literature or our own experiences in academic research, consulting and government service. Or one of our contributors would send us information about innovative techniques used to improve the condition of coastal zones and the livelihoods of people supported by them.

Our book is infused with this sense of realism about the current condition of coastal zones and how these conditions can be improved through planning and management. Our approach was to mix theoretical analysis with current best-practice coastal management and planning examples from around the world. Our aim was to provide clear and practical guidelines for the people who make daily decisions about the world's coastlines. We also wanted to produce a text book that could be used at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels and help train the next generation of coastal managers to face this challenge.

The focus is explicitly on the linkages between coastal management tools used in all stages of coastal planning from development through evaluation to implementation. In doing so, the various styles of coastal plans are analysed, a number of key coastal management tools are outlined, together with the institutional arrangements used to deliver coastal programs.

Several broad themes and principles emerged from the book:

- Coastal programs are now generally based on principles of sustainable development, the precautionary principle, and inter-generational equity.

- Successful coastal planning and management activities are generally so strongly linked that in successful coastal programs they are almost indistinguishable.

- Consensual plan production has become the most widely used approach for integrated coastal plans at the regional and local levels.

- Responsibility for sustainably managing the coast is shared by all levels of government, from international to local, along with coastal users, residents, private companies and advocacy groups.

- Western approaches to coastal planning and management, while successful in many countries, especially those with European land-tenure systems, often require modification if they are to be successfully integrated into other cultural settings.

- Coastal programs have become a melting pot for various planning and management techniques which have crossed over from other disciplines.

- Issues requiring coastal management and planning cut across jurisdictions, occur at widely different scales, and involve a diversity of stakeholders.

- No single plan can be expected to cope with all coastal issues, but management practices and plans can be substantially improved by mixing integrated coastal plans at different scales, orientations and statutory bases.

- Coastal plans require quantitative evidence of their effectiveness.

Underlying these themes is evidence of increased community empowerment in coastal planning. Innovative consensus building tools are increasingly likely to be used to ensure that consensus does not equate to "lowest common denominator", resulting in bland outcomes.

There is a plethora of coastal plans around the world, addressing vastly different issues, often in very different ways. But a common feature of most of these plans is the absence of quantitative evidence of their effectiveness - this despite the often considerable resources used in their formulation and implementation. Politicians, government departments and the public are increasingly expecting coastal programs to provide clear demonstrations of success. Performance measures, evaluation criteria and success indicators have become part of the coastal managers lexicon. Yet measuring how successful coastal programs are is only just beginning in earnest. Coastal program managers are increasingly required to include monitoring and evaluation measures into program design at the outset a difficult task without a set of commonly accepted coastal management performance measures.

We felt the book would evoke contrasting responses in the reader: pessimism at its rather depressing list of often chronic problems, painting a not too bright future for the coast; or excitement and optimism about the challenges that these problems present. We concluded that a realistic coastal planner / manager is one who would absorb a little of both and plan to pragmatically tackle the major challenges facing the world's coast, while being creative and flexible in dealing with the inherent limitations of the workings of government and private sector bureaucracies. To this planner / manager we offered our Six Virtues of Coastal Planning: to seek, to understand, to develop, to link, to bring into mainstream, to sustain. Only through the efforts of those coastal managers, helped we hope by our book, that the considerable efforts required to sustainably manage the world's coastal zones has a chance of success.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Library Binding: 400 pages
• Publisher: Spon Press; 1 edition (February 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0419243402
• ISBN-13: 978-0419243403
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,266,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coastal planning and management, February 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Coastal Planning and Management (Paperback)

i thoroughly enjoyed this book. content is based on the direction of coastal management and implementation of planning mechanisms around the globe. the text is supported with case studies from locations all around the globe, providing a global analysis. the style of writing is very informative, with exceptional detail - and quoting sources to allow confirmation of the text content. it is quite clear that both authors are extremely active and interested in the field of coastal management, with a 'hands-on' approach taken with each of the case studies included. a nice touch, is the use of images and diagrams to highlight certain aspects, providing ease of understanding - these thoroughly supporting the text. this book takes a step by step approach to introduce the reader to the complex issues and intricacies involved with coastal management and planning, opening the door to the next century. a thoroughly enjoyable read - definitely recommended!!

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written. Also, do not buy the kindle version!, September 12, 2010

By 

Laura (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Coastal Planning and Management (Paperback)

Firstly - don't buy the kindle addition. Wherever there is an example box, the kindle addition cuts off part of the preceding paragraph/sentence, making for very confusing reading. Not worth the slightly cheaper price!

Also, this book is more of a literature review, dedicated to ass-kissing of prominent members in the field. If you just want some examples and a general idea of the buzzwords you might hear, this book is okay, but it's disorganized layout makes it unclear how any of the terms relate to each other or what the examples are supposed to illustrate. No time is spend differentiating different theories or systems of classification from each other and there is no indication of when two schemes conflict or whether they are a subset of each other. Basically, I now know hundreds of factors one might use to evaluate a coastal management system, but have been given no material even slightly suggesting when any given list of factors should be applied to a situation over another. Basically this books reads like a bunch of abstracts of various papers in the field strung together haphazardly with little, if any, content in between.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great coastal management book, November 7, 2005

By 

Coastal Manager (Delaware, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coastal Planning and Management (Paperback)

As a coastal manager it's really hard to find information that presents good theoretical stuff next to down to earth examples. It's usually one or the other. This book has both right in one spot. This book lives on my desk, not on the bookshelf!