Chapter 1
This chapter introduces the importance and uniqueness of the world’s coastal areas, with a view to outlining the coastal issues and planning and management tools described in later chapters. Several important terms, including ‘coastal area’, ‘planning’ and ‘management’ are defined, and the use of the terms ‘coastal area’ and ‘coastal zone’ is discussed. The
fundamentals of the approach taken in the book are described.
1.1 Coastal areas or coastal zones?
The boundary between the land and ocean is generally not a clearly defined line on a map, but occurs through a gradual transitional region. The name given to this transitional region is usually ‘coastal zone’ or ‘coastal area’. In common English there is little distinction between zone or area, but in coastal management there has been some debate as to the implied meanings associated with zone, as used in ‘coastal zone management’. The debate has focused on the implication that zone may imply that geographically defined planning zones will be established and become the dominant part of the coastal management process. This implication is not important in many developed countries, where ‘coastal zone management’ is a phrase commonly used to describe a variety of coastal programmes (OECD, 1992), such as the US Coastal Zone Management Act (1972). But developing countries often equate coastal zone with land-use or marine-park zoning (Chapter 4). Although ‘coastal zone’ and ‘zoning within the coastal zone’ are clearly different, to avoid confusion many coastal management initiatives use the description ‘coastal area’ (e.g. UNEP OCA/PAC, 1982; Chua and Pauly, 1989).