Caroline King, The United Nations University, Coastal Hydrosphere Project

More than 70% of people in East Asia live in coastal areas and depend on marine and coastal resources for food, employment, income and other benefits. Rising urbanization is also creating unprecedented impacts on the coastal environment. These impacts may be as serious in the long term as the other traditional threats to coastal resources that have long existed from over-exploitation and conflicting uses.

The United Nations University's Project on the Coastal Hydrosphere is launching its first Policy Brief, entitled 'Conserving Our Coastal Environment'. The booklet includes an overview of the degradation of coastal ecosystems in Asia and the Pacific and an examination of the driving forces behind it. It then presents strategies for the protection of the coastal environment and a summary of recommended activities to improve coastal management. This overview of coastal management issues includes treatment of many of the longstanding preoccupations of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), such as sustainable resource use, inter-sectoral and inter-level cooperation and participatory approaches. There are also fresh contributions to this discipline from UNU and its project-work on the Coastal Hydrosphere. This presentation discusses the findings of the section of the UNU Policy Brief on 'Socioeconomic and Demographic Changes - population growth, urbanization, industrialization and large-scale development'. These are the rising challenges to coastal managers for the future.

Organic pollution in domestic and sewage wastes from urbanizing areas are increasing, causing eutrophication and Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB) in coastal waters. From the growing industries in this region, contamination of coastal water and marine species with heavy metals is continuing to occur. The impacts of these processes are clearly visible on many of the coastlines of this region. However, recent advances in Environmental Chemistry have also allowed scientists to decipher new threats to the coastal environment from the accumulation of Endocrine Disruptor Chemicals (EDC's) from domestic, industrial, agricultural and other sources. These persist over long periods of time and can affect the biological development of humans and animals that are exposed to them. The long-term impacts of these threats are more difficult to assess.

Continuous monitoring work undertaken by UNU and its partner laboratories in Asia is bringing to light a picture of the current state of environmental pollution with EDC's and other pollutants, trends can be identified, patterns and sources pin-pointed. The observations that have been afforded by this work so far are outlined by UNU's recent publication.

Despite the remaining challenges for measuring and estimating the effects of coastal development, it is important for coastal mangers to be able to weigh the full range of likely future risks to coastal communities in the context of the socio-economic and demographic changes that are occurring in this vulnerable and dramatically changing region.

presentation