The essential elements of science and management in coastal environmental managements

Coastal environmental management requires timely and appropriate policy, management and technological interventions to address a host of interrelated environmental problems arising from unplanned and unregulated coastal developments. These interventions can only be effective if they are based on sound scientific (including socioeconomic) information. Thus, science plays a significant role in the environmental management of coastal and marine areas. This paper highlights the essential components of environmental coastal management that require scientific interventions, particularly in providing the scientific basis for policy interventions, and preventive and/or mitigating measures. The integration and packaging of scientific information for management actions require an interdisciplinary effort to address identified management problems. Scientific research should respond to management needs and make contributions to the better understanding of ecosystems and their responses to human interventions. Scientific information urgently required for management includes an understanding of interactions in coastal resource systems, identification, evaluation and prioritization of management issues, management strategies and actions, and development of methodologies and tools for environmental management. Obstacles to management-oriented research have also been identified to include defective perception among scientists, defective communication between scientists and decision makers, intellectual and cultural arrogance, and inadequate technical and management capability at the local level. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.