The Asia and Pacific region is home to the world’s largest concentration of coral reefs and mangroves. It accommodates two-thirds of the world’s human population and its economic activities have the highest growth rate in the world. This book gives an overview of the state-of-the-art understanding on the drivers, state, and responses to the coastal environmental changes in the Asia and Pacific region. It provides important perspectives on the subject for researchers.

Most of the world’s population lives close to the coast and is highly dependent on coastal resources, which are being exploited at unsustainable rates. These resources are being subject to further pressures associated with population increase and the globalization of coastal resource demand. This is particularly so for the Asia-Pacific region which contains almost two thirds of the world’s population and most of the world’s coastal megacities. The region has globally important atmospheric and oceanic phenomena, which affect world climate such as the Asian Monsoon and the El-Niño Southern Oscillation phenomena. The Asia-Pacific region also has highly significant marine diversity but over the last few decades, coastal resources such as mangroves, coral reefs and fisheries have experienced large-scale depletion. The need to find appropriate management solutions to these and other coastal issues is made more complex by the need to take account of international scientific predictions for global climate change and sea-level rise which will further impact on these coasts. The idea for this book arose from a meeting of coastal scientists in Kobe, Japan in May 2003. The meeting was organized by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), an inter-governmental network, comprising 21 member countries, for the promotion of global change research and links between science and policy making in the region.

Most of the world’s population lives close to the coast and is highly dependent on coastal resources, which are being exploited at unsustainable rates. These resources are being subject to further pressures associated with population increase and the globalization of coastal resource demand. This is particularly so for the Asia-Pacific region which contains almost two thirds of the world’s population and most of the world’s coastal megacities. The region has globally important atmospheric and oceanic phenomena, which affect world climate such as the Asian Monsoon and the El-Niño Southern Oscillation phenomena. The Asia-Pacific region also has highly significant marine diversity but over the last few decades, coastal resources such as mangroves, coral reefs and fisheries have experienced large-scale depletion. The need to find appropriate management solutions to these and other coastal issues is made more complex by the need to take account of international scientific predictions for global climate change and sea-level rise which will further impact on these coasts. The idea for this book arose from a meeting of coastal scientists in Kobe, Japan in May 2003. The meeting was organized by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), an inter-governmental network, comprising 21 member countries, for the promotion of global change research and links between science and policy making in the region.

Groundwater management and conservation becomes a more and more important issue in the heavily urbanized coastal zones of the Asia-Pacific region. This volume presents a comprehensive overview of the status of coastal groundwater research in this diverse region. It includes latest methodologies and technologies to assess processes associated with coastal groundwater development. Case studies and local examples from a broad geographical range of continental shoreline and island settings give an understanding of the diversity of coastal aquifers and the groundwater recourses they harbour. Audience: By providing a clearer understanding of the hydrogeological and hydrochemical processes, this volume offers a critical tool to coastal researchers, geoscientists in related fields, water engineers, groundwater managers and decision makers as it illustrates the human and environmental impacts on coastal groundwater resources and the relationship to coastal zone management strategies and the development of sustainable management approaches.

The lack of an integrated approach in coastal zone management is still a key issues. It has led to coastal habitats being increasingly degraded through pollution and natural resources being overexploited with growing conflicts between competing resources users. This publication addresses the issues related to national emerging policy initiatives and efforts towards integrated coastal zone management and the status and prospects of subregional cooperation in coastal management and non-living resources assessment in Asia and the Pacific, and presents a regional action program.--Publisher's description.