Close to one-half of all Americans live in coastal counties. The resulting flood of wastewater, stormwater, and pollutants discharged into coastal waters is a major concern. This book offers a well-delineated approach to integrated coastal management beginning with wastewater and stormwater control. The committee presents an overview of current management practices and problems. The core of the volume is a detailed model for integrated coastal management, offering basic principles and methods, a direction for moving from general concerns to day-to-day activities, specific steps from goal setting through monitoring performance, and a base of scientific and technical information. Success stories from the Chesapeake and Santa Monica bays are included. The volume discusses potential barriers to integrated coastal management and how they may be overcome and suggests steps for introducing this concept into current programs and legislation. This practical volume will be important to anyone concerned about management of coastal waters: policymakers, resource and municipal managers, environmental professionals, concerned community groups, and researchers, as well as faculty and students in environmental studies.

This manual presents information on wastewater management practices for coastal cities and the options available for protecting the coastal environment. It reviews the current state of knowledge on the planning, design and construction of ocean outfalls for ultimate disposal in the marine environment. The scope of the manual includes the scientific basis for understanding what happens to wastes discharged into the nearshore marine environment and the implications for appropriate ecological design. It also covers the engineering framework for outfall planning and site selection, hydraulic design of outfall pipelines and diffusers, selection of pipeline material, analysis of on-bottom stability and stresses on pipelines, and determination of shore approaches. Other topics include corrosion control; state of the art in marine outfall construction, trenching, back filling; and construction monitoring and inspection. Finally, consideration is given to performance monitoring for ocean outfalls. The report rounds out the presentation of scientific and technological information with a series of case studies from both developed and developing countries which illustrate the application of these principles under a variety of oceanographic, ecological and socieconomic conditions.

Protection of coastal waters from direct pollution by coastal cities is a vital task in preserving marine ecosystems and promoting human health. This book, edited by two leading experts on wastewater management for coastal cities, delves deeply into the ecological and oceanographic fundamentals that are essential for understanding of what happens to wastes discharged into the nearshore marine environment. It explains the requirements for rational engineering design and operation of the physical and institutional components of coastal city wastewater management, and it provides guidelines for hydraulic design, ocean outfall construction, monitoring, cost recovery, and other economic aspects. Case studies are included, drawn from the editors' worldwide field experience.

Environmental problems in coastal ecosystems can sometimes be attributed to excess nutrients flowing from upstream watersheds into estuarine settings. This nutrient over-enrichment can result in toxic algal blooms, shellfish poisoning, coral reef destruction, and other harmful outcomes. All U.S. coasts show signs of nutrient over-enrichment, and scientists predict worsening problems in the years ahead. Clean Coastal Waters explains technical aspects of nutrient over-enrichment and proposes both immediate local action by coastal managers and a longer-term national strategy incorporating policy design, classification of affected sites, law and regulation, coordination, and communication. Highlighting the Gulf of Mexico's "Dead Zone," the Pfiesteria outbreak in a tributary of Chesapeake Bay, and other cases, the book explains how nutrients work in the environment, why nitrogen is important, how enrichment turns into over-enrichment, and why some environments are especially susceptible. Economic as well as ecological impacts are examined. In addressing abatement strategies, the committee discusses the importance of monitoring sites, developing useful models of over-enrichment, and setting water quality goals. The book also reviews voluntary programs, mandatory controls, tax incentives, and other policy options for reducing the flow of nutrients from agricultural operations and other sources.

Built on an estuary, New York City is rich in population and economic activity but poor in available land to manage the needs of a modern city. Since consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898, New York has faced innumerable challenges, from complex water and waste management issues, to housing and feeding millions of residents in a concentrated area, to dealing with climate change in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, and everything in between. Any consideration of sustainable urbanism requires understanding how cities have developed the systems that support modern life and the challenges posed by such a concentrated population. As the largest city in the United States, New York City is an excellent site to investigate these concerns. Featuring an array of the most distinguished and innovative urban environmental historians in the field, Coastal Metropolis offers new insight into how the modern city transformed its air, land, and water as it grew.