COASTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - ANALYZING ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE UK COAST

Littoral areas of the British Isles present an array of properties and features which have long been exploited by human populations and have contributed to the wealth and the quality of life of the nation. Past and ongoing differentiation in uses of coastal zones has led to confl icts ranging from deleterious effects on supporting ecosystems to symb iosis with human activities. This paper aims to elicit the main forces influencing the development of coastal areas and the means available to assess the present use and manage future exploitation of the coasta l zone, following the P-S-I-R Framework and an ecosystem function-base d valuation methodology. A variety of pressures and their trends is an alysed (climate change, population and tourism changes, port developme nt, hydrocarbon and marine aggregate extraction and pollution). Al the se factors are examined in the context of the sustainable use of coast al resources and on the basis of an interdisciplinary ecological econo mics approach.