Integrating natural and socio-economic science in coastal management

The future more sustainable management of coastal resources is an important policy goal for all governments of countries with coastlines. Coastal area s are under intense environmental change pressure with extensive feedback e ffects between the natural systems and the human systems. It could be argue d that there is just one jointly determined and coevolving system that need s to be studied and managed. Understanding the interactions between the coa stal zone and environmental change cannot be achieved by observational stud ies alone. Modelling of key environmental and socio-economic processes is a vital tool, required to buttress coastal management institutions acid prac tice. Three overlapping procedural stages can be identified in the coastal resource assessment process. The scoping and auditing stage, implemented vi a a 'pressure-state-impact-response framework, details, among other thing, problems, system boundaries and value conflicts. The framework is itself ba sed on a conceptual model, which lays stress on functional value diversity and the links between ecosystem processes, functions and outputs of goods a nd services which are deemed 'valuable' by society. The two subsequent stag es are integrated modelling, combining natural and social science methodolo gies, and evaluation of management options and related gains and losses. An overview of a research project, which utilised the pressure-state-impacts- response (P-S-I-R) framework and supporting concepts and methods, is presen ted in the last section of the paper, together with some generic 'lessons' for interdisciplinary research. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights r eserved.