Author(s)

C. Borrego

Abstract

The coastal zone, including estuaries and the continental shelf and slope, represents about 15% of the ocean surface and less than 0.5% of the world ocean volume. Despite this limited importance in terms of area and volume, the coastal zone is a major component in global budgets and global resources availability and utilization. Today, over half of humanity, or over 3 billion people, lives on or within 60 kilometers of sea coast. Effective sustainable management strategies in such areas require a special ability to think beyond tradicional sectoral divisions between different types of resources and human activities. For this purpose, more and better quantitative information and data are needed ; the case study of "Ria de Aveiro" is a contribution to identify the causes of inefficient coastal zone management

Keywords