Coastal geomorphic systems provide many services of key importance to humankind, including protection from flood and erosion hazards, diverse habitats and amenity values (Agardy et al., 2005; Jones et al., 2011). However, these systems are widely undergoing degradation that can be substantially attributed to the cumulative direct and indirect effects of human interference. Declining sediment in...

In most developing coastal countries, the artisanal fisheries sector is managed as a common pool resource. As a result, such fisheries are overcapitalized and overfished. In Ghana, in addition to anthropogenic factors, there is evidence of rising coastal temperature and its variance, which could impact the environmental carrying capacity of the fish stock. This study investigates the effect of ...

Global climate change is expected to affect temperature and precipitation patterns, oceanic and atmospheric circulation, rate of rising sea level, and the frequency, intensity, timing, and distribution of hurricanes and tropical storms. The magnitude of these projected physical changes and their subsequent impacts on coastal wetlands will vary regionally. Coastal wetlands in the southeastern Un...

The structure of many marine ecosystems has changed substantially during recent decades, as a result of overexploitation, climate change and eutrophication. Despite of the apparent ecological and economical importance of coastal areas and communities, this aspect has received relatively little attention in coastal systems. Here we assess the temporal development of zoobenthos communities in two...

There is a pressing need to assess resilience of coastal ecosystems against sea level rise. To develop appropriate response strategies against future climate disturbances, it is important to estimate the magnitude of disturbances that these ecosystems can absorb and to better understand their underlying processes. Hammocks (petenes) coastal ecosystems are highly vulnerable to sea level rise lin...

The many sheltered embayments, riverine estuaries and drowned river valleys of temperate eastern Australia support a large area and a wide diversity of coastal wetlands. This region also supports over one-half of the country’s population and includes its major tourist and industrial centres. The story of Cinderella provides an excellent simile for the status of coastal wetlands in this region o...

The climate of the New York metropolitan region is changing—annual temperatures are hotter, heavy downpours are increasingly frequent, and the sea is rising. These trends, which are also occurring in many parts of the world, are projected to continue and even worsen in the coming decades due to higher concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere caused by burning of fossil fuels ...

Although human activity is considered to be a major driving force affecting the distribution and dynamics of Mediterranean ecosystems, the full consequences of projected climate variability and relative sea-level changes on fragile coastal ecosystems for the next century are still unknown. It is unclear how these waterfront ecosystems can be sustained, as well as the services they provide, when...

Tourism can play a decisive role in addressing climate change, as it is one of the world’s largest economic sectors. Chumbe Island Coral Park in Zanzibar, Tanzania, is a leading example of a small eco-tourism enterprise with not-for-profit objectives that is managing and conserving the unique marine and terrestrial ecosystems of Chumbe Island, and both directly and indirectly responding to the ...

Communities worldwide are increasingly affected by natural hazards such as floods, droughts, wildfires and storm-waves. However, the causes of these increases remain underexplored, often attributed to climate changes or changes in the patterns of human exposure. This paper aims to quantify the effect of climate change, as well as land cover change, on a suite of natural hazards. Changes to four...