Autumn 07 Coastal Cities

The edge The ma gazine of CoastNet

Au t u m n 2 0 0 7

Coastal cities

US/China Coastal Cities Project

Ecological engineering of seawalls

Climate change and coastal cities

Cultural liaisons in Tokyo

Contents 3

Editorial

4

News pages

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CoastNet – breathing new life into coastal matters

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Coastal metropolis Megacities are more often than not coastal.

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From US to China: coastal city challenges and prospects for sustainability Reporting on the Coastal Cities Project and its recent survey assessing public attitudes towards challenges facing coastal cities in the US and China.

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Coastal populations, urban sprawl and climate change The first study to map urban populations against the low coastal elevation zone, demonstrating the extent of urban settlement on the coast.

Autumn 2007 Coastal cities

The edge is a quarterly magazine, sent out to all CoastNet members. CoastNet is a sustainable development organisation, set up to safeguard the world’s coast and those coastal communities that depend upon it for their future. We work with communities, government and business to put sustainable development into action and believe that the unique complexity of coastal regions requires innovative solutions that reflect a balance between society, environment, and economy. Editor: Lesley Smeardon [email protected] Designed by: Cottier & Sidaway Printed by: Swan Print Submissions To submit an article for publication, please email to the editor saving your submission as a word document. Alternatively, send to the address below. Letters can be sent to the editor but we are unable to acknowledge receipt. The editor reserves the right to edit submissions.

CoastNet: The Gatehouse, Rowhedge Wharf, High St, Rowhedge, Essex, CO5 7ET. Tel/Fax: 01206 728644 Email: [email protected] Web: www.coastnet.org.uk CoastNet is governed by an independent Board of Management and serviced by a Secretariat. Registered charity no 1055763 Registered as a company limited by guarantee, company no 3204452 The opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of CoastNet. © CoastNet, 2007

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Surviving the city – ecological engineering of seawalls A research programme that is re-designing seawalls to improve habitat for intertidal species and ensure species diversity.

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Cultural liaisons – the renaissance of Tokyo Bay Cultural differences in the interpretation of what constitutes good coastal management.

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Editorial Coastal cities Coastal management is about managing human activities: containing the inevitable impact of society, deploying less harmful technologies, and protecting species and habitats from the carelessness of people. In today’s high pressure world, not only is it difficult to keep up with change, but we have difficult choices to make as to where our attention is best focused. One approach is to focus on areas where people are mostly concentrated – where working with people can have the greatest impact – our urban cities. In the past 100 years we have seen urban settlements grow into vast cities. Today, the planet’s megacities (those with over 10 million inhabitants) are home to 16 per cent of the entire world population. By 2020 that is expected to rise to 30 per cent. And many of those cities are located by the coast; of the 10 largest megacities in the world, seven are coastal. One person in 10 worldwide, including one in eight citydwellers, lives less than 10 metres above sea-level and near the coast – an ‘at-risk zone’ for flooding and stronger storms exacerbated by climate change. By 2050 it is estimated that over 2.75 billion

(2,750 million) people will be exposed to coastal threats. So how do we reach these billions of people so that we can work together to improve coastal resource use? How do we grab their attention and engage action? Obviously the risks posed by coastal flooding provide a powerful attention grabber, which will trigger recent memories of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. But the issue is not just about risks to people from the environment, but also about the risks people pose for themselves through their contribution to environmental degradation. In CoastNet’s recent conference Climate Change at the Coast – a very visible truth we heard about the complex interactions between public health and coastal environmental quality. Natural resources are being depleted, natural chemical cycles are being disturbed and enormous quantities of waste are being generated, including toxic chemicals,

radiation and heat. It is this integrated impact that is leading to changes in biodiversity and damage to ecosystem structure and function. It threatens one of the world’s most important sources of protein – seafood – which a billion people depend on for their main food source. Huge challenge though it is, we must grapple with the complexities and scale of communicating with the urban populace as a priority. The key messages concern interactions – carbon footprint and environmental risk; pollution, hydrological cycle, ecosystem services, such as food production/human health. We should endeavour to show how each individual has a role to play in lessening the harmful effects of society on our coastal resources and on ourselves.

Alex Midlen, Strategic Director

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N ew s CoastNet awarded BIG Lottery Small Grant A BIG Lottery Small Grant Programme has been awarded to CoastNet to produce a report on understanding key environmental and socio-political drivers in the Gulf States and North Africa in relation to coastal management, and climate change impacts. It plans to network those involved in coastal management and provide communication and information tools. Practitioners in the region will then be able to navigate international and national institutional frameworks better and work towards better integration of research, policy and practice. A written review of published reports and statistics undertaken by CoastNet staff will be available in due course. For more information contact: Alex Midlen: [email protected]

Scoping study on potential for sustainable fisheries CoastNet has been commissioned to prepare a scoping study for WWF on the potential for sustainable fisheries in the Thames Estuary. More information contact: Theresa Redding [email protected]

Marine education The development of a Marine Educators Network has been one of CoastNet’s targets this year. The initial stage was to collect feedback from a variety of people involved in all aspects of marine education. We are now collating all comments to feed into the next stage of development. To join the network or find out more details please send an email to [email protected]

ICZM in the North Sea Region CoastNet attended one of the first meetings for the new EU Interreg IV programme, to promote a strategic ICZM project for the North Sea Region. The workshop, held in Stavanger in Norway on 20th and 21st August, considered coastal, marine and maritime issues of transnational relevance, with the objective of assisting in partnership and project development. See http://northsearegion.eu/ivb/events/ show/&tid=21 for workshop report and presentations

CoastNet Conference programme for 2008 Details of all our conferences will appear on www.coastnet.org.uk. Next conference is in London on February 2008 on strategic environmental assessment. For more information contact: Christine Punter: [email protected]

Evaluating the Encora Portal CoastNet is an active partner in the Encora project (www.encora.eu), which aims to coordinate research for coastal management. We have been particularly busy with an interim evaluation of the Encora Portal, a web-based resource. make the portal a real reference for sharing knowledge and ideas in coastal management.

What we found out about the Encora Portal The Encora Portal incorporates a content search function, the Coastal Wiki and is linked to CoastWeb. After interviewing nearly 50 coastal scientists, practitioners and policy makers from all the Encora partner countries, we found there was much common ground when it comes to expectations for the Encora – Coastal Portal

In the short term, a number of actions are already taking place such as online explanations for users, making the contact database editable by users, uploading relevant documents for each nation. A total redesign of the website is also being considered.

According to users, we need comprehensive and quality information and signposting to

To make a real difference we need to tell others within our organisations and networks about the Encora

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project and portal. We also need coastal organisations to use and contribute good quality information to the Wiki or the CoastWeb library. Keep a lookout for a new checklist: “tips for promoting encora”, that will be made available online very soon.

For further information about contributing contact: [email protected] All evaluation findings can be found at www.encora.eu/documents.php

N ew s East of England coastal activity CoastNet has recently undertaken a scoping study for the East of England regarding current coastal activity, the national ICZM programme and its implications for East of England. The study among other things revealed complex management arrangements: many management bodies with overlapping responsibilities and jurisdictions, and a wide range of stakeholders. An executive summary can be found on the CoastWeb library: http://library.coastweb.info/967/

Also in the news ● China to build the country’s first ecocity on the coast China is to start building the country's first eco-city in the new year and plans four other radical new urban developments as it seeks to tackle pollution. Construction is to start in early 2008 at Dongtan, a development on an island outside Shanghai where all energy will be renewable and no petrolfuelled cars permitted. http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstor y.cfm?newsid=44223&newsdate=10-Sep2007 ● Chinese coastal city in top 10 most polluted places in the world Coastal city Tianjin, in the Anhui Province of China which produces about 50 per cent of the country’s lead has found itself in the top 10 most polluted places on the planet for the first time. A lack of environmental enforcement has resulted in severe lead poisoning with soil and homes contaminated at levels 10 to 24 times China’s national standards.

The 10 sites were documented in the World’s Worst Polluted Places 2007 http://www.planetark.com/index_uk. cfm ● Belgium to build first zero emission polar station in the Antarctic Belgium is to build the first ever zero emission polar station in the Antarctic, powered by solar panels and wind turbines and designed to have minimal impact on the climate change that is being studied by its scientists. All waste will be recycled and fossil fuel will only be used for back up systems. http://www.planetark.com/index_uk.cfm ● Coastal oceans most affected by acid rain The release of sulphur and nitrogen into the atmosphere by power plants and agricultural activities, commonly referred to as acid rain, plays a minor role in making the ocean more acidic on a global scale, but the impact is greatly amplified in the shallower waters of the

coastal oceans, according to new research. http://www.nsf.gov/ ● LA ranked most polluted US city Los Angeles has in 2007 been ranked the most polluted US city in the nation for all categories in a recent report. Other cities ranking among the worst for smog include several in southern California, as well as other large coastal cities of Houston and, New York. http://www.citymayors.com/environm ent/polluted_uscities.html ● Typhoon is biggest to hit Tokyo since 2002 A typhoon that hit Tokyo in August was the largest to hit since 2002, bringing down a record rainfall in many parts of the coastal capital. The typhoon snarled up transport and power supplies. http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsst ory.cfm?newsid=44237&newsdate=10Sep-2007

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Webwise – Coastal cities

Coastal metropolis Megacities of the world (10 million+ inhabitants), have soared from two (Tokyo, New York) in 1950, to 20 in 2005 (UN Population Division, 2005). And of those 10 largest megacities in the world, seven are coastal (see Table 1). City coastal living has never been so popular. The benefits to settlers of a coastal location are immense: transport trading routes, plentiful food and water resources,

international trading, natural resources to name a few. Add to that the fact that our coastal cities represent some of the most culturally-rich and diverse settlements in the world and are centres, not only of communication, finance and government but also creative and artistic magnets, it’s not difficult to understand the urban coastal appeal.

Table 1: World’s top 10 largest megacities

City

Country

Coastal/Inland

Population, millions

1 Tokyo 2 Mexico City 3 New York 4 Sáo Paulo 5 Mumbai 6 Delhi 7 Shanghai 8 Kolkata (Calcutta)

Japan Mexico USA Brazil India India China India

Coastal Inland Coastal Inland Coastal Inland Coastal Coastal

35.2 19.4 18.7 18.3 18.2 15.0 14.5 14.3

9 Jakarta

Indonesia

Coastal

13.2

10 Buenos Aires

Argentina

Coastal

12.6

Worldwide City mayors and city flooding www.citymayors.com/environment/flooded_citi es.html Cities and oceans Good general resource www.thew2o.net/events/cities_oceans

Europe New Epoc port cities network www.new-epoc.net/project-cities Information, expertise and guidelines related to the regeneration process of port cities. MEDOCC SPACE Network www.eukn.org Search ‘MEDOCC space network’ Promotes a network of coastal cities, universities and agencies in Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal. Croatia Coastal Cities Pollution Control Project www.web.worldbank.org Search under ‘Projects and operations’ Improving the quality of Croatia’s Adriatic coastal waters to meet EU environmental requirements.

USA Urban Coasts Theme Team Identifying research needs related to urban coasts along US marine and Great Lake waters. www.usc.edu/org/seagrant/UrbanCoasts/ Coastal Cities Project (see page 7) www.ruf.rice.edu/~soci/corrul/coastalcities.html

Source: UN Population newsletter, June 2006 Today, however, coastal cities face a hugely complex task of balancing all those socioeconomic goals (quality of life, tourism, ports, transport, housing etc) with the need to offset the effects of such development and preserve and conserve that which has made the coast unique and desirable in the first place. Pollution, human health, water management, species and habitat conservation, planning, mitigation and adaptation to climate change are just a few of those challenges. In this issue of The edge we have looked at four projects that are grappling with the coastal city phenomenon.

Assessing public attitudes towards challenges for coastal cities Amy Jaffe reports on the sociologicallybased Coastal Cities Project, currently working with various research institutions in China and the US to understand current public attitudes towards the challenges facing major coastal cities in both countries – Page 7

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Climate change Gordon McGranahan reports on research that for the first time, maps the location of low-lying, coastal urban centres around the world, clearly highlighting how many of our most densely populated cities will be increasingly threatened by climate change due to their positioning in the coastal zone – Page 10.

Species diversity Gee Chapman, reports on research at Sydney Harbour which is looking at ways to minimise the impacts of shoreline development on other species diversity – Page 12.

Coastal management in Tokyo Bay Steve Fletcher explores some coastal management tensions present in the largest megacity in the world, Tokyo – Page 14.

Asia Reducing megacity impacts on the coastal environment. Final report from the Unesco project re waste management in Jakarta and the Seribu Islands www.unesco.or.id/images/pub/publications/20_ paper6_reducingmegacity.pdf

Australia Cities project Perth www.ga.gov.au/urban/projects/nrap/perth_repor t.jsp Report on completed natural hazard risk assessment project based in metropolitan Perth. Urban Stormwater Initiative (USI) www.environment.gov.au/coasts/pollution/usi/ index.html Reports from the Initiative tackling water quality in the waterways of major coastal cities by improving stormwater management. Centre for research on ecological impacts of coastal cities (see page 12) www.eicc.bio.usyd.edu.au/projects/

From US to China: coastal city challenges and prospects for sustainability Whether in New York or Shanghai, coastal cities around the globe are beginning to recognise the shared problems they face and the opportunities for joint working. Amy Jaffe, of the Coastal Cities project at Rice University, Houston reports on the most recent findings of a joint US/Chinese survey assessing public attitudes towards the major challenges facing their coastal cities.

Half of all humanity lives in or close to a coastal city. Currently over 50 per cent of Americans in the USA live in coastal counties, a figure projected to increase to 75 per cent by 2025. In China, it is much the same. Of its current one billion plus population, over 55 per cent reside in the coastal provinces and coastal cities of Shanghai and Tianjin. But whether in New York or Shanghai these coastal people will surely be the ones most severely affected by some of the 21st century’s most pressing problems: global warming, violent weather, dangerous pollution. Now, coastal cities around the globe are beginning to recognise that they have much in common with one another – perhaps more than with other areas within their own countries. This has given rise to cross-country coastal city studies, of which one is currently up and running at Rice University's Shell Center for Sustainability. Here, they are working with various research institutions

in China and the US to assess the challenges facing these major, low-lying estuary metropoles.

The challenge of climate change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that the global mean sea level has risen at an average rate of 1 to 2 mm during the 20th century with a further projected rise of 0.05 to 0.32 m between 1990 and 2050. Populations that inhabit small islands or low-lying coastal areas, according to the IPCC, “are at particular risk of severe social and economic effects from sea level rise and storm surges.” Given the reality of global warming, coastal populations around the world will face severe challenges to their sustainability in the decades to come. Coastal cities are

particularly vulnerable to the long-term effects of warming, such as sea-level rise, flooding, air pollution, and severe storms. In addition, as industrial and commercial centres, many such cities are major contributors in their own right to high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore face the prospects of greater regulation and economic dislocation. The challenges facing the world’s largest coastal cities are very worrisome, notes Rice University sociologist Michael Emerson who is leading the study. “As populations of these industrialised coastal cities rise dramatically through immigration, policy leaders are going to have to address worsening environmental conditions and social dislocations stemming from rapid demographic changes,” Michael Emerson points out. “This is on top of the looming challenge being posed by severe storms.”

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Public attitudes towards coastal challenges The Shell Center for Sustainability at Rice University has begun a research programme on coastal cities which seeks to assess the dimensions of the challenges facing major, low-lying estuary metropoles. In its first phase, the study focuses on major US and Chinese coastal cities with a large petrochemical industrial base, including Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen. Initial research activities included the development of a comprehensive and fully comparable survey of public attitudes and beliefs, conducted jointly in the United States and China. In all, 3,000 adults were surveyed, 500 from each coastal city. Science and public opinion converge to intimate that important challenges face these coastal petro-economies. Their geography makes them particularly vulnerable to the long-term effects of

climate change, but in their initial survey research, the Rice University coastal cities group found that 70 per cent of Chinese respondents and over 75 per cent of Americans believed that sea level rise did not pose a serious problem for their city. In contrast, a substantial majority of respondents from the same cities believed that air pollution was a very serious challenge and were concerned about the effects of air pollution on their families’ health. Even in the face of the recent hurricanes, Rita and Katrina, only 33 per cent of Americans considered severe storms and flooding to be a serious challenge for their municipality while it was over 40 per cent for the Chinese respondents. More than 80 per cent of the Americans surveyed believed that normal activities, such as driving cars and running air conditioners contribute to harming the environment, but this was the case for only 56 per cent of the Chinese.

The coastal cities under study face rapidly-growing populations, with the associated increases in energy demand and human footprints and impacts including air and water pollution, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and run-off wastes. Sustainability and the prospect for future growth for such coastal cities may therefore depend on greater regulation of production systems, energy resources, and standards for health and environmental impact. The vast majority of Americans and over half of the Chinese respondents supported tighter environmental controls on urban development. In assessing the prospects for such regulation and for the development of grassroots movements, the research also measured the reported participation of citizens in pro-environmental behaviours and found that only a small number of respondents had actively participated in

Five problems endemic to coastal cities FLOODING

SEVERE STORMS

AIR POLLUTION

The increase of extreme weather events is likely to intensify existing water and control problems in many coastal megacities. The concreting and channeling of surface water has increased problems of run-off and flooding while increased salinity will likely become a problem in coastal aquifers and estuarine systems, threatening coastal agriculture, industrial plants and potable water systems. Existing structural solutions such as levies, bayous, and barriers and protection will need to be supplemented or replaced by nonstructural flood alleviation strategies and flood plain management policy.

Global warming specialists predict that the occurrence of severe storms will increase in the coming decades. Warming ocean temperatures and sea level rise will make coastlines in our densely populated coastal cities particularly vulnerable in the future.

Coastal cities tend to attract industrial plants and petrochemical industries because of their excellent access to ports. This creates special challenges for regulating air quality, as seen in many US coastal cities, including Los Angeles, Houston, and New York, where air quality remains a major challenge. In China, nearly 45 per cent of cities being monitored (numbering more than 300) for air pollution couldn’t attain national ambientair-quality standards.

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community environmental projects while a majority said they had purchased household appliances based on their environmental qualities such as energy efficiency. Americans were far more likely to say that they had avoided buying or using environmentally-damaging products than the Chinese respondents. Level of education appeared to be a factor in increasing the likelihood of American participation in pro-environmental activity, whereas the opposite was true in China. Upwardly mobile, more educated Chinese were less likely to report participation in pro-environmental activity than their less educated counterparts.

The geography of coastal cities, such as New York and Shanghai pictured here, makes them particularly vulnerable to the long-term effects of climate change. But initial findings from the coastal cities research, discovered that 70 per cent of Chinese respondents and over 75 per cent of Americans believed that sea level rise did not pose a serious problem for their city.

Researchers from Rice University plan to analyse the survey data to develop specific studies to explain the incidence with which individuals report participating in actions that assist the sustainability of the environment. These behaviours include: support for public policies designed to reduce global warming, joining environmental groups and working with others and engaging in personal behaviours that support and sustain the environment (eg, using mass transit, purchasing environmentally-friendly consumer products). Additional research will focus on how best to organise government for implementing policies designed to sustain and improve the environment. The goal of the Rice University Coastal Cities programme is to foster international dialogue and cooperation in finding solutions to the major challenges of sustainable development for the world’s largest coastal cities. It is hoped that the programme will be expanded over time to include other important international cities in Latin America and elsewhere.

About the project CONGESTION

ETHNIC TENSION

Population density in coastal cities is expected to rise significantly in the coming decades leading to massive congestion along crowded roadways. Congestion already causes more than 3.7 billion hours of travel delay each year in the US, according to the Texas Transportation Institute with the figure continuing to increase year on year. In China, it is much the same with the daily traffic volume in Beijing growing by 20 per cent a year. Holistic design will be a major tool to alleviate growing congestion problems in coastal cities.

With increasing coastal city populations and a continuing influx of immigrants to port communities in search of jobs, the complexities of local racial and ethnic relations increases. Coastal cities will need to find ways to manage growing diversity, minimise harmful conflicts, harness the positives that come from population dynamism, and concentrate on quality education for all children. Doing so will require extensive cooperation across people groups.

The project is a research partnership between the Shell Center for Sustainability, the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life (CORRUL), the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, and Horizon Survey Research of Beijing in China in relationship with Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) and other Chinese institutions. For a copy of the survey and more information about the study visit http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~soci/corrul/coast alcities.html Amy Jaffe is Project Coordinator of the Coastal Cities Project at Rice University, Houston Michael Emerson is Principal Investigator of the Coastal Cities Project

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Coastal populations, urban sprawl and climate change

by climate change and points to an urgent need for mitigation and adaptation policies. By Gordon McGranahan, Deborah Balk and Bridget Anderson Coastal settlement is both environmentally damaging and environmentally vulnerable. Climate change, which will bring sea level rise and greater storm intensity, amplifies the risks of coastal settlement. Yet coastal zones are densely settled and growing rapidly. The low elevation coastal zone (LECZ – defined as contiguous coastal land less than

While the small island states have by far the largest share of land in the zone, their population percentages are not exceptional. This is in part because some of the most populous small island states have comparatively little settlement in the low elevation areas, but is also because small island states do not have large rivers, creating flat and fertile deltas. Regional averages hide considerable national variation, and the 10 countries with the most people living in the zone (Figure 1) together account for about 463 million people, or about 73 per cent of the people who live in the zone globally. These countries are generally populous, and contain large and densely populated delta

Table 1: Population and Land Area in Low Elevation Coastal Zone by Region – 2000

Shares of region’s population and land in LECZ Region

Total population

Urban population

(%) Africa Asia Europe Latin America Australia and New Zealand North America Small Island States World

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Total land

(%) 7 13 7 6 13 8 13 10

Urban land

(%) 12 18 8 7 13 8 13 13

(%) 1 3 2 2 2 3 16 2

7 7 13 6 13 8

J ap an Egy pt U S A T ha ilan d P hil ipph ines

increasingly threatened

Figure 2 shows countries with the highest population shares in the zone (excluding those with total populations of less than 100,000 or land areas less than 100 square kilometres). Three of these: Vietnam, Bangladesh and Egypt, are also among the countries with the largest overall populations in the zone. Figure 2: Ten countries with highest population shares in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone

population share in zone, %

our urban cities will be

160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 I ndi a B an g lad esh V ie tna m I ndo nes ia

As illustrated in Table 1, about two-thirds of the population in this zone is in Asia. But even in Africa, with only one per cent of its land in the zone, and a comparatively high share of the population engaged in agriculture, still 12 per cent of the urban population live in the zone.

highlights how many of

Figure 1: Ten countries with largest populations in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone

C hi na

around the world, clearly

areas, many of which are also susceptible to subsidence, and already have large populations at risk from storm surges.

,000 people in zone

coastal urban centres

10 metres in altitude) only accounts for about two per cent of the world’s land area, but contains 10 per cent of the total population, and 13 per cent of the urban population.

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

B ah ama s S ur inam e N et her land s V ie tna m G uy ana B an g lad esh D j ib out i B el ize Egy pt T he G am b ia

The mapping of low-lying

All but two of the countries are of low or lower-middle income, a concern from a vulnerability perspective. This is somewhat surprising, given that urban settlements are generally more coastal

than rural, and it is more wealthy countries that are more urban.

Climbing coastal city populations ● The LECZ accounts for two per cent of the world’s land area but contains 13 per cent of the urban population. ● Worldwide, urban populations are more likely to be in the LECZ than rural populations. And it is the larger urban settlements (those with populations over 100,000) that are the most likely to extend into the coastal zone

In the world as a whole, but most notably in Asia, not only are urban populations more likely to be in the LECZ than rural populations, but larger urban settlements are more likely to overlap with the LECZ than smaller urban settlements. While only 13 per cent of urban settlements with populations under 100,000 overlap with the LECZ, this rises to 65 per cent among cities of five million or more. Of the 10 largest cities identified in 2005 by the United Nations, seven (Tokyo, New York, Mumbai (Bombay), Shanghai, Kolkata (Calcutta), Jakarta and Buenos Aires) extend into the zone. Indeed, about 55 million people in these cities and their contiguous urban areas live in the zone. Perhaps even more striking, of the 183 countries with people living in the LECZ, 130 have their most populous urban area extending into the zone.

clearly a driver, movements towards the coastal zone are evident, with a total population growth rate of 1.2 per cent, growth in the zone of 2.1 per cent and growth in the urban population in the zone of 2.8 per cent.

Continued urbanisation is in danger of drawing still greater populations and population shares into the low elevation coastal zone. In China, where export-driven economic growth has been associated with very rapid coastal migration, national population growth between 1990 and 2000 was approximately one per cent, while growth in the low elevation coastal zone was 1.9 per cent, and of urban populations in the zone was 3.4 per cent. Even in Bangladesh, where urbanisation is not so

Looking to the future, responses to the growing risks in coastal settlements brought on by climate change will need to include each of the three Ms – mitigation, migration and modification – all of which have a long lead-time. Low income groups, who often settle the flood plains, are most at risk. These same groups are most at risk from hastily constructed government policies. All this points to the need for timely action – starting now.

100K-500K

500K-1Mil

Dr Gordon McGranahan is at the International Institute for Environment and Development, London. Deborah Balk is at Baruch College, City University of New York. Bridget Anderson is at the New York City Department of Sanitation

This study integrates recently-developed spatial databases of finely resolved global population distribution, urban extents, and elevation data to produce country-level estimates of urban land area and population in LECZ (low elevation coastal zones). By overlaying geographic data layers, the population and land area in each country, in its LECZ are calculated and summarised by country, region, and economic grouping. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data was used to delineate a LECZ including land area contiguous with the coast up to 10 metres in elevation. Urban extents were taken from Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network’s Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). These urban extents were primarily delineated using NOAA’s night-time lights satellite data (city lights 1994-95), and represent urban agglomerations including surrounding suburban areas. Population and land area were also taken from GRUMP. All data are expressed at 1km resolution. Figure 3 illustrates, for the Bay of Bengal region of Bangladesh, the data layers with which the calculations were made.

Urban Extents, by Population Size, 2000 5K-100K

Information contained in this article is summarised from Gordon McGranahan, Deborah Balk and Bridget Anderson (2007), ‘The rising tide: assessing the risks of climate change and human settlements in low elevation coastal zones’, Environment and Urbanization, Vol 19, No 1, pages 17-37.

Methodology

BANGLADESH: Bay of Bengal Coastal Region

Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ)

● Of the 10 largest cities in the world, seven extend into the coastal zone – amounting to 55 million people. ● 183 countries have people living in the LECZ – 130 of those have their most populous urban area extending into the zone. ● In China national population growth between 1990 and 2000 was approximately one per cent, while growth of urban populations in the LECZ was 3.4 per cent.

1Mil-5Mil

5Mil+

Administrative Boundaries (Thana)

NOTE: LECZ layer has been made semi-transparent to show the underlying layers. Thus the blue colour is not uniform.

BANGLADESH: Bay of Bengal Coastal Region

For access to the data and related publications, see: http://sedac.ciesin.org/gpw/lecz.jsp

Urban Extents, by Population Size, 2000 5K-100K

100K-500K

Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ)

500K-1Mil

1Mil-5Mil

5Mil+

Administrative Boundaries (Thana)

NOTE: LECZ layer has been made semi-transparent to show the underlying layers. Thus the blue colour is not uniform.

Figure 3: Map of Bangladesh identifying low elevation coastal zone and urban extents

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Surviving the city Cities may be vibrant and culturally-diverse places to live for people, yet increasing urbanisation can have profound effects on other species diversity. Shoreline development remains inevitable but are there ways to minimise its impact? Gee Chapman, Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of Sydney discusses a new research programme that is re-designing seawalls in favour of intertidal species in and around Sydney Harbour.

A As the human population increases, so do the number and sizes of cities across the world. Urbanisation has major impacts on environments, with loss and fragmentation of habitat, changes in diversity of species and increasing levels of contamination causing concern throughout the world. What has largely been ignored until recently is the effects of urbanisation and coastal development on marine, in contrast to terrestrial, habitats. Most research has focused on resource extraction (primarily seafood) or effects of pollution but there has also been considerable intertidal habitat loss associated with urbanisation, with concern generally limited to vegetated habitats such as wetlands, coastal marshes and mangrove forests.

The creation of artificial habitats Some of the major changes to intertidal areas in urbanised areas are due to the proliferation of built structures, such as vertical walls, pontoons, bridges and wharves. These replace natural habitat producing unusual environmental conditions (eg continuously deeply shaded areas) and creating novel habitats (eg large floating structures). Nevertheless, many species do live on or around artificial shorelines, leading to some level of complacency about their environmental impacts. Our research programme not only looks at the effects of replacing natural shores with artificial habitats, particularly intertidal seawalls, but, more importantly, trials different methods of building walls to evaluate ways which may support greater diversity of intertidal species. Early work in the programme has shown that intertidal assemblages living on

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seawalls in Sydney Harbour (Australia) are different from those living on or nearby natural rocky shores. Research has also identified types of organisms that are least likely to be found on the walls, including rare species dependent on particular habitats absent from vertical walls (eg rockpools or the undersurfaces of boulders), and many animals that are common and widespread on rocky shores, such as sea urchins, starfish and many species of coiled snails. Many of these organisms interact in ways that are important in structuring the assemblage, eg grazing animals that prevent seaweeds from monopolising space, or predatory animals that control numbers of barnacles and other sessile animals.

B

A better design for greater diversity Research is now focussing on building seawalls in such a way to provide ‘better’ habitat to support a wider range of species than are normally found on vertical, featureless walls. It considers three major ways that seawalls differ from natural shores. 1 Most natural rocky shores in and around Sydney Harbour are very gently sloping (almost horizontal), whereas seawalls are vertical or very steeply sloping. Slope is known to affect diversity of intertidal and subtidal animals and plants. 2 Changing from a gently- to a steeplysloping substratum reduces available intertidal area from many tens of metres across to about two metres, depending on local tidal effects and wave-action. It is known that species diversity is strongly related to area of available habitat, but this small area also crowds together species that are normally widely spaced apart in natural habitats.

C

D

Figure 1 Building novel habitats into seawalls: (A) creating small holes and crevices (B) creating pools using sandbags during repairs (C) custom-made intertidal pools (D) a large rock-pool in the top of the wall.

3 Major habitats (pools, deep crevices, overhangs, boulders) that are important to some species on rocky shores, are missing from seawalls.

Reducing slope, increasing area The programme is now trialling different ways of building walls to change the slope of the wall and/or to add additional habitats to the wall, thanks to an ARC Linkage Grant. To reduce slope and increase area we have created gentlysloping walls using stacked boulders which are not cemented together to replace vertical mortared walls that create a flat featureless surface. These new walls have horizontal and vertical surfaces, with shaded crevices between adjacent boulders. We have similarly built a stepped wall, with alternating vertical and horizontal surfaces, to replace a vertical wall. Although these cannot mimic natural shores, they provide additional intertidal area and both vertical and horizontal surfaces which are each used by different components of the assemblage.

when the bag is removed. More upmarket than this has been a large programme of custom-made pools at different levels at multiple sites in a newly created wall (Figure 1C) and a large intertidal pool built into the top of a seawall (Figure 1D). Although results from this relatively new research programme are still preliminary, habitats such as these do appear to be used by many species not normally found on most seawalls, thus increasing the range of species that can use these artificial structures as habitat.

Conclusion People are not simply going to stop living in coastal cities and large towns, and as a result alterations to shorelines to aid transport will always be inevitable. The need now is for ecologists to not only

research relatively pristine or undeveloped areas, but also to understand the ecological impacts of urbanisation and how best to conserve the species in highly altered and impacted areas. We cannot stop shoreline development in our coastal cities. Instead, we need to understand the ways this development might proceed to minimise its impact. Such work requires interactions among planners, developers, managers, engineers and ecologists – an interaction that is proving very fruitful. Gee Chapman is Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of Sydney and Deputy Director of the Centre for Research on Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities. more information: www.eicc.bio.usyd.edu.au

Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour, Australia.

Creating additional habitats Most of the research is focused on providing additional habitats to the surface of the wall itself. At the simplest level, these include small holes and crevices in the face of the wall and crevices between adjacent blocks (Figure 1A). The holes have not been particularly successful, but the crevices between blocks increased occurrences of many seaweeds and sessile animals, such as sponges, bryozoans and ascidians. At a larger scale, we have created larger pools into the face of the wall by using sandbags to mimic blocks while walls are being built or repaired (Figure 1B). These create small pools that retain water

Shoreline alterations to aid transport are inevitable in coastal cities. The challenge for ecologists, engineers and developers is to understand ways to minimise it’s impact. The edge Autumn 2007

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Cultural liaisons The renaissance of Tokyo Bay An exchange programme between coastal management practitioners and academics from the UK and Japan has highlighted cultural differences in the interpretation of what constitutes good coastal management. Dr Steve Fletcher, from Bournemouth University, looks East in search of answers. Tokyo is by far the largest city in the world with an estimated population of around 35 million (UN Population stats 2005). So large is this figure, that in 2005, the world’s number one megacity could actually boast more residents than the entire country of Kenya (34 million). Undoubtedly the city’s growth and fortunes have been helped by the huge natural resources and maritime positioning of Tokyo Bay.

land, and major infrastructural developments, such as the Aqualine road bridge and tunnel linking the east and west sides of the Bay. Combined with these pressures are management systems that emphasise traditional resource management arrangements, limited opportunities for stakeholder involvement, and a reliance on government to take the lead in key policy and decision-making processes.

exchange visits with the benefits of each visit shared with a wider audience at a seminar held in each country.

Tokyo Bay has, in turn undergone considerable built development around its perimeter, particularly during the post-war period in which Japan experienced considerable economic success. This has included the expansion of the urban areas of both Tokyo and Yokahama, reclamation of large areas of inter-tidal and sub-tidal

With a very different national and urban context than the UK, an exchange programme was set up in the hope that coastal management professionals in both countries would gain inspiration, ideas and solutions through seeing how others work and practice their profession. The programme consisted of two learning

Renaissance of Tokyo’s waterfront

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Having been part of the UK delegation to Tokyo, two key projects from the city served to underline some very fundamental cultural differences discovered between the two countries as to coastal site conservation.

As a result of the large scale reclamation of much of the perimeter of Tokyo Bay, the urban waterfront of Tokyo itself is entirely artificial. Much reclamation has taken the form of small islands separated by narrow channels of open water. The resultant

The regeneration of Tokyo’s canals, while primarily driven by social factors, has also incorporated environmental improvements, such as species re-establishment and habitat creation. waterfront is effectively a network of urbanised canals. In recent years the value of the canals as an attractive waterfront area in its own right has been recognised and steps taken to clean up the area in terms of its aesthetics and environment through the Bay Renaissance Project. Much investment has been focused on this area and it now hosts waterfront walks, cafes and bars, new businesses (including marine training and education agencies) and is an urban safe and attractive place to visit. With little public or NGO pressure for coastal conservation in Japan, however, efforts to improve the environmental quality of the canals, which during the post-war period became polluted and depleted of native species of fish and plants, has been difficult. With a general lack of awareness among the public and government of the need to conserve coastal sites and the notion of ICZM not prominent, the environment has often been seen as one to be exploited, rather than conserved. However the Bay Renaissance Project has sought to engage with local communities, largely through the involvement of children in local schools, to improve environmental conditions. With school children involved in habitat creation and monitoring of species numbers, artificial habitats are now being created as spawning grounds for native fish to encourage their reestablishment.

Coastal conservation and education Over 95 per cent of the coast of Tokyo Bay has been physically altered and immense areas of tidal flats reclaimed. This places

The huge Aqualine road bridge and tunnel, completed in 1998, now links the east and west sides of Tokyo Bay.

particular significance on the remaining tidal flats as both conservation sites and educational resources. Despite the paucity of ‘natural’ sites around Tokyo Bay, conservation legislation is very weak and at present the largest area of tidal flats anywhere around the Bay remains undesignated as a conservation site. The general lack of awareness among the public of the need to conserve coastal sites remains and educational facilities have now been established in the form of a well resourced and staffed study centre. However, the centre primarily focuses on providing educational experiences with a coastal theme for students from visits from schools; it is not focused on public education or interpretation. There is, therefore, a continued lack of opportunity for the residents of Tokyo Bay to access coastal space and learn about coastal issues. During the exchange visits, the two country teams demonstrated very different reactions to the issue of conservation. For the UK team, it was amazing that the Tokyo Bay tide flats were not protected. The Japanese team, however were equally amazed that so much of the UK coast was protected. A country’s cultural values can create very different attitudes towards conservation in a general sense.

The cultural context Tensions evident in the two examples above relate to how nature and the coast specifically are considered within society. It is helpful to consider this by noting the differences and similarities between coastal management in the UK and Japan. Both have a plethora of legislation that makes managing coastal space a complex process and both have highly pressured coastal

areas and limited land area available. In contrast, the UK has an established stakeholder involvement culture that seeks to influence coastal planning and management decisions from local to national levels. This is almost entirely absent in Japan with public or stakeholder

“

It was amazing to the

UK team that the Tokyo Bay tide flats were not protected. It was equally amazing to the Japanese team that so much of the

”

UK coast was protected.

involvement very restricted, limited NGO and little demand for activity, involvement. Instead, many coastal conflicts are resolved through compensation imposed by government. The key underlying difference is one of society and culture, particularly in relation to the role of the state in resource decisions which in Japan is comparatively centrally dominated.

On a wider note, the applicability of sharing experiences between countries should therefore only be considered in a context that is sensitive to prevailing cultural differences. Cultural expectations of what coastal management should be and what constitutes the right management interventions were both challenged in this exchange programme. The role of culture in how coasts are managed, is perhaps far more significant than previous research focus has indicated.

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CoastNet emails: Alex Midlen; [email protected] Theresa Redding; [email protected] Lesley Smeardon; [email protected] Manuela de los Rios; [email protected] Christine Punter; [email protected] Events; [email protected] General; [email protected]

This publication is partially funded through the Corepoint project under the Interrreg 3B Programme. Corepoint aims to establish North West Europe as an internationally recognised region of excellence in coastal management by encouraging full implementation of ICZM, highlighting best practice, providing education by influencing national spatial policies – for further details please see http://corepoint.ucc.ie