Industrious Coast - Competing Coastal Industries - Coastnet The Edge Winter 2008 - Coastal Industry

Industrious coast Our oceans and coastal landscapes are home to a huge array of industries competing for the use of the sea. These range from fishing, aquaculture, coastal tourism, maritime transport and extractive industries such as oil and gas and marine aggregates.

With so many industries vying for the right of coastal and/or marine space, a massive challenge for the proposed EU Integrated Maritime Policy will be to address those competing uses of the sea in a way that ensures a sustainable future.

Mineral extraction and construction Mineral extraction from the seabed is big business. The UK’s marine aggregate industry alone provides around 20 million tonnes of sand and gravel each year for construction uses in the UK and Europe. Primarily used to manufacture concrete, it is also used for general building and in beach replenishment. The construction industry is responsible for an incredible 40 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and demand for building and construction continues to grow. Coastal construction remains as popular as ever, even though the associated effects of climate change (storms, flooding, erosion) continue to hit the coast the hardest.

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The edge Winter 2008

For the construction industry, addressing its huge impact, in terms of emissions, on climate change and the materials used in construction will be important for the future. There are small signs that some areas of the industry are making progress. The ‘Make it Right’ project, for example, supported by movie star Brad Pitt, is now rebuilding 150 coastal homes in New Orleans following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 utilising the most sustainable construction practices possible.

Sebastien Dupray from HR Wallingford discusses the impact of climate change on materials used in both natural and man made structures on page 14.

Marine renewables Marine renewables, in the form of wave, tidal and wind energy, have the potential to contribute significantly to worldwide energy demand.

With climate change concerns reaching a critical mass, the pressure on marine spatial planning to accommodate demand from this sector is likely to grow significantly in future years. Projects, such as the one led by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), to quantify and spatially map the potential wave, tidal and offshore wind resource at a regional scale across the UK Continental Shelf, should help to assist decision makers in licensing marine renewable technologies.

Offshore oil and gas Sixty per cent of the world’s petroleum production comes from global offshore operations. The International Energy Agency in its World Outlook series predicts world energy demand will increase by up to 50 per cent by 2030 and with such an increase in energy demand, offshore operations are moving into deeper waters, some reaching depths of over 8,000 feet. This continues to have impacts on the marine environment as demand makes extraction in less accessible places a profitable concern.

Shipping and ports Carbon emissions from shipping, traditionally seen as small in comparison to other forms of transport, are growing fast although these are not yet included in the

Kyoto Protocol and remain largely unregulated. According to a recent report in The Independent, the global shipbuilding industry is “in the midst of its biggest boom ever with the numbers of tankers and bulk carriers expected to increase by 50 per cent by 2012”. There seems little indication that the shipping industry, and by association ports, will do anything other than grow over the new few years. This is not surprising given that ships and tankers (around 90,000 in total) currently transport over 90 per cent of all goods traded worldwide.

The International Maritime Organisation gives its perspective on shipping on page 8.

Tourism and leisure industry Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world and the coastal zone is, for many countries, the focus of their tourism industry. Climate change and its associated impacts: increased storminess, flooding, sea level rise, heatwaves and coastal erosion will all have an impact on the coastal landscape and the tourism industry. Some small island states, almost wholly dependent economically on tourism, are particularly at risk from the threat of climate change.

Coastal tourism also presents an opportunity to engage the public on issues related to the marine and coastal landscape. Marine conservation has typically been a focus, but increasingly more integrated issues, such as the impact of climate change and coastal industry on the oceans, as well as the part lifestyle choices can have on both, are being explored.

Paul Cox, from the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, UK discusses marine interpretation in this wider context. On page 12.

Fishing Overfishing, pirate fishing, quotas, marine protected areas, sea pollution and now global warming are just some of the absolutely crucial issues surrounding the fishing industry today. With more than 75 per cent of all fisheries either fully exploited or heading for meltdown according to a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the long suffering marine fishing industry in 2002 still represented 63 per cent (84.4 million tonnes) of total world fish production. What has changed is the increasing share of world production by marine and inland water aquaculture.

Aquaculture By 2004, according to the UN FAO’s State of world fisheries and Aquaculture 2006, aquaculture accounted for approximately 43 per cent of total world fish production. The same report also put the aquaculture industry as the fasting growing animal food-producing sector, with a worldwide average growth rate of 8.8 per cent per year since 1970. China is by far the largest region, accounting for nearly 70 per cent of total production in 2004, but there are many other countries that have begun to develop an aquaculture industry.

One such country is Nicaragua and Agnés Saborío Coze, Director of the Centre of Aquatic Ecosystems Research, takes an historic look at the development of sustainable shrimp farming in Nicaragua. See page 10.

Ship building The edge Winter 2008

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