Governing Coastal Resources: Implications for a Sustainable Blue Economy

Coastal resources - including fish, minerals and energy - are critical to people, nature and the economy, and are a focus for the emerging sustainable blue economy agenda. Whilst there is no globally agreed definition of a Sustainable Blue Economy, the working definition in this report is an ocean-based economy that provides equitably distributed social and economic benefits for current and future generations, while restoring and protecting the intrinsic value and functionality of coastal and marine ecosystems and is based on clean technologies and circular material flows (adapted from WWF, 2018). It has long been recognized that a particular challenge in coastal areas is the management of land-based activities that generate detrimental impacts on coastal resources in the marine environment. Many of these pressures are negative externalities of land-based human activities that are not taken into account within existing resource-governance frameworks. While a range of market-based, non-market and other interventions are worthy of consideration, the development of improved approaches to landsea governance that take account of how land-based activities affect the quality and availability of coastal resources is the focus of this report. The primary purpose of the study was to determine appropriate governance approaches to reduce the effects of land-based activities on coastal resources and to support the transition to a sustainable blue economy. A secondary purpose of the study was to test a new method to identify the pathways through which land-based activities affect coastal resources. This global study used a Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response (DPSIR) framework, which provides a structured approach to the study of complex systems. The approach was used to assess how global scale drivers are pushing the development of land-based activities (pressures), which in turn affect the quality and availability (state) of coastal resources. The impact of changing coastal resources on a selection of sustainable blue economy sectors was then considered. Finally, the study presents an analysis of possible governance responses that can better account for, and ideally reduce, the effects of land-based activities on coastal resources and thereby support the transition to a sustainable blue economy. We used a novel iterative evidence-based analysis designed to identify the individual and cumulative effects generated by land-based activities on coastal resources. In total, over 1,000 separate pieces of evidence were reviewed, supported by three workshops to validate and refine the analysis.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	United Nations Environment Programme, International Resource Panel
Other Authors:	Fletcher, Stephen
Format:	Reports, Books and Booklets biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	2021
Subjects:	BLUE ECONOMY, COASTAL AREAS, COASTS, AQUACULTURE, SHRIMPS, COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT, OCEANS,
Online Access:	https://wedocs.unep.org/20.500.11822/36325
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