Estuarine and coastal waters are acknowledged points of anthropogenic impact. For practitioners, academics and students in the field of coastal science and policy, this book examines and exemplifies current and future challenges: from upper estuaries to open coasts and adjacent seas; from tropical to temperate latitudes; from Europe to Australia.

This book presents the main drivers of benthic structure and processes in estuaries from the 8,000 km-Brazilian coast, assesses the influence of natural and human disturbance, and discusses their ecological importance and management needs. Estuaries are unique coastal ecosystems often with low biodiversity that sustain and provide essential ecological services to mankind. These ecosystems include a variety of habitats with their own sediment and fauna dynamics, all of them globally altered or threatened by human activities. Mangroves, saltmarshes, tidal flats and other confined estuarine systems are under increasing stress by overfishing and other human activities leading to habitat and species loss. Combined changes in estuarine hydromorphology and in climate pose severe threats to estuarine ecosystems at a global scale.

Coasts and Estuaries: The Future provides valuable information on how we can protect and maintain natural ecological structures while also allowing estuaries to deliver services that produce societal goods and benefits. These issues are addressed through chapters detailing case studies from estuaries and coastal waters worldwide, presenting a full range of natural variability and human pressures. Following this, a series of chapters written by scientific leaders worldwide synthesizes the problems and offers solutions for specific issues graded within the framework of the socio-economic-environmental mosaic. These include fisheries, climate change, coastal megacities, evolving human-nature interactions, remediation measures, and integrated coastal management. The problems faced by half of the world living near coasts are truly a worldwide challenge as well as an opportunity for scientists to study commonalities and differences and provide solutions. This book is centered around the proposed DAPSI(W)R(M) framework, where drivers of basic human needs requires activities that each produce pressures. The pressures are mechanisms of state change on the natural system and Impacts on societal welfare (including well-being). These problems then require responses, which are the solutions relating to governance, socio-economic and cultural measures (Scharin et al 2016). - Covers estuaries and coastal seas worldwide, integrating their commonality, differences and solutions for sustainability - Includes global case studies from leading worldwide contributors, with accompanying boxes highlighting a synopsis about a particular estuary and coastal sea, making all information easy to find - Presents full color images to aid the reader in a better understanding of details of each case study - Provides a multi-disciplinary approach, linking biology, physics, climate and social sciences

The Hudson River Estuary, first published in 2006, is a scientific biography with relevance to similar natural systems.

A crucial, timely synthesis of issues and solutions for the conservation of the world's seas and marine life.