The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was introduced on December 2, 1970 by President Richard Nixon. The agency is charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. The EPA's struggle to protect health and the environment is seen through each of its official publications. These publications outline new policies, detail problems with enforcing laws, document the need for new legislation, and describe new tactics to use to solve these issues. This collection of publications ranges from historic documents to reports released in the new millennium, and features works like: Bicycle for a Better Environment, Health Effects of Increasing Sulfur Oxides Emissions Draft, and Women and Environmental Health.

The United States Government Printing Office (GPO) was created in June 1860, and is an agency of the the U.S. federal government based in Washington D.C. The office prints documents produced by and for the federal government, including Congress, the Supreme Court, the Executive Office of the President and other executive departments, and independent agencies. The Coastal Zone Information Center (CZIC) collection provides access to nearly 5,000 coastal related documents that the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) received from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Central Library. The collection provides almost 30 years of data and information crucial to the understanding of U.S. coastal management and NOAA's mission to sustain healthy coasts. This is one of their documents.

Coastal areas face increasing pressures from land use change, developmental activities, shoreline erosion, biodiversity losses and natural calamities. This volume addresses these issues facilitating the integrated analysis of the sustainability of coastal zones. The contributors have tried to focus their respective works on the problems that need urgent attention relevant to present day issues. Coastal Zone Management and its sustainability strategy should safeguard ecological security of the coastal areas, avoid pollution as well as exploitation of living and non living aquatic resources, protecting also the agrarian community and avian population and other floral and faunal breeding grounds. Articles have been selected on the basis of sound scientific findings hoping that it will help in developing meaningful regulations for future sustainable coastal management zone.

From February 2004 until December 2007 the ComCoast project (Combined Fu- tions in Coastal Defence Zones) was carried out within the Interreg IIIB framework. The objective of this project was to investigate and to test the options for spatial coastal protection concepts. The mission statement of the project over its entire duration was: A wider approach in coastal thinking. I was glad to be part of this project and would like to thank all my European colleagues for the constructive and cooperative atmosphere. Firstly, I would like to express my thanks to Prof. Dr. Horst Sterr and Prof. Dr. Hans Kunz who assisted me over these years with their thorough guidance and comprehensive expertise and for many in-depth discussions on the focus of this dissertation. Secondly, I would like to thank my colleague Dr. Jur ̈ gen Meyerdirks, who acted as my key scienti c sparring partner over the last two years, and who continuously demonstrated his ability to bring me back to earth. Additionally, I would like to thank my colleague Dr. Thomas Klenke, who gave me the chance to be part of a challenging European project consortium and who supported me with his expertise on the project and the dissertation. Furthermore, I would like to express my special thanks to Gerard McGovern, who thoroughly improved my English.