The Coastal Zone in the Anthropocene: Understanding and Reducing the Risks for the Ocean

A special issue of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (ISSN 2077-1312). This special issue belongs to the section "Marine Pollution".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2023) | Viewed by 8783

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Science, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA
Interests: sustainability and adaptation science; syndrome of modern global change; anthropocene risks; conservation; sea level rise; earth observations

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Guest Editor
Technopôle Brest-Iroise CS 83818, CEDEX 3, 29238 Brest, France
Interests: earth observations; marine litter; ocean engineering; oceanography

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Guest Editor
Institute for Science and Ethics, 20 Avenue Mont Rabeau, 06 200 Nice, France
Interests: ocean; ethics; responsible research; anthropocene

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The human presence in the coastal environment is increasing rapidly, accompanied by an equally rapid growth in the built environment and consumer goods in the coastal zone. An increasing fraction of the urban population is in megacities that are located in the coastal zone or in the flood plains of major rivers. The urbanization of the coastal zone is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. At the same time, the coastal zone is exposed to a changing spectrum of natural hazards originating in the atmosphere–ocean and terrestrial systems. The way coastal urban areas are developed today creates a risk with potentially significant harmful impacts for future generation. This risk could be reduced through new designs of the urban coasts that ensure the built environment is adapted to the changing spectrum of hazards and through international rules for the abandonment of urban coasts that can no longer be defended against sea encroachment. This would help to bring current actions in line with normative ethics and reduce threats to the marine biosphere and future human generations. We invite papers that address all aspects of the threats the urban coast might pose to the ocean, including the development of the urban coast, the changing coastal hazard spectrum, the risk of marine debris originating in the urban coast, the impacts this debris might have on the marine biosphere, alternatives for the design of the urban coast that would reduce this risk, and ethical challenges in governing risks to future generations in designing today’s urban coast.

Prof. Dr. Hans Peter Plag
Dr. Rene Garello
Dr. Michèle Barbier
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • urban coast
  • urbanization
  • built environment
  • ethics
  • risk governance
  • coastal zone
  • sea level rise
  • coastal hazards
  • marine litter

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

11 pages, 1856 KiB  
Article
Unraveling Macroplastic Pollution in Rural and Urban Beaches in Sarangani Bay Protected Seascape, Mindanao, Philippines
by Frank T. Acot, Jr., Recca E. Sajorne, Nur-Ayn K. Omar, Peter D. Suson, Lynn Esther E. Rallos and Hernando P. Bacosa
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2022, 10(10), 1532; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse10101532 - 19 Oct 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 8025
Abstract
Plastic pollution in the ocean is an emerging environmental concern in the Philippines. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of macroplastics, composition of plastic litter, and the clean-coast index (CCI) of urban and rural beaches in Sarangani Bay. Plastic litter was [...] Read more.
Plastic pollution in the ocean is an emerging environmental concern in the Philippines. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of macroplastics, composition of plastic litter, and the clean-coast index (CCI) of urban and rural beaches in Sarangani Bay. Plastic litter was collected by delineating a 100-m transecting line with three 4 m × 4 m quadrats. The density of macroplastic litter in urban areas (0.66 items m−2) was significantly higher than in rural areas (0.29 items m−2). The plastics sampled were predominantly food packaging, such as polyethylene bags, which are locally known as sando bags. The accumulation rate of macroplastic litter ranged from 0.07 items d−1 m−2 to 0.40 items d−1 m−2, in which urban beaches (0.25 items d−1 m−2) have a significantly higher accumulation rate than rural beaches (0.11 items d−1 m−2). Overall, the calculated CCI of the beaches of Sarangani Bay was categorized as clean to moderately clean for rural beaches and moderately clean to extremely dirty for urban beaches. Full article
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