Changing Land Use Patterns in the Coastal Zone Managing Environmental Quality in Rapidly Developing Regions

About this book

Coastal ecosystems make up some of the most important, yet most endangered, regions in the world. The protection of the unique processes that take place in these ecosystems requires that partnerships be formed among ecologists, resource managers, and planners.

Experienced in the challenges of coastal system analysis, the contributors to this book provide multidisciplinary guidance on the assessment and management of environmental impacts caused by development. Each chapter examines an issue important to these fragile ecosystems, first presenting a non-technical summary of the issue and a review of the current state of the knowledge, then following with data and a more detailed consideration of the topic. Functioning both as a practical guide, accessible to nonscientists, and as a rigorous scientific source book, Changing Land Use Patterns in the Coastal Zone will be useful to ecologists, urban and regional planners, resource managers, policymakers and students. While many of the case studies included in this volume are drawn from studies in the southeastern United States, the examples and lessons provided will be relevant to those working in all coastal environments.

Contents

Preface.- Introduction: The Effects of Changing Land Use Patterns on Marine Resources.- Part I Trends in Coastal Population Growth: Trends in Land Use Policy and Development in the Coastal Southeast.- Predicting Trajectories of Urban Growth in the Coastal Southeast.- Urban Typology and Estuarine Biodiversity in Rapidly Developing Coastal Watersheds.- Part II Coastal Hydrology and Geochemistry: The Relationship of Hydrodynamics to Morphology in Tidal Creek and Salt Marsh Systems in South Carolina and Georgia.- The Role of Tidal Wetlands in Estuarine Nutrient Cycling.- Evaluating the Potential Importance of Groundwater-Derived Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus Inputs to South Carolina and Georgia Coastal Ecosystems.- Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, and Estuarine Condition.- Part III Contaminants and Their Effects: Chemical Contaminants Entering Estuaries in the South Atlantic Bight as a Result of Current and Past Land Use.- Models of Coastal Stress: Review and Future Challenges.- Alternatives to Coliform Bacteria as Indicators of Human Impact on Coastal Ecosystems.- Afterword.- Index.

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