Coastal Zone Management

Reliance on the coastal region of our oceans and the Great Lakes for food, energy, international trade, tourism, and recreation has increased and in turn so have the threats to these valuable ecosystems. Coastal regions are more than a place for recreation. Coastal waters and coral reefs are a storehouse of biodiversity. Coastal areas are also absolutely essential to our economy. Through tourism, fishing, and other industries for example, coastal resources support one out of every six jobs in the entire U.S.

Increasing coastal development (almost half of new development in the U.S. occurs along the coast), overfishing, polluted runoff, and degradation of coral reefs, however, all signal the need for a more coordinated strategy to protect and manage marine resources. Implementation of sound management strategies in coastal regions thus requires integrated assessment, where economic activity and conservation are placed on equal footing.

Five E's Unlimited has organized and facilitated interdisciplinary teams of scientists to design and carry-out programs of integrated estuarine ecosystem assessment. Projects have focused on understanding the interactions of external forces and associated responses in the coastal zone, to guide sound landscape sustainable development. Multi-scale ecosystem assessments have included:

• integrated access to data and information from many different sources and disciplines;
• analysis of environment-development interactions and policy/management options;
• identity of cause and effect relationship as well as emerging issues of potential national/international importance; and
• ability to assess potential impacts and long-term sustainability of alternative development, policy or management options.

Five E's Unlimited works with clients to improve stewardship of coastal regions in order to ensure their economies remain strong. We promote successful management and policy approaches to coastal ecosystem protection/restoration that draw upon knowledge gained from the coupling of environmental quality and ecologic functioning with sound land-use assessments, supported by improved and "cutting-edge" scientific inquiry.

We Can Assist You In:

1. Recommending methods for monitoring the health and use of coastal resources, demonstrating how definition of habitat quality and understanding for basic ecosystem processes can guide identity of protection and restoration approaches as well as evaluation tools.
2. Gathering biological/chemical information on water and coastal resources through inventories, surveys, and other approaches.
3. Providing technical advisory services and training on integrated evaluation of data and information from many different sources and disciplines, as well as emerging issues of potential national/international importance.
4. Analyzing spatial landscape environment-development interaction issues, such as urbanization, examining relationships between land cover changes and coastal bay environmental indicators and developing policy/management options for effective and integrated coastal resources protection.
5. Identifying cause and effect relationships that result in potential sectoral conflicts and recommending land-use impact mitigation and coastal bay remediation techniques to solve disputes.
6. Assessing ecological conditions, characteristics, and potential environmental and socio-economic impacts on long-term coastal resource sustainability from alternative development, policy, or management options.
7. Developing integrated coastal resources management strategies and strengthening institutional capacity.
8. Promoting public/stakeholder participation in preparation of coastal resources strategy and action plan development, seeking community-based attitudes, values, opinions, and visions related to perceived watershed development needs in relationship to coastal bay habitats and water quality.

The Firm encourages a comprehensive, integrated approach to design and implementation of projects in order to better understand all aspects of a region's social, economic, & natural systems. In its client work Five E's promotes an ecosystem approach to adaptive management that advances community-based sustainable development actions which are both economically and ecologically sound.