As coastal cities expand, quality of life deteriorates there

Expansion of coastal cities is accompanied by a decline in the quality of life of the people, says a new study.

Many megacities such as Tokyo (population 36 million), New York (22 million) and London (12 million) are found in the coastal zone. Coastal protection measures give a sense of false security and require increasingly expensive infrastructure, the study says.

The treatment and cure of these coastal cities include renewable energy, recycled water and solid waste, sourcing locally grown foods and attention to social equity issues, especially in education and healthcare.

These are the conclusions of 40 international experts from wide ranging disciplines including economics, social sciences and natural sciences who met for a five-day workshop near Oslo, Norway, organised by LOICZ (Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone), a core project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.

Up to now, governments at all scales, from local to international, have largely failed to seriously implement integrated management in coastal zones, said a release of Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.

This has placed people at risk of disasters such as hurricane Katrina and the Banda Aceh tsunami. The interconnection of coastal processes with upstream management in river catchment has widely been ignored, causing coastal erosion, lack of runoff, nutrient shortage and subsiding deltas.