The use of scenarios in integrated environmental assessment of coastal-catchment zones

Introduction In the global context of coastal zone management, policy responses at all levels of governance and society needs to become more adaptable to cope with socio-economic and environmental change, including sea level rise. The future will always be shrouded by uncertainty and therefore accurate prediction is not a feasible goal. However, it is possible to formulate scenarios, which can shed light on and offer insights about possible future developments. The information generated by such an approach can assist policy makers in searching for efficient, effective and equitable coping strategies and policy options for inte grated and sustainable coastal zone management. This paper investigates the use of scenarios for integrated catchment/coastal zone management in the Humber Estuary, in the U.K. The context of this ongoing research is the EuroCat project, which aims to assist in integrating catchment and coastal zone management by analysing the response of the coastal sea to changes in fluxes of nutrients and contaminants from the catchments. This article looks at principles of Integrated Environmental Assessment, the use of scenarios, and how national scenarios can be adapted to the regional level to focus on three possible futures for the Humber. An overview is given of future research and how the scenarios can be used to simulate future fluxes and This is the twenty-third newsletter of the Land Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) International Project of the IGBP. It is produced quarterly to provide news and information regarding LOICZ activities based” learning process for experts and decision makers, and in its most inclusionary form, other types of stakeholders, enabled via inter/multi/transdisciplinary research, using a toolbox of complementary analytical methods and techniques.