Integrated Coastal Zone Management

The Coastal Zone

There is no one accepted definition of the coastal zone, particularly in terms of how far inland coastal zones reach. However, in the UK, the devolved administrations have responsibility for many issues relating to the area up to 12 nautical miles offshore. The Crown Estate owns virtually the entire seabed out to the territorial limit, including the rights to explore and utilize the natural resources of the UK Continental Shelf (excluding oil, gas and coal). It also owns approximately 55% of the foreshore and around half of the beds of estuaries and tidal rivers in the UK.
The coastal zone cannot be isolated as a defined 'coastal strip' and treated as entirely separate from the land mass or distinct from the management of territorial and international waters. For some issues, notably pollution, the whole of Northern Ireland could be treated as the coastal zone.
The boundary of the coastal zone is thus in practice a moveable one. This underlies the need for a flexible and pragmatic approach to coastal zone management in Northern Ireland which integrates land use planning and management of coastal resources with that of the Province as a whole.

Under Pressure

The abundant natural wealth and spectacular scenery of the coast have provided livelihoods for generations of coastal communities in Northern Ireland. Inshore fisheries, agriculture, ports and harbours, industry, housing development, tourism and power generation all compete for space and coastal resources. With most of the population living within an hour's drive of the coast, a huge range of outdoor activities also take place - surfing, sailing, diving, angling, hiking and playing golf are more popular than ever.

The coastline is under great pressure from human uses and global climate change will intensify that pressure. With rising sea levels, increased storminess and higher temperatures predicted, the challenge will be to manage coastal activities in a sustainable way whilst ensuring the health of coastal ecosystems.

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM)

To date, coastal policies and decisions in Northern Ireland have been made with reference to sectoral interests such as aquaculture, conservation, waste management and tourism. The coastal management framework currently in place also reflects the sectoral nature of decision making and is almost exclusively driven by central government departments as opposed to local authorities as in the rest of the UK.

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) provides a new way of balancing our social and economic demands on the coast with the protection of coastal ecosystems.

The objective of ICZM is to establish sustainable levels of economic and social activity in our coastal areas while protecting the coastal environment. ICZM seeks to reconcile the different policies that have an effect on the coast whilst bringing together stakeholders to inform, support and implement these policies.