Coastal SEES

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A sustainable world is one in which human needs are met equitably and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Meeting this formidable challenge requires a substantial increase in our understanding of the integrated system of society, the natural world, and the alterations humans bring to Earth. NSF's Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) activities aim to address this need through support for interdisciplinary research and education. Coastal SEES is focused on the sustainability of coastal systems. For this solicitation we define coastal systems as the swath of land closely connected to the sea, including barrier islands, wetlands, mudflats, beaches, estuaries, cities, towns, recreational areas, and maritime facilities; the continental seas and shelves; and the overlying atmosphere. These systems are subject to complex and dynamic interactions among natural and human-driven processes. Coastal systems are crucial to regional and national economies, hosting valued human-built infrastructure and providing ecosystem services that sustain human well-being. More than half of the world's human population lived in coastal areas in 2000, and this proportion is predicted to increase to 75 percent by 2025. Humans benefit from their use of coastal environments for enjoyment, dwelling, food, industry, and commerce, altering them physically, chemically, and ecologically. These alterations influence and interact with natural variability, extreme events, and long-term change to affect the system as a whole, including human benefits. A major challenge is to understand the dynamics of this coupled human-natural system in order to inform societal decisions about the uses of coastal systems, including for economic, aesthetic, recreational, research, and conservation purposes. Such understanding requires integration of natural, social, economic and behavioral sciences. It includes, for example, an understanding of reciprocal feedbacks between humans and the natural environment; how people and organizations interpret, assess, and act upon scientific and other evidence; and how they weigh these interpretations against other interests to influence governance and decision-making. Thus, coastal sustainability relies on broad and intimately interconnected areas of scholarship about natural and human processes.

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