Loss of Coastal Ecosystem Services by Climate Change

Dear Colleagues,

The world’s population is concentrated in urban areas and it is expected that more than 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas by the year 2030. This change in demography has brought landscape transformations that have several documented effects on ecosystems. The most consistent effect is an increase in impervious surface cover within urban catchments, which alters the hydrology and geomorphology of streams. Water supply has been a decisive factor in the search for adequate settlement locations throughout history where riverbanks and lakesides have become preferred living spaces. Most of the cities are located in the valleys and flood plains or on coasts.

The fact that the development of settlements along large rivers has often been more successful than elsewhere is contributed to a set of additional location advantages which offered favorable conditions for development: flood plains in the lower reaches provide fertile and flat land for successful agriculture, navigable rivers offer an accessible means of transportation and the construction of bridges and ports was in many cases the first step in the establishment of prosperous market places. Estuaries and other coastal areas are even more promising as settlement locations since they may serve as linkages between the river and sea navigation. However, the cost of these favorable places increases in coastal risk, a risk that is greater due to climate change and a greater dependence on the ecosystem services of these areas, which are also strongly dependent on the environmental parameters of these areas.

Many of their ecosystems have undergone significant degradation with negative impacts on biological diversity and peoples' livelihoods. There is now a growing realization that we will not be able to conserve the earth's biological diversity through the protection of critical areas alone. Understanding the interrelation between coastal physical processes, their variations due to climate change and the impact on the loss of coastal ecosystem services is essential to define ecosystem risk and improve ecosystem management in coastal areas to avoid loss of biodiversity.

Dear Colleagues,

I want to invite you to participate in the special number ‘Loss of coastal ecosystem services by climate change’. In this number, we would like that the articles focus in the revision of coastal physical processes, their variations observed by climate change and in to understand what is the impact in the loss of coastal ecosystem services. Articles focused on the development of coastal technologies that attempt to mitigate these effects and the loss of ecosystem services will also be accepted. The purpose of this special issue is provide a reference to the reader on how to approach previously identified aspects therefore, preference will be given to those articles that in clear language focus in the proposed thematic.

Regards,

Prof. Pedro Antonio Arnau
Guest Editor

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• biodiversity
• ecosystem restoration
• climate change
• ecosystem risk