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Aim: Understanding patterns and drivers of biodiversity are essential towards developing effective conservation strategies for shallow marine habitats broadly. However, little is known about the natural and anthropogenic factors that structure fish biodiversity of sandy beaches, one of the largest and most socio‐economically valuable nearshore habitats due to their endemic fauna, economic importance and cultural relevance. Here, we investigated how environmental variables and urbanization affect taxonomic and functional diversity of nearshore fish assemblages to provide general biodiversity patterns that can serve as baseline information for management plans when considering conservation prioritization. Location: Southeast Brazil. Methods: We surveyed fish communities at 77 sites along 150 km of coastline with different natural features and degrees of human influence using a combination of seine nets and surf‐BRUVS. We used generalized additive models (GAMs) to investigate the influence of environmental variables and urbanization on taxonomic and functional diversity of resident fish assemblages. Main results: We found that significant breaker wave height was the most important environmental variable in explaining the taxonomic and functional diversity of fish assemblages. The effects of increasing wave height were mostly negative, except for piscivorous fishes, which were most abundant at high energy sites, and for benthic and zoobenthivorous species, which were most abundant at sites with intermediate wave exposure. The latter species were also associated with higher chlorophyll‐a contributing to increased taxonomic richness and abundance. Further, anthropogenic impacts generally reduced diversity, with highest diversity only observed at the most pristine sites. Main conclusions: Our results demonstrate that both natural environmental variation and human activities structure the fish assemblages of sandy beach surf zones, affecting species that possess specific functional traits differently. These drivers should therefore be considered simultaneously in appointing protected areas in order to preserve a diversity of organisms and functional traits integral to productive beach ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pollution from land‐based run‐off threatens coastal ecosystems and the services they provide, detrimentally affecting the livelihoods of millions people on the world's coasts. Planning for linkages among terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems can help managers mitigate the impacts of land‐use change on water quality and coastal ecosystem services.We examine the approaches used for land‐sea planning, with particular focus on the models currently used to estimate the impacts of land‐use change on water quality and fisheries. Our findings could also be applied to other ecosystem services. This Review encompasses modelling of: large scale drivers of land‐use change; local activities that cause such change; run‐off, dispersal and transformation of pollutants in the coastal ocean; ecological responses to pollutants; socio‐economic responses to ecological change; and finally, the design of a planning response.We find that there is a disconnect between the dynamical models that can be used to link land to sea processes and the simple tools that are typically used to inform planning. This disconnect may weaken the robustness of plans to manage dynamic processes. Land‐sea planning is highly interdisciplinary, making the development of effective plans a challenge for small teams of managers and decision makers.Synthesis and applications. We propose some guiding principles for where and how dynamic land‐sea connections can most effectively be built into planning tools. Tools that can capture pertinent processes are needed, but they must be simple enough to be implemented in regions with limited resources for collecting data, developing models and developing integrated land‐sea plans. We propose some guiding principles for where and how dynamic land‐sea connections can most effectively be built into planning tools. Tools that can capture pertinent processes are needed, but they must be simple enough to be implemented in regions with limited resources for collecting data, developing models and developing integrated land‐sea plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal partnerships are the primary mechanism to support local and regional integrated coastal management (ICM) in the United Kingdom. This paper identifies four evolutionary stages of coastal partnership development, in which partnerships pass through stages of foundation, challenge, reflection and renewal. Through examining these stages, it was apparent that the manner in which coastal partnerships in the UK support ICM has evolved from a plan-led approach to a service-based approach since the early 1990s. In the service-based approach, partnerships support ICM through an ongoing programme of facilitated stakeholder engagement, capacity building and information exchange, rather than through the development and implementation of an outcome-based management plan. This has been prompted by a number of interconnected factors, including funding scarcity, a historic lack of national-level support and ambiguous evidence of success. Following a discussion of the benefits and burdens of the service-based approach, the paper concludes that whilst the service-based ICM support model offers many advantages and opportunities, the wider coastal governance framework in the UK may still present considerable challenges to its future success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capacity building is commonly considered to be a fundamental prerequisite to successful integrated coastal management (ICM). Capacity building for ICM is an educational process, in which skills and knowledge are taught, learned and then applied, within a coastal management process. Previous research into ICM capacity building has tended to focus upon identifying the skills and knowledge required for effective ICM rather than the pedagogic elements of capacity building; that is, how the effectiveness of learning can be improved. This paper reports on a study that focuses on establishing the favoured learning style of students studying ICM in UK universities in order to consider more generally the role of pedagogy in ICM. Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory, a widely used generic learning styles test, was used to establish preferred learning styles. The results showed that ICM learners exhibited a complete range of learning styles, but that 47% were classified as ‘convergers’, who prefer to learn through practice and consider the teacher to be a facilitator and role model rather than knowledge giver. It is concluded that ICM capacity building leaders should consider pedagogic issues more fully in the design and delivery of capacity-building activities and that a specific pedagogy of ICM is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastcare, Australia's community-based coastal stewardship program, ran in its original form between 1995 and 2002 underpinned by the principles of integrated coastal management. Internationally, there are very few similar enterprises. Coastcare differed in fundamental ways from other Australian natural resource stewardship programs such as Landcare and Bushcare. However, there is very little published information about the program: its activities, characteristics or achievements. The results presented in this paper are based upon analysis of descriptive statistics from two key sources: the data set of the central coordinating agency for Coastcare (the national environment agency of that time), and a questionnaire administered to State level staff of the program. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the original program including a discussion of its practice, outcomes and limitations in terms of lack of formal evaluation. The paper expands the image of Coastcare beyond that of a grants program by explaining its broader roles in terms of education and partnership development between tiers of government and the community. Coastcare, in its original form, ceased to function in 2003 as a consequence of a remodeling of the funding strategy through the Commonwealth Government's Natural Heritage Trust. It is concluded that there is some urgency in broadcasting Coastcare's past function and fate because a new program has emerged from the old with little application of hindsight to guide better future performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of intensive fed aquaculture (e.g. finfish and shrimp) throughout the world is associated with concerns about the environmental impacts of such often monospecific practices, especially where activities are highly geographically concentrated or located in suboptimal sites whose assimilative capacity is poorly understood and, consequently, prone to being exceeded. One of the main environmental issues is the direct discharge of significant nutrient loads into coastal waters from open-water systems and with the effluents from land-based systems. In its search for best management practices, the aquaculture industry should develop innovative and responsible practices that optimize its efficiency and create diversification, while ensuring the remediation of the consequences of its activities to maintain the health of coastal waters. To avoid pronounced shifts in coastal processes, conversion, not dilution, is a common-sense solution, used for centuries in Asian countries. By integrating fed aquaculture (finfish, shrimp) with inorganic and organic extractive aquaculture (seaweed and shellfish), the wastes of one resource user become a resource (fertilizer or food) for the others. Such a balanced ecosystem approach provides nutrient bioremediation capability, mutual benefits to the cocultured organisms, economic diversification by producing other value-added marine crops, and increased profitability per cultivation unit for the aquaculture industry. Moreover, as guidelines and regulations on aquaculture effluents are forthcoming in several countries, using appropriately selected seaweeds as renewable biological nutrient scrubbers represents a cost-effective means for reaching compliance by reducing the internalization of the total environmental costs. By adopting integrated polytrophic practices, the aquaculture industry should find increasing environmental, economic, and social acceptability and become a full and sustainable partner within the development of integrated coastal management frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including history of fishery management in the U.S., significance of the Sustainable Fisheries Act in managing fisheries, and lack of relationship between habitat alteration and fishery yield.