Future Earth Coasts builds on over 20 years of global scientific experience – originally the Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) project of the former International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the International Human Dimensions Programme. From 2015, LOICZ has become a core project of Future Earth as Future Earth Coasts.
Some of our current initiatives include transdisciplinary research on mega-deltas, wetlands and lagoons, and global assessments of coastal sustainability. Supported projects include the Coastal Pollution Toolbox or the Ocean Acidification Africa (OA-Africa) network, as some examples.
Oceans and coasts support our communities and our economy, but they are under immediate and increasing threat from a number of compounding and overlapping pressures, including anthropogenic driven climate change, pollution, invasive species, habitat and biodiversity loss, and a growing population worldwide catalysing coastal development and greater infrastructure needs.
1 – Enable regional stakeholders and institutions to develop a common understanding of their coasts and future prospects.
2 – Co-design robust strategies to chart desired coastal futures.
3 – Co-produce innovative coastal sustainability initiatives and pathways to achieve these desired outcomes and realise the UN SDGs.
Oceans and coasts are beautiful, diverse, complex places that work in synchronicity with each other. First Nations people have known this for thousands of years. Indigenous Australians speak of Land and Sea Country as an interconnected whole, rather than as separate ecosystems.
Coastal areas encircle and enrich all continents as a blue ribbon. Recognising oceans and coasts as a single interconnected system presents extraordinary opportunities for the betterment of their current state through a sustainable and just future.
We are a cross-sectional community of researchers, practitioners and stakeholders from all disciplines of science (physical, humanities, engineering and law) whose work addresses achieving sustainable and just futures for society and nature along diverse coastal areas across different countries, cultures, and geographic scales – from local to global – by 2030.
We provide a platform for networking and providing ‘added value’ to the outputs of our community to explore and understand the drivers and social-environmental impacts of global environmental change in coastal zones.
Future Earth Coasts’ Head Office is co-hosted by Southern Cross University (Australia), the State Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research (East China Normal University) and the Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research (Chinese Academy of Sciences).
Southern Cross University is a multi-campus university on Australia’s east coast. It's identity is defined by their vision to be Australia’s Engaged University – with a proud Indigenous and international heritage that embraces the wider world and has an unwavering commitment to justice: social, environmental and Indigenous.
East China Normal University (ECNU), founded in October 1951, is recognized as one of Shanghai’s top public research universities under the patronage of the Ministry of Education, and is included in China’s national education projects, “Project 211” and “Project 985”. ECNU has 29 full-time schools and colleges related to social science, art, education, earth science, life science and technology.
The Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (YIC-CAS) was founded in 2006 and was officially established on December 1, 2009. It is the only national research institution specializing in comprehensive research on coastal zones, which is located in the beautiful coastal city of Yantai in Shandong Province. It was jointly established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shandong Province and Yantai City.
