Background

Growing concerns about the state of the coast in Europe prompted the European Commission to establish a ‘Demonstration Programme’ in 1996 to ascertain best practice in arresting and reversing decades of economic, social and environmental decline.

Among other things, the Demonstration Programme concluded that the lack of relevant, credible and reliable information was impeding effective coastal planning and management. Hence the Recommendation concerning the implementation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management, (2002), calls for an integrated approach to monitoring and measuring the sustainable development of the coastal zone.

The EU ICZM Expert Group :

The EU ICZM Expert Group established a Working Group on Indicators and Data (WG-ID) in 2002 to advise it on ways in which Member States, and the EU as a whole, can assess whether they are moving further towards, or away from, a more sustainable future for their coastal zones, and at what pace. The WG-ID, led by the European Topic Centre on the Terrestrial Environment, subsequently drew up a set of 27 indicators of sustainable development of the coastal zone (the ‘SD indicators’)

The indicators :

The indicators are divided into seven groups according to the seven goals of the EU ICZM Recommendation.

Taken together, the indicators in each group will help the European Commission, Member States and coastal partnerships monitor progress towards achieving the goals for coastal sustainability set out in the EU Recommendation.

Link to the web page of DG ENV with info on all the ICZM process : goals, SD indicators and measurements : http://ec.europa.eu/environment/iczm/home.htm