Local Coastal Governance: Science-Policy interface and municipal monitoring

Integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) is the most important approach and even principle when looking for coastal sustainable development. A number of research papers, also in Latvia, identify that decision-makers and politicians at all governance levels have insufficient science-based information and understanding to cope with the ICZM in practice, e.g. to integrate the coastal issues into development planning process. As a result, the vulnerabilities are increasing and particularly are to be tackled at the local level, what traditionally is not fully done. The vulnerability of the complex coastal socio-ecological system (SES) cannot be maintained in a sustainable way unless the major stakeholders and the local communities are aware of the current situation. Without relevant information, it is hard to assess policy options and take informed decisions. The opportunities to improve the ICZM are to be seen via coastal SES factors integration and the development of science-policy interface-to transfer coastal science knowledge into decision-making. This could be done by science data incorporation into designed/approved new coastal governance instrument-Coastal municipal monitoring system- A nd the use of developed related nature-social science factors (incl. Citizen science contribution) and their interaction based monitoring into designed Coastal System Outlook document as necessary pre-planning process step and product. The University of Latvia in the framework of EU BONUS program has been implementing coastal research-and-development project steps. Ongoing studies cover: Issues of coastal erosion and flood risk management, beach litter monitoring and visitors' survey, coastal households/inhabitants and all stakeholders' interviews, studies of complexity of the coastal socio-economic and governance issues, and, finally, development of rural municipal monitoring system. The case study site-the rural Salacgriva municipality-stretching along coastline in total for 55 km.