The declining course in some European regions coastal environment generated the new European Environment Agency report, titled “Balancing the future of Europe's coasts” .

The report demonstrates some key sustainability challenges for European coastal areas and waters and underlines the necessity of a consolidated knowledge base and widespread information sharing to support informed policy development and management actions.


A list of pressures is presented, among which the disappearance of the habitats such as Posidonia oceania from Mediteranean in a 5% per year rate is highlighted. Posidonia oceania absorbs millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, prevents erosion and offers a home to hundreds of sea creatures.

The time for this report seemed appropriate as the European Commission has recently proposed a framework for integrated coastal management and for 'maritime spatial planning'  where a series of data will be necessary.

“Balancing the future of Europe's coasts” states the need for harmonised spatial data among the EU Member States in order to be consistent with the data reported by other countries. This way coastal data could be shared across borders and enhanced by coordinated indicator sets. The result could be a more precise picture of the wider ecosystem issues, offering the opportunity for easier implementation of an ecosystem based management approach.

The report is available here.

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