Urbanization impacts on coastal ecosystems and potential impacts on human health and well-being

The most significant factor in the decline of environmental conditions within the coastal zone has been the unprecedented increase in human population growth. Globally >55% of the world's population lives < 50 miles from the coast and currently >half of the US population live in coastal communities adjacent to the more than 66,645 miles of estuarine and coastal shoreline. The greatest rate of population change has been in the southeastern U.S. (58%). The compression of >50% of the population into the coastal zone, which represents only 8% of the Earth's surface, creates a dilemma for environmental managers faced with the daunting task of trying to maintain environmental quality in the wake of unbridled urbanization and population growth.

Coastal urbanization may result in significant impacts in environmental quality including altered hydrology which results in increased NPS runoff of nutrients, chemical and microbial contaminants that may degrade water and sediment quality and adversely affect human health. Results from 3 major studies of urbanization on coastal ecosystems will be presented along with results of NOAA's Ocean and Human Health research will be discussed in terms of balancing human uses of the coastal zone and ecosystem and human health issues. Specific impacts on ecosystem services issues such as fishable and swimmable waters will be discussed which may adversely ecosystem and human health. Harmful Algal Bloom detection systems, microbial source tracking and early warning detection systems and other all hazards detection systems (e.g. Environmental Surveillance Network) will be discussed which may prevent human health impacts.