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KMGNE on Iceland | Integrated Coastal Zone Management

Students in an_annual field trip around the Westfjords | Photo: Dagny Arnarsdottir | September 2011

Master-Course on Practical Applications and Challenges for Integrated Coastal Zone Management

From June 1st – June 5th, Anne Mette (KMGNE), together with Zoi Konstantinou from Greece will teach a one-week course at the University Centre of the Westfjords on Iceland within the master’s program ‘Coastal and Marine Management’.

The master-course contents are as follows:

Students in an_annual field trip around the Westfjords | Photo: Dagny Arnarsdottir | September 2011
Students in an annual field trip around the Westfjords | Photo: Dagny Arnarsdottir | September 2011

Growing pressure from human activities and accelerating climate change impacts threaten the coastal zone systems around the globe. In the past years, there has been an increasing awareness that the coastal zone and its ecosystems cannot be managed sustainably without the integration of and deliberation with the respective stakeholders. This very complex and challenging situation thus calls for a holistic and transdisciplinary approach to shape the science-policy interfaces towards legitimate policy- and decision-making.

The class will explore the management and communications of interrelationships between coastal and marine natural resources and humans and by giving an overview of the variability of approaches in the EU during recent years. It will assess potential paradigm shifts and provide a hands-on introduction to techniques of storytelling and sustainability communications.

For this, the participants will run through a series of participatory scenario-building tasks. The identification of issues and scenario (policy) options as well as the science-policy-communications during the interaction with stakeholders will be an essential part of the seminar.

The exercises will be nourished by practical examples from 4-year EU 6th Framework project SPICOSA – Science Policy Integration for Coastal Systems Assessment where a toolbox of methods (Systems Approach Framework) for integrated and transdisciplinary scenario building has been developed tested in 18 different study sides throughout the European Union

Learning outcomes
At the end of the course, students will:
• Understand the challenges of ICZM | of managing coastal zones
• Be aware of the variety of approaches and examples of ICZM in practice
• Be able to conceptualize an ICZM problem in its various dimensions
• Understand how to plan and engage in dialogues with stakeholders
• Be able to set up, conceptualize and communicate management scenarios:
• Have gained skills in science communication and visualization (‘translation’)
• Be able to communicate problems, alternatives and decisions

Further information:
University Centre of the Westfjords | Coastal and Marine Management
Anne Mette, KMGNE