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Integrated coastal zone management approach to control development and ensure suitability in a rapid growing urban coastal environment – Sultanate of Oman

Reazul Ahsan

 Two key global issues lead coastal zone management and planning as one of the prime concerns for coastal development control and minimizes environmental stress on coastal zones. Firstly, high population density on coastal areas, based on Agenda 21 and UN-DESA report 2014, almost 54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Over half of the world population live within 60 km of a coast and by 2050 it would be three-quarters of the world urban population(UN-DESA, 2014) . This high density of population will place environmental stress on coastal and marine resources by degrading and pollution sensitive ecosystem. Secondly, rising sea level become a thereat for the estuarian fragile system and the coastal resources. Unplanned and uncontrolled development, unsustainable resource exploitation and marine pollution have placed enormous stress on Al-Batinah coastal environments of the Sultanate of Oman over the decades. Sea level rise and climate change intensify that environment and social stress in several folds. For example, with a prediction of 2m sea level rise will inundate 200 km2 of land and will affect the coastal land covers, socio-economic process and coastal ecology of whole of the Sultanate. Impacts on coastal land-covers calculated by using land-uses and census data to justify the impact of Sea Level Rise (SLR) on coastal land covers and habitats. The Sultanate has coastal setback regulation to control development but lack of integrated coastal zone management planning and practice to minimize the stress on socio-economic development and environmental issues linked with coastal system. This paper addresses the challenges of coastal zone management practice in the Sultanate and proposed integrated coastal zone management framework for sustainability. Biography: Dr Reazul Ahsan appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Metropolitan Planning for teaching urban ecology courses at the University of Utah Asia Campus. He earned a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of South Australia in 2013. Dr Ahsan completed his postdoctoral research on ecological sustainability and social justice from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA 2015-2016. Before joining the Dept. of City and Metropolitan Planning, Reazul was working as a research fellow at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman and Kyoto University, Japan. His key research area was coastal ecological planning and urban resilience. He has over 12 years’ experience in higher education in countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. He has published several scholarly articles on planning and development issues with a key focus on urban resilience and ecological suitability.