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The Road Ahead: The Sustainability Transition and Coastal Research

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Abstract

Although the organizing committee for the 2007 Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) Biennial Conference and its international members supported the inclusion of sustainability science as a thematic element of the meeting, a preliminary review of program abstracts, conducted by entering various combinations of key words into the conference search engine, identified only 50 individual abstracts that incorporated one or more of the key words, or 3.8% of the 1,300 papers presented. Moreover, only 25 abstracts (1.9%) made specific reference to the integration of the natural and social sciences in emerging coastal research priorities. In this context, a framework is presented for incorporating the concepts of sustainable development, sustainability science, especially for the urban coast, and human dimensions into the amalgam of future US and international CERF research.

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Notes

  1. International trade is expected to triple this century, with 90% of that trade waterborne.

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Acknowledgments

I thank members of the International Working Group on Sustainability for encouraging the development of this paper. M.A. Palmer, S.B. Peterson, J.M. Teal, and R.E. Turner kindly provided comments on early drafts of the manuscript. The content, summaries, and conclusions developed herein, however, are solely my own. This is contribution number ISS-09-0003 from the Montclair State University, Institute for Sustainability Studies.

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  1. Institute for Sustainability Studies, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA

    Michael P. Weinstein

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Weinstein, M.P. The Road Ahead: The Sustainability Transition and Coastal Research. Estuaries and Coasts 32, 1044–1053 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-009-9221-5

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