Coasts

=== Action Ideas ===
*Beach clean ups
=== Environmental importance ===
The coast and its adjacent areas on and off shore is an important part of a local ecosystem as the mixture of fresh water and salt water in estuaries provides many nutrients for marine life. Salt marshes and beaches also support a diversity of plants, animals, and insects crucial to the food chain.
Like the ocean which shapes them, coasts are a dynamic environment with constant change. The earth's natural processes, particularly sea level rise, waves and various weather phenomena, have resulted in the erosion, accretion and reshaping of coasts as well as flooding and creation of continental shelves and drowned river valleys (rias).
=== Global News ===
2009
*Coastal ‘carbon sinks’ - such as tidal salt marshes, seagrass meadows, kelp forests and mangroves – shrinking faster than Amazon forests, 17 November Natural England, 17 November 2009 
*Living in Barbados reports on Barbados Clean-Up Day, when volunteers collected garbage from the island's beaches, September 21 Living in Barbados, September 21, 2009 
2005
*"Ecosystem changes will continue to worsen, global development goals at risk", March 30 2005
*Research shows that 634 million people - one tenth of the global population - live in coastal areas that lie within just ten metres above sea level. International Institute for Environment and Development, March 28 2007 / Climate change global news
=== Related ===
*The Coral Reef Alliance
Blogs
*Coral Bones
References