ABSTRACT
Numerous human activities affect estuarine and marine environments, impacting their water quality, habitats, and biotic communities. Because a large fraction (>50%) of the more than 7.6 billion people in the world today live within 100 km of the coastline, estuarine and coastal marine waters are particularly susceptible to human stressors. The greatest density of the world’s population occurs in the coastal zone; in the U.S. alone, more than 125 million people reside in coastal counties. Worldwide, many people live near bays, estuaries, and the coastal ocean for economic opportunity (e.g., tourism, recreational and commercial fisheries, mariculture, transportation and shipping, electric power generation, oil and gas recovery, and construction). 1
