Table Of ContentRecreational Uses of Coastal Areas
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Recreational Uses of
Coastal Areas
A Research Project of the Commission
on the Coastal Environment,
International Geographical Union
Edited by
PAOLO FABBRI
Department of Historical Disciplines,
University of Bologna, Italy
Kluwer Academic Publishers
Dordrecht / Boston / London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Recreational uses of coastal areas a research project of the
Commission on the Coastal Environ.ent. International Geographical
Union / edited by Paolo Fabbri.
p. cm. -- (The GeoJourna 1 1 i brary)
Bibl iography, p.
1. Coasts--Recreational use. I. Fabbri. Paolo. 1948-
II. International Geographlcal Union. Commission on the Coastal
Environment. III. Series.
GV191.66.R4 1989
333.78·4--dc20 89-8016
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7576-3 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2391-1
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2391-1
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Table of contents
Introduction
Paolo Fabbri vii
Acknowledgements xix
SECTION I: REGIONAL STUDIES
1. The recreational use and abuse of the coastline of Florida
R. W. G. Carter 3
2. Management strategies for coastal conservation in South Wales. U.K.
Allan T. Williams 19
3. Recreational uses and problems of Port Phillip Bay. Australia
Eric Bird and Peter Cullen 39
4. Recreation in the coastal areas of Singapore
~~~~ ~
5. The Azov Sea coast as a recreational area
V. A. Mamykina and Yuri P. Khrustalev 63
6. The influence of ethnicity on recreational uses of coastal areas in Guyana
V. Chris Lakhan 69
7. Recreational uses in the coastal zone of central Chile
Consuelo Castro and M. Ines Valenzuela 83
8. Recreational uses of Quebec coastlines
Jean-Marie M. Dubois and Marc Chenevert 89
SECTION II: COASTAL RECREATION IN ADVERSE
ENVIRONMENTS
9. Recreational use of the Washington St ate coast
Maurice L. Schwartz 103
10. Pacific coast recreational patterns and activities in Canada
Philip Dearden 111
11. The recreational use of the Norwegian coast
Tormod Klemsdal 125
12. Patterns and impacts of coastal recreation along the Gulf coast of
Mexico
Klaus 1. Meyer-Arendt 133
13. Wetlands recreation: Louisiana style
Donald W. Davis 149
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
14. The natural features of the Caspian Sea western coasts in the context of
their prospective recreational use
O. K. Leontjev, S. A. Lukyanova andL. G. Nikiforov 165
SECTION ill: PLANNING FOR RECREATION
15. Construction of a recreational beach using the original coastal morpho
logy, Koege Bay, Denmark
Niels Nielsen 177
16. Tourist planning along the coast of Aquitaine, France
Paolo Ghelardoni 191
17. Sydney's southern surfing beaches: characteristics and hazards
A. D. Short and C. L. Hogan 199
18. Twenty five years of development along the Israeli Mediterranen coast:
goals and achievements
Yaacov Nir and Avi Elimelech 211
19. Differential response of six beaches at Point Pelee (Ontario) to variable
levels of recreational use
PlacidoD. La Valle 219
20. Anthropogenic effects on recreational beaches
Yurii V. Artukhin 231
21. Formulating policies using visitor perceptions of Biscayne National Park
and seashore
Stephen V. Cofer-Shabica, Robert E. Snow and Francis P. Noe 235
SECTIONIV:MUSCELLANEOUS
22. Marine recreation in North America
Niels West 257
23. Beach resort morphology in England and Australia: a review and
extension
Dennis N. Jeans 277
Introduction
Human clustering in coastal areas
The coastal zone has gained a solid reputation as a place vocated for recreational
activities and this is generally related to the presence of the sea. The relationship,
however, does not appear univocal or simple: the sea can be perceived as a hostile
element by humans and the more general question of whether the presence of the
shore is in itself a favourable, repulsive, or irrelevant factor to settlement is a
debatable point, at least for pre-industrial societies.
Back in the early part of the 19th century, Friedrich Hegel regarded oceans and
rivers as unifying elements rather than dividing ones, thus implying a trend towards
the concentration of human settlements along them. 'The sea', he wrote, 'stimulates
courage and conquest, as well as profit and plunder', 1 although he realized that this
did not equally apply to all maritime peoples. In Hegel's view, different approaches
to the sea were mainly the results of cultural factors and, in fact, he recognized that
some people living in coastal areas perceive the sea as a dangerous and alien place
and the shore as aftnis terrae.
However, the precise role of culture in developing such differences still remains
unstated and the fact that habitats favoured by living primates other than man are
rarely along the shore, suggests that only recently, in the time span of hominid
evolution, oceans have been perceived as media for human dispersal. This may also
apply to the coastal environment, for which there are signs that, within the same
cultural group, approaches might vary in relation to changes in needs. For example,
the carbon dating of shell middens, commonly found along many shorelines of the
world, shows a more recent age than hunting cultures, suggesting 'that man turned
to coastal sources for food only after sources of terrestrial ecosystems were no
longer adequate'.2
In recent times, a French geographer familiar with many coastal regions of the
world, Pierre Gourou, has regarded physical factors as irrelevant to coastal
settlement:3 he mentions 'good coasts' (from a physical point of view) which
support dense settlement, with marine activities (Brittany) or without them (Gulf of
Guinea); and 'good coasts' which are scarcely populated, as in Southern Chile,
Korea, and Kampoutchea. According to Gourou, there are also 'bad coasts' which
are heavily settled, with or without economic links to the sea: examples of these are
Lebanon and Israel in the first case, and most of China in the latter. 'This field of
study', says Gourou, 'is a muddle of contradictions and the only possible explana
tion lies in culture ... : If these are sea-oriented, coastal clustering is likely to
develop and nearshore areas will be subject to various degrees of anthropization,
conforming to cultural and economic needs and according to technology.
P. Fabbri (ed.), Recreational Uses a/Coastal Areas, vii-xviii.
© 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
viii IN1RODUCITON
This leaves the question open as to how and why human cultures become sea
oriented or cease to be so. Gourou claims that being oriented seaward or landward
depends, for a culture, 'on circumstances which, from time to time, take into
account coastal conditions, without being conditioned from them'. Such cir
cumstances, however, are not explicit and this approach indeed seems an excess of
reaction to physical determinism. High-latitude coastal areas are practically
uninhabitated, mainly (if not only) as a result of physical factors and this also refers
in general to coasts bordering arid regions at all latitudes and to many others
characterized by such features as marshlands or a rugged morphology. In all of
these circumstances, which are certainly not unusual on this planet, physical
features do play a major role in determining densities and patterns of human
settlement.
It should be recognized, however, that such physical factors as the presence of
freshwater, good (but not excessive) drainage, and soil fertility, which have led the
agricultural revolution in its spatial diffusion, as well as the resulting settlement,
show no connection whatsoever with the vicinity of the sea. Although specific
coastal features may influence the typology and formal distribution of agricultural
settlement (for example, linear alignments along the shore, or at a certain distance
from it), they are irrelevant as to the density of it, when compared to inland areas.
Also, if higher concentrations of settlement and population are to be related - both
in space and time - to better opportunities of resource exploitation, such activities
as mining, stock raising, or hunting (which imply thin permanent settlement, or
none at all) also show no relation to coastal areas, in their spatial diffusion. In a
more general way, production of goods and services also does not imply spatial
correlations a priori, in its distributional patterns, with coastal areas: large urban
and industrial areas have been located and developed regardless of distances from
the sea. In considering different forms of resource exploitation and the resulting
economies, fishing appears as the only long-pursued activity with an obvious link
to the coast, or. better, to some kind of surface waters.
On account of its long-recorded history, the Mediterranean region can be used as
a good example to review coastal vs. inland trends of settlement and to show how
these are led both by environmental features and by a blend of cultural factors. The
trend of concentrating settlement and urbanization along coasts in ancient times, is
thoroughly documented for the whole basin, and this was primarily due to physical
factors. In North Africa and along the eastern side - although inland areas were not
as arid as in present times - coastlands certainly enjoyed better conditions for the
practice of agriculture. Similar advantages pertained to the coasts on the European
side, scattered by marshlands or fringed by steep and rocky cliffs, but also includ
ing long stretches of well drained alluvial plains, which provided very favourable
habitats for a number of crops. Some of these, like olive and vine cultivation, were
eventually extended along sunny slopes to meet ideal growing conditions. To the
contrary, inland areas generally presented less favourable conditions, with rugged
mountains and extended calcareous formations, resistant to tillage and scarce of
surface waters. These areas were thus left for grazing, while agriculture and
consequent settlement tended to cluster along the coast.
The other main reason for coastal concentration in the Mediterranean derived
INTRODUCTION ix
from the sea itself: a group of relatively small and contiguous water basins, which
were immune from major storms and high tidal ranges and which were crowded
with natural harbour sites and landmarks to aid navigation. Even for low-technol
ogy cultures, the Mediterranean is an easy sea and, since very early times, it was
perceived and used as an extension of the inhabited world, both for fishing and
trading. These activities well complemented the farming and grazing economy of
riparian settlers and trading was the main stimulus for the expansion and establish
ment of new colonies by such sea-oriented peoples as the Phoenicians, the Punics,
and the Greeks. Which factors pushed these peoples more than others towards the
sea? The spirit of adventure and a thirst of profits seem much vaguer than other,
more tangible factors such as overpopulation in their narrow coastal or insular
homelands; or a more developed and better rooted confidence in the sea, deriving
from such natural assets as coastal indentations and the proximity of numerous
islands, encouraging short-range navigation.
The political unity of the area, which was attained at the peak of the Roman
empire and further maintained in the eastern part of the basin under Byzantine rule,
was also a factor favouring flows of goods and peoples across the Mediterranean,
thus encouraging coastal settlement. Imperial navies were efficient enough to
control all main trading routes and prevent piracy. In fact, the decline of the Roman
rule, which can be traced back to the late 3rd century, also marked the first major
and recorded decline in the use of the sea. Along with the empire and its economic
framework, a network of trading routes and ports was discarded and the sea
gradually became less safe for navigation, due to the lack of control and a conse
quent upsurge of piracy.
In this new situation, coastal settlement became demotivated and dangerous and
a landward migration trend was started: this was also encouraged by the upheaval
brought to many littoral plains by floods, which, in tum, were caused by
deficiencies in water control, and deforestation along slopes used as new farming or
grazing areas. Also, hydraulic deregulation created ideal habitats for the endemy of
malaria in the resulting marshes. Thus, environmental factors along with political
and economic circumstances determined the first withdrawal of the Mediterranean
peoples from coasts to inland areas, dispersed coastal settlement, and diverted
landward cultural attitudes and resource exploitation.
This process was not fully registered in the eastern part of the region, where no
sharp discontinuity is recorded between the Romans and the Byzantines in
maintaining a unified political and economic framework. In this area and as far
west as the Adriatic, a coastal urban network persisted up to the time of the Arab
conquest (7th-8th centuries AD). For the next thousand years, however, the
Mediterranean, deprived of any political unity, became essentially an area of
conflict between two large cultural groups, the Christians and the Muslims, for
which differences in religious beliefs and practices also extended to - and resulted
from - different forms of resource exploitation. Over this long period, we can
roughly spot two moments of Muslim supremacy (7th-lIth and 15th-17th
centuries) and one of Christian domination in between, but the balance of power
certainly shows more numerous shifts when considered in more detail.
In all cases, the trend of higher/lower coastal settlement, referred to inland areas,
x INTRODUCTION
has shown a clear and constant dependency on the situation of expansion vs.
withdrawal on the adjacent sea. The history of the Mediterranean shows that a push
of a people (not necessarily grouped into an organized nationality) towards the sea
constitutes a basic premise for that people to restore old ports or build new ones,
expand or establish coastal cities, develop a coastal network of communications (on
land and/or on sea), reclaim lowlands, and regulate coastal waters in general. This
push may be stimulated by overpopulation, leading to a search for new resources
on the sea or over it; or by the acquisition of a higher warfare technology; or finally
it may be motivated by religion. But the reverse is not necessarily likely to happen:
in other words, such facts as overpopulation, technological progress, or religious
and ideological tensions do not necessarily lead to a seaward and across-sea
expansion. In any case, factors that lead to a push do not always play the same role.
When, between the late 1600s and the early 1800s, the balance of power in the
Mediterranean shifted in favour of Western Europe, the religious factor was
irrelevant, the demographic one was important, technologically the decisive.
Although not as richly documented as in the Mediterranean, trends to coastal
concentration or dispersal have been individuated in many other regions of the
globe, always showing close connections to spatio-temporal approaches of human
groups towards the sea. There are indeed many situations of densely populated
coastlands, as in the monsoon area, where a combination of excellent farming
conditions in drained and fertile coastal plains, difficult access to the sea, and low
technologies have encouraged a land-based coastal settlement, with densities as
high as 700-800 inhabitants/sq. km. Things are rapidly changing, however, in this
area too, as technology and overpopUlation exert pressures for more sea-oriented
cultural approaches.
In the industrial age, two basic facts may be recognized and documented in their
entities and distribution:
- a marked and globally diffuse higher concentration of residents - and thus
settlements - in the vicinities of the coast;
- a close spatio-temporal relationship between this trend and the spreading of the
Industrial Revolution.
A few figures may illustrate the first fact. In the United States, nearly 50% of the
total population resides in coastal counties and about 90% of the population growth
in the 1970s has taken place in the 30 states facing the oceans or the Great Lakes.
In Britain, the coastal population density is 150-180, in contrast with 40-80 inland.
In France, littoral townships, with a total area of 3.8%, contain 12% of the total
population. In the Iberian Peninsula, 60% of the population lives in littoral
provinces.
As to the relationship between coastal concentrations and the Industrial Revolu
tion, this may be evidenced in fieri but will be briefly discussed here on an a
posteriori basis. Which are the processes and facts that link coastal clustering with
the development of industrial culture? It should be firstly recalled that the spread
ing of Europeans in all continents - a process started long before the Industrial
Revolution, but which gained momentum after the beginning of it - has taken place
primarily through ocean navigation at the highest possible technological level. This
obviously led to coastal concentrations in both countries of departure and territories
