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Some coastal animals are used to humans in developed areas, such as dolphins and seagulls who eat food thrown for them by tourists. Since the coastal areas are all part of the littoral zone, there is a profusion of marine life found just off-coast, including sessile animals such as corals, sponges, starfish, mussels, seaweeds, fishes, and sea ...
Coastal geography is the study of the constantly changing region between the ocean and the land, incorporating both the physical geography (i.e. coastal geomorphology, climatology and oceanography) and the human geography (sociology and history) of the coast.
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area.
Territorial sea is a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22 km; 14 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state. [6] The territorial sea is sovereign territory, although foreign ships (military and civilian) are allowed innocent passage through it, or transit passage for straits ; this ...
The Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) refers to low-lying coastal areas with an elevation below a certain threshold, commonly 10 meters, above mean sea level.Globally, there is a substantial and growing population living in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone, which consists of approximately 2% of the world's land area and around 11% of the global population.
Lagoons are areas that are separated from larger water by natural barriers such as coral reefs or sandbars. There are two types of lagoons, coastal and oceanic/atoll lagoons. [23] A coastal lagoon is, as the definition above, simply a body of water that is separated from the ocean by a barrier.
Coastal zones occupy less than 15% of the Earth's land area, while they host more than 40% of the world population. Nearly 1.2 billion people live within 100 kilometres (62 mi) of a coastline and 100 metres (328 ft) of sea level, with an average density three times higher than the global average for population. [2]
The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. [1] In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas that are permanently submerged — known as the foreshore — and the terms are often used interchangeably.