The social impacts of tourism in coastal areas
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and coastal areas are particular magnets for this industry. Coastal tourism and recreation includes a wide range of tourism, leisure, and recreational activities that take place both in the coastal zone and in coastal waters off-shore. Coastal recreation and tourism activities include swimming, beach activities, recreational fishing, recreational boating, cruises, ecotourism, snorkeling and diving.

These activities are often supported by extensive tourism development such as accommodation, food services, entertainment venues, and other supporting infrastructure such as fishing piers and other fishing areas, recreational boating harbours and marinas, retail businesses, recreation and tourism businesses, landscaped beaches, etc.

It is a paradox of tourism visitation in coastal areas that it can result in damaging the natural attraction people came to see. It can also result in far-reaching and often unexpected social impacts. The environmental and social impacts of coastal tourism need to be a clear priority of governments at all levels. “Clean water, healthy coastal habitats, and a safe, secure, and enjoyable environment are clearly fundamental to successful coastal tourism. Similarly, bountiful living marine resources (fish, shellfish, wetlands, coral reefs, etc.) are of critical importance to most recreational experiences.” (NOAA 1998, p. 1).

Planning plays a key role in the tourism management process, however social impacts are rarely considered in a structured way. Key social issues that have been raised in relation to tourism development include:
· Sustainability: The need to limit tourism development to a level compatible with ecological and social carrying capacity
· Preservation of landscapes: Coastal construction should be controlled to prevent environmental damage and loss of social values. Unsustainable and inappropriate tourism developments should be discouraged
· Community development: Tourism should support activities that benefit local communities and contribute to development of sustainable communities
· Preservation of cultural identity: Tourism development should complement the character of the community and not lead to a fundamental change in the townscape or rural landscape character
· Economic development: Tourism developments should support diversified job creation by supporting local businesses in construction and operation as much as possible, as well as by networking with other local tourism businesses.

Sustainability
Increased tourism demands create pressure on carrying capacity. Greater visitor numbers may place habitats at risk and can jeopardise cultural heritage. Two important principles of developing sustainable tourism are to encourage conservation and provide benefits to the local community.

In the worst cases, tourism “consumes resources, creates waste and requires certain kinds of infrastructure; it creates conditions for possible over-consumption of resources; it is dominated by private investment with priority on maximizing profits … The challenge of sustainable tourism development, therefore, is to balance the principles with these truths, and this can be done only through integrated, cooperative approaches involving all stakeholders and related economic activities in the area. (ESCAP 2001, p. 5) The recent Coastal Spaces report (DSE) also notes that ‘lifestyle’ residential estates outside of existing settlements can commit coastal areas to urbanisation (p. ii).

Preservation of Landscapes
The coastal landscape is one of the key tourism attractors, however hinterland areas are also important in creating the unique sense of place of each coastal area. Planners need to work to preserve the social landscape by preventing inappropriate development and protecting valuable landscapes.

A key issue in Victorian coastal regions in recent years has been the development of wind farms. Coastal areas with strong wind resources are prime sites for wind farm development, however many areas have strong landscape values that are attractive to residents and tourists alike. This has effectively led to tourism and the alternative energy industry coming into conflict over which sector provides the greatest economic return and social benefit for the given coastal region.

Community Development
The local community should be a direct beneficiary of any tourism development. There is no reason why tourism development, at an appropriate level, cannot provide significant social benefits. This includes through provision of social infrastructure, access to a wider range of services than may otherwise exist, and economic opportunities.

Preservation of cultural identity
Tourism can lead to significant changes to the social fabric of coastal communities. There can be major increases in population and significant population fluctuations depending on the season. This may cause major amenity and dislocative impacts for full-time residents. They may find it harder to reach local facilities or services, or may feel that the amenity of the area has been adversely impacted by excessive tourism visitation. Planners need to balance the needs of tourists with the needs of local residents.

Many coastal towns in Victoria began as fishing villages or small-scale seaside resorts. Some are at risk of losing their cultural identity due to the scale of new development attracted by visions of a ‘sea change’ lifestyle. However extensive change to the built form can change a town’s identity. The challenge for planners is to develop planning policies that protect the features that make coastal towns so attractive while still allowing further development. ‘Lifestyle’ developments outside of the urban area can also change the way an area is perceived, from rural coastal to urban coastal or, depending on the locality, to urban fringe.

Economic development
Tourism is seen by many communities as a way to achieve significant economic growth. There is a risk that it can be over promoted as a community’s economic saviour without giving due benefit to the potential disbenefits of unrestrained growth.

The challenge for planners is to develop planning schemes that protect social values without unduly restricting appropriate development. Sustainable tourism development ensures that communities develop at a pace that maximises the full social and economic benefits of tourism while addressing development problems. In coastal areas, where the environment is particularly fragile, it is particularly important to balance the environmental impacts and economic gains carefully. In areas of particularly high environmental or cultural value, there may be an argument for accepting lower economic outcomes to preserve the social and environmental benefits.

Conclusion
The social and economic impacts of tourism in coastal areas should be a key consideration when planning the development of coastal communities. Consideration should be given to the existing values of these communities, and whether tourism has the potential to enhance or degrade these. Tourism can be planned in a way that provides considerable community benefit if social considerations are incorporated into the planning process.

References
Deery, Dr M undated Social Indicators for GREEN GLOBE Communities Sustainable Tourism CRC (unpublished presentation)
Department of Sustainability and Environment 2005 Coastal Spaces Inception Report May 2005, Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne
Enterprise Directorate-General Tourism Unit 2000 Towards Quality Coastal Tourism European Commission, Brussels
International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives 1999 Sustainable Tourism: A Local Authority Perspective Commission on Sustainable Development, New York
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adinistration 1998 1998 Year of the Ocean: Coastal Tourism And Recreation http://www.yoto98.noaa.gov/yoto/meeting/tour_rec_316.html [Accessed 20OCT05]
Potter, Bruce 1996 Tourism and Coastal Resources Degradation in the Wider Caribbean Island Resources Foundation, St Thomas Virgin Islands http://www.irf.org/irtourdg.html
Spenceley, A 2001 Responsible Tourism Guidelines For The South African Tourism Industry (draft) Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, South Africa

The social impact of climate change

I'm teaching Social Impact Assessmentat RMIT again this semester. I decided to offer a choice for the group work assignment. The two most popular ideas were an international development project and the social impact of climate change. In order to 'make it personal', I decided to use a case study of looking at the potential social impact of climate change in a specific community which may be vulnerable. I chose Barwon Heads/Ocean Grove because I did some work there a couple of years ago and know the area reasonably well. The students doing this assignment were very enthusiastic and it will be interesting to see how they scope out the impacts. The international project the rest of the class is doing is the Three Gorges Dam in China. Mostly because there was lots of information available, but also because the sheer scale of impact is almost unimaginable - over a million people displaced, just to start with.

When you're talking about abstract issues like pollution and so on, it's difficult for people to get enthusiastic. There's a tendency to not want to be out there doing more than anyone else - in other words no one wants to sacrifice more than their neighbour, or shoulder an unfair share of the burden. It's human nature. But in some ways it becomes even harder when you get down to specifics. For example, many coastal towns in Australia are in low-lying areas. Even with sea-level rise projections at the lower end of the scale, parts of these towns are at risk of inundation.

So who is responsible for managing these impacts? A specific case is impacts on houses built in areas at risk of inundation. What happens if government modelling shows these properties to be unsafe and at risk of inundation? Does the government then become liable to help these people relocate, or do they have to pay for adaptation strategies, such as sea walls? I can see a time coming when it may be necessary to compulsorily acquire some properties for public safety reasons, and becuase the owners wouldn't be able to sell them any other way.

This issue has already arisen in Victoria, where a couple of coastal Councils have had kand rezoned to prevent construction on the basis of unacceptable risk of sea level rise. The land immediately became worthless and the owners were justifiably angry at their financial loss. The mechanisms for retreating from low-lying coastal areas need considerable thought in the very near future, to ensure that appropriate and equitable systems are in place.

One of the reasons that local communities object to major development proposals is very rarely addressed in planning systems. This is the issue of what is the limit of acceptable change in a specific locale. In general, when people protest about a proposal it is because they believe that the amount of change being imposed upon them is unacceptable. Gradual, incremental change is generally more acceptable to communities than sudden, major change, hence the opposition to large projects.

The level of change that specific proposals will bring to a community should be assessed, including in terms of surroundings, amenity, traffic and social change. These impacts should be clearly documented in an impact statement which draws together all of the assessment undertaken for the proposed development, and which undertakes further social impact assessment as necessary. Only larger scale developments would need to be assessed in this way, however locailities which are expected to experience significant incremental change should have an initial assessment of the acceptability of that change undertaken.

The affected community could then be consulted on the basis of whether this change is acceptable or not. This should be an iterative process, that is to say, the proposal would be amended based on the outcomes of the impact assessment, if it were determined to have an unacceptable impact in one or more areas.