The Contribution of History to Coastal Zone Management

Given the need to gain reliable scientific knowledge in order to respond to the challenges of climate change, in the face of the complexity of coastal zone management, it is accepted that no type of knowledge is insignificant. In recent years there has been an effort to bring together the social sciences and the natural sciences, in order to obtain data to support the implementation of sustainable solutions. In this review article, a historian and a geologist set out to consider the importance of linking History with other disciplines such as Geology, Climatology and Biology, to better understand the impact on coastlines of human activity and climate in a dialectical and historical perspective. They aim to show
that both the scientific community and broader society need to improve this type of research, to better understand the coastal systems, to obtain a more comprehensive knowledge of climate evolution, to broadly quantify natural risks, and to understand our environment in a global way. They will also
analyse what is being done in this respect. As this is an innovative approach to coastal management and little explored, it is relevant to review what has been produced in recent years, in order to systematize the knowledge acquired, and to suggest new lines of research.