Abstract
This article begins with a discussion of developments concerning offshore wind farms in the German North Sea as an example of marine use change. Specifically, it takes a look at whether Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) can help to improve the planning framework. While ICZM cannot solve all political problems, it meets some planning needs. Recently, integrated approaches have become more and more influential in legislation, but a significant implementation gap exists. To overcome this gap, new modes of coastal governance need to be established (e.g., moving from management of single human activities to management of use patterns, from protection of individual species to protection of ecosystems, or from single scales to multiple scales). The second part of the article describes the integrative approach of the German research project Coastal Futures. Using the DPSIR (drivers, pressure, state, impact, response) framework, scenario storylines were used to describe potential marine use patterns causing different ecological and socio-economic impacts. With the approach developed for the example of offshore wind, Coastal Futures aims to establish a general concept for integrated assessments of coastal change.