In 2000, 47% of the United States human population lived within 100km (60 miles) of a coastline. Since 1990, the population of South Carolina’s eight coastal counties increased 30% to almost 1.1 million residents; in the next 25 years the population of our coastal counties is expected to increase by at least another 400,000 residents. A larger human population does not just mean more people. It means more cars, more houses, more roads and highways, more stores, more factories, more of everything that people need and want. It also means less habitat for wildlife and recreationally and commercially important fishery species and potential degradation of the habitat that remains.
Take the skyrocketing population along the Mediterranean Sea as an example: two thirds of its coastal wetlands disappeared during the 20th century and 50% of its coastline is covered by concrete. It has been estimated that 80% of the pollution found in Europe’s coastal waters as a whole originates from human activities on land. Is this the future of the coastline of South Carolina and the United States?
It is the mission of the Environmental Research Section of the Marine Resources Research Institute to address important questions regarding human impacts on our state’s coastal resources. It is our goal to provide the citizens of SC with the information necessary to make sound coastal management decisions and to inform policy-makers of the pressing issues facing the coastal environment.
Derk C. Bergquist
217 Fort Johnson Road
Charleston, South Carolina 29412
Phone: 843-953-9074
Fax: 843-953-9820