Strategies for Transforming Coastal Governance: Addressing Interdependent Dimensions

Coastal areas are places where land and sea meet. These places offer many socio‐economic opportunities but also face profound social and environmental challenges that are often exacerbated by limitations in current governance systems. These limitations include a lack of coordination, unclear mandates and roles, fragmented knowledge, power dynamics, and insufficient stakeholder involvement. Transforming coastal governance is therefore needed to enhance the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance systems and their institutions, but current practices and past experiences have shown that changing governance is anything but easy. In this article, we analyse how three critical governance dimensions: (1) forms of integration of land and sea management; (2) forms of knowledge mobilized; and (3) forms of democracy in their interplay, shape possibilities and limits for transforming governance. Drawing on insights from the literature and three case studies from Spain, the UK, and Norway, we highlight how these different governance dimensions are strongly interrelated and should be addressed in coherent ways to make governance more effective and legitimate.