The UN Ocean Decade-endorsed project, “Coastal Zones Under Intensifying Human Activities and Changing Climate: A Regional Programme Integrating Science, Management and Society to Support Ocean Sustainability” (COASTAL-SOS), has been established to advance scientific understanding of critical coastal ocean health issues and transform the science to solutions for these issues. Contributed by partners from cross-sectoral stakeholders, including leading academic institutions, industrial enterprises, nonprofit foundations, and nongovernmental/intergovernmental organizations, COASTAL-SOS aims to enable the effective integration of science, governance, and society to fundamentally change the business-as-usual development model of the coastal zone.

    Focusing on the East Asian seas, COASTAL-SOS’s research sites include six model coastal systems, including the Changjiang Estuary, Pearl River Estuary, Minjiang River Estuary, Xiamen Sea area, Gulf of Thailand, and Johor Strait. Through comparative and interdisciplinary research, COASTAL-SOS will integrate multidimensional spatiotemporal data to examine the physical, biogeochemical and pollution processes in coastal zones and their interaction with socioeconomic development and to identify the major factors that have caused the environmental degradation of typical coastal zones over the past 50 years. Then, a coupled dynamic model suitable for the human-ocean complex system will be developed, which can predict coastal ecosystem changes in the next 30 years by conducting scenario analyses under different socioeconomic pathways and the threat of climate change. The ultimate goal is to build a Digital Twin of the Ocean that will serve as a science database and modeling platform for basic research and government decision-making.

    Since its endorsement in October 2021, has successfully held its launch meeting and set up the International Project Office at its leading institution, the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science (MEL), Xiamen University. Multiple research funds to COASTAL-SOS have been granted by Xiamen University, Xiamen Ocean Development Bureau and Chinese Academy of Sciences. COASTAL-SOS has also developed cooperation with other UN Ocean Decade actions and actively participated in UN Ocean Decade-related events. Furthermore, COASTAL-SOS has cooperated with partners in international training programs and outreaches to promote ocean literacy.

    You are welcome to visit the COASTAL-SOS website (http://coastal-sos.xmu.edu.cn) for more and updated information.