Proceedings of the Coastal Zone Asia Pacific Conference 156 Effects of Coastal Recreation on Social Aspects of Human Well-being Melanie Cox 1,2 , Ron Johnstone 1,2 and Jackie Robinson 1,3 1 CRC for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management 2 Centre for Marine Studies, University of Queensland 3 School of Economics, University of Queensland m.cox@marine.uq.edu.au ABSTRACT Coastal ecosystems are under increasing pressures from a wide variety of human impacts. As the coastal zone provides many goods and services essential to the well-being of people, there is potential for changes in the condition of coastal ecosystems to have reciprocal impacts on the human population. Based on existing literature, it was hypothesised that changes in coastal ecosystem condition could affect aspects of social and community relations through affecting residents coastal recreational activities, sense of place, social interactions and networks, health and overall quality of life. These relationships were investigated in the Pumicestone catchment in south-east Queensland with the aim of identifying the interactions between coastal condition and human well-being. Information on key variables was collected by surveying catchment residents, and data were analysed using path analysis. The results indicate that the recreation in coastal areas can impact on the well- being of coastal residents. Understanding the positive relationship between ecosystems and human well-being can potentially reduce the apparent conflict between environmental improvement and human interests, thus improving management of local ecosystems. Key words: Ecosystem condition, recreation, sense of place, human well-being, Pumicestone catchment Key learnings 1. Recreation in the coastal zone can affect residents sense of place, social interactions, health and overall quality of life. 2. Effects of changes in the condition of coastal systems on human well-being need to be considered in coastal management. 3. Explicit recognition of the benefits of coastal ecosystems in good condition to the surrounding human population is potentially a powerful way to improve coastal management. INTRODUCTION The coastal zone plays an important role in the life of most Australians. Over 80% of Australians live within 100km of the coast, and this percentage is increasing. Coastal areas are in high demand for recreation, and are an important component of the Australian lifestyle. It has been recognized for some time that the coastal zone is under growing pressure from the increasing human population, and a large body of work has been and is being undertaken to assess the impacts of these pressures on the natural coastal ecosystems. However, despite the obvious importance of the coast to the well-being of people choosing to live in the coastal zone, there has been little or no attempt to assess the flow-on effects that changes in the condition of coastal ecosystems might have on the human population. Natural ecosystems are hypothesised to affect human well-being in a variety of ways (Reid et al. 2002; Cox et al. 2003). The Millennium Assessment identifies five major components to well-being; security, freedom, basic material needs, health, and social relations. Of these, ecosystem condition is