The Coastal Wiki is an Internet encyclopaedia based on the same principle as the Wikipedia. An important difference is that it is not possible to edit anonymously at the Coastal Wiki and that all content is related to sustainable coastal management. The Coastal Wiki targets policymakers, scientists, practitioners and other stakeholders and is therefore putting emphasis on avoiding very technical language while still being as precise and exact as possible.

The Wiki articles can be consulted and queried from different angles, depending on whether one is concerned with problems related to bathing water quality, eutrophication or biodiversity loss, or whether one is more interested in searching for available policy instruments, legislation, economic measures, planning or public participation tools. It will also be possible to use the Wiki to identify the causes or driving forces of policy challenges.

The Coastal Wiki is expected to be a useful tool for both writers and readers. It will make it possible to learn from each others’ failures and successes, but we must also be realistic in our expectations. Even if local experiences often have some transfer value, they also have a lot of limitations. It is obvious that climatic, geographical and biological differences must be taken into considerations, as well as political and cultural differences. Policy instruments often have social and historical roots and have therefore limited transfer value. Nevertheless, we can expect the policy and technical instruments database in the Coastal Wiki to be an important pool of ideas for scientists and politicians in the years to come.

For more infromation, please visit www.coastalwiki.org