This unique assessment of the world's coasts and oceans details the ecological, environmental and economic importance of each and the global challenges we face to manage common waters and the resources they contain before development threatens to destroy the ultimate source of all life on the 'blue planet'. With global and regional maps, from the Arabian Gulf to the Great Barrier Reef and including the Baltic, the Black Sea, the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the South Pacific and all the other major global waterways, the atlas considers the impact of climate change, industrial growth, tourism, pollution and over-fishing as well as the steps being taken towards conservation.