A principles-based framework to define coastal literacy

Defining literacy is essential because it establishes a baseline for education, enables robust assessment and measurement of progress, supports policy and accountability, makes domain-specific differences explicit, and can improve equity by enabling better-designed interventions to promote learning. UNESCO notes that, beyond its conventional concept as a set of reading, writing and counting skills, literacy is now understood as a means of identification, understanding, interpretation, creation, and communication in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich and fast-changing world. Consequently, multiple domain literacies have emerged, including science, health, media, digital and financial literacy, and more recently AI literacy. While ocean literacy has gained significant traction in the last decade, for the coast an early coastal literacy framework was proposed in 2010 by CoastNet (UK charity that has since closed), but it was primarily oriented towards integrated coastal zone management. The objective of this work is thus to define coastal literacy and what it comprises.

To develop a definition tailored to coastal contexts, related literacy constructs were reviewed, particularly ocean literacy, climate literacy and risk literacy. Across frameworks, literacy is commonly articulated through dimensions (for example, knowledge, awareness and attitudes) and, in some cases, through explicit principles. The Ocean Literacy Framework is a prominent example, currently comprising seven principles and 45 concepts, and defines ocean literacy as understanding the ocean’s influence on humanity and humanity’s influence on the ocean. Although coasts form part of the broader ocean system, coastal environments have distinct characteristics: they concentrate human activities, involve frequent and direct human–environment interactions, and are often exposed to hazards. Coasts also exist at the interface of multiple Earth system spheres, linking the ocean, land and atmosphere. The framework of coastal literacy was developed building on the literature review and on a two-day focus group using structured brainstorming methodologies. The proposed framework comprises seven principles: (P1) Each coast is unique and has value on its own; (P2) Coasts consist of many different and connected parts; (P3) Coasts are dynamic, changing from seconds to millennia; (P4) Human activities impact the coast, and coasts continually affect humans; (P5) Coasts are inherently hazardous environments that can place people and infrastructure at risk; (P6) Climate change is affecting coastal ecosystems and challenging future coastal use; and (P7) We share responsibility for looking after the coasts for present and future generations. A key contribution of these principles is how they frame human–coast relationships. They recognise the intrinsic coastal value independent of human use or resource exploitation (P1), position humans as part of coastal systems (P2, P4), explicitly foreground coastal risk (P5), and treat shared responsibility as a component of literacy (P7). They also embed sustainability by emphasising the need to safeguard future generations, including in the context of climate change (P6). Further work is needed to elaborate the concepts underpinning each principle and to refine the framework through additional validation; however, the principles presented here provide a structured foundation for defining and operationalising coastal literacy.