Worldwide, almost 40 % of humanity (that is well over 2 billion people) live less than 100 km from the coast. At the same time, these 100 km wide coastal strips make up only about 20 % of the world's land area. The coastal zones are intensively populated, used for agriculture and forestry and have a great structural diversity (beaches and dune landscapes, wetlands, tidal flats, estuaries and lagoons, etc.). Both population growth and economic development worldwide will continue to be concentrated in the coastal region in the future. At the same time, there is a threat of sea-level rise due to climate change. Increasing pressure of use, e.g. due to the need for land for renewable energies or due to increasing tourism, is increasingly leading to conflicts in these regions.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the Baltic Sea coast is therefore an ideal study area. With the research focus "AGRICOAST - Sustainable Resource Use in Coastal Agricultural Landscapes", the faculty is addressing precisely these challenges. Numerous professorships of the faculty are involved in current joint projects such as the DFG Research Training Group "BalticTransCoast" or the state excellence initiative "WETSCAPES".
In its holistic approach, the faculty feels committed to the sustainability claim formulated in the Brundlandt Report (1987)1:
"In essence, sustainable development is a process of change in which the use of resources, the destination of investments, the direction of technological development and institutional change harmonise to increase the present and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations."
1 Brundtland-Report (1987): „Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future”