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This proposal has been prepared by the Ocean and Islands Programme (OIP) within the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) in collaboration with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). It has been prepared in response to an invitation1 from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) to assist the Cook Islands in deriving coastal related information to underpin and inform climate change adaptation decisions for coastal areas of Mangaia Island.

Social and biophysical dimensions of ecosystems are inextricably related such that a change in one dimension is highly likely to generate a change in the other. Although change is a natural consequence of complex interactions, it must be monitored and even managed if the rate and direction of change threatens to undermine system resilience.

In the first half of the 1990s, in response to increasing concern about many of the world's fisheries, and following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), a number of international fisheries instruments provided an impetus for countries to strengthen their fisheries management. A key step in supporting such efforts is the development of more-detailed, systematic and comparable information on fisheries management trends. In 2004, FAO developed the State of World Marine Capture Fisheries Management Questionnaire in response to this need, in 2007, FAO used this questionnaire to conduct a study of the trends in marine capture fisheries management in 29 Pacific Ocean countries.

The Rapid Agricultural Disaster Assessment Routine (RADAR) is based on the idea that a disaster is the product of extreme factors and a vulnerable agricultural system. This book proposes to move from empirical assessments of disaster impact on agriculture towards model-based approaches. Once an event strikes a region, the user of the procedure should rapidly collect all available geo-referenced and quantitative data on the event and the region.

Flooding imposes significant costs on households and businesses located in the lower Vaisigano catchment area. SOPAC, under the European Development Fund (EDF) project Reducing Vulnerability of Pacific ACP States, has worked with the Government of Samoa to develop the Samoa Flood Management and Action Plan, which identifies actions for government agencies, the private sector, NGOs and communities responsible for flood and floodplain management that can assist in reducing flood risks in Samoa, particularly in the lower Vaisigano catchment area located in Apia, which is subject to frequent flooding.

Awareness of the limitations of a single-species approach to fisheries management has led to global acceptance of the need to adopt a wider ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) assessment and management. Applying EAF in management requires the application of scientific methods and tools that also go beyond the single-species approaches which used to be, to a large extent, the exclusive sources of scientific advice. Managers and decision-makers must now find management solutions that take into account the wider range of societal objectives that must be explicitly considered under EAF and the interactions in the ecosystem. Ecosystem models, i.e. models that represent a wider range of technological and ecological processes affecting the species in the ecosystem (including multispecies and whole ecosystem models), are potentially important tools for providing this wider scientific information.

The High-Level Conference which Italy has the honour of hosting and which today I have the honour of inaugurating, represents an extraordinary opportunity for reflection and commitment on crucial issues of our time and is already a significant event on account of such a distinguished attendance, notably of Heads of State and Government. I read this as a sign of awareness and renewed willingness on the part of the leadership of all continents and. together with the world organizations, of the international community as a whole.

The goal of Article II of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to ensure stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".

The Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) is currently executing the project Reducing Vulnerability in Pacific ACP States with funding from the European Development Fund (EDF). The project has the objective to reduce Pacific ACP States' vulnerability to natural disasters affecting their coasts through the development of an integrated planning and management system which targets: hazard mitigation and risk assessment; alternative sources of aggregates for construction; and water resources and sanitation. Major activities undertaken through this project with participating countries are: -assessment of aggregate resource supplies to mitigate the impact of unsustainable aggregate mining from the coastline; -development of bathymetric maps, 3D bathymetric and hydrodynamic models spatial databases relating to resource use, exploration and survey, and vulnerability to disasters; and -investigating and raising awareness about coastal processes.