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Updated November, 2008 CCNS COASTAL POLICY FACTOR SUMMARY LAND USE AND RESOURCE PLANNING Land-use planning is an essential element in the effective management of Nova Scotia’s coastal zone. Ecologically, the waters in the coastal zone are among the most productive, and in some cases the most sensitive, and human use of coastal land and waters invariably results in impacts to these environments. Particularly now that the province’s shoreline is of growing interest to residential, industrial, commercial and recreational users, land-use planning and management can provide many of the tools needed for the stewardship of coastal regions and sites. Because the coastal zone embraces not only inshore waters and inter-tidal areas, but also extensive tracts of land, land-use management of the coastal zone thus involves managing human activities not only immediately influenced by and impacting the ocean, but also in watersheds that drain into coastal areas. Contemporary coastal land-use planning is, therefore, made up of elements from urban/town planning and regional development, protected area (conservation) planning, strategic environmental planning and resource planning. In Canada, despite at least 30 years of rhetorical commitments by successive federal and provincial governments, approaches to planning in coastal areas in Canada remain at a relatively early stage of development. Coastal planning frameworks and activities are more advanced in a number of coastal US states, where coastal zone management has been legislated for as long, and in the EU, which has formalized approaches to management of coastal areas. This coastal policy factor summary looks at land use and resource planning from three perspectives: the legal