Bridging Scales and Stakeholders: Support for an Integrated Systems Approach to National Coastal Resource Management

The United States relies on its coastal zones for vital ecosystem goods and services that bolster national socioeconomic well-being and resilience. As coastlines confront converging environmental stressors, the resulting impacts span U.S. stakeholder communities and reveal differing priorities across geographic and governance scales. Therefore, supporting effective coastal decision-making requires an understanding of these nuanced relationships. To address this, we conducted a hybridized literature review across U.S. stakeholder communities, governance scales, and geographic regions. Physical drivers, such as sea level rise, emerged as the dominant thematic focus in U.S. coastal literature (39.36%), with stronger emphasis in literature at the national scale (46.84%) than the regional scale (34.30%). Whereas national scale ecosystem health (12.52%) and water quality challenges (15.93%) was less prevalent than regional ecosystem health (18.15%) and water quality (20.39%). This pattern highlights a granularity gap of coastal information needs, as national scale literature tends to prioritize upstream systems drivers, while regional scale literature focuses on more localized impacts relevant to place-based management. Additionally, challenges, stressors, and sectors are frequently discussed in relation to one another, underscoring the inherently interconnected nature of coastal systems. Taken together, these findings emphasize the importance of linking broad, upstream forcings with the downstream, management decisions. Viewing the coast holistically as a system rather than a collection of isolated components strengthens the foundation for effective decision-making, supports responsive monitoring, and clarifies pathways for resilience and mitigation across the nation’s coastlines.