The UN Atlas 2010 records that today about one in every three people on the planet lives w ithin 100 kilometres (km) of the sea, and 44% of the w'orld’s population (more people than inhabited the entire globe in 1950) currently live w'ithin 150 km of the coast. Overall, average population density in coastal zones is three times higher than the w'orld average, and in recent decades the overall growth of coastal populations has outstripped that of inland populations (Crawford Heitzmann, 2006). In deltas and flood plains, i.e. areas most exposed to flood risks, the population is expected to increase rapidly - by 50% between 2000 and 2030 according to Neumann et al. (