Is integrated coastal management an effective framework for promoting coastal sustainability in China's coastal cities?

Integrated coastal management (ICM) has been introduced and promoted globally for nearly half a century. About 12% of China's coastline has now come under the ICM governance framework to address the environmental and management challenges. To test the effectiveness of ICM in China, three coastal cities that adopted the ICM framework were selected as case studies. The ICM indicators in terms of governance, environment and socioeconomic aspects were designed for quantitatively evaluating the ICM performance over a 9-year period from 2004 to 2012.The results showed that ICM performance based on governance, coastal environment and socioeconomic aspects in the three improved, indicating that the ICM approach can be effective in promoting the overall sustainability of China's coastal cities.