Sustainable development of tropical, coastal, urban zones in archipelago environment

The need for sustainable, regional development of tropical, coastal urban zones in an archipelago environment like Indonesia is presented. The national demand for marine-based development in general and marine transport in particular is firstly described, and its context within the new paradigm of sustainable development is emphasized in an Indonesian context to maintain its integrated socio-economic-political entity. As coastal, urban zones-these are interfacing entities between land and marine zones- are the most exploited zones with increasing problems, the need for an integrated development for these are extremely important A conceptual framework for a sustainable development of such zones is presented. This comprises of four areas of research interests, namely: ecological built environment, environmentally-friendly production processes, an integrated transportation system, and the geographical-marine information systems, and telematics. These are subjected to the archipelago environment which is unique to Indonesia.