A greater requirement for coastal environmental research and related services is being forced in reponse to such factors as: global climate change, the growth of coastal zone populations, increasing competition for the use of the coastal zone; increasing awareness of the need to manage various types of marine environmental impacts; and demands for protection of the marine environment through greatly reduced pollution. The coastal/marine ecosystems and the causes of global environment change are currently a subject of great international concern but the impact of such changes on ecosystem dynamics are poorly understood and human responses are not well defined.

IOM's research philosophy is centered on the concept that the resolution of these concerns requires knowledge of the processes involved and equally of the social frameworks within which society is able to respond. IOM's international colloboration focuses on issues in tropical ecosystems to determine the sacle and rate of ecosystem change and aim to distinguish between climatic forcing and other human influences in under-studied tropical ecosystems. Emphasis is on the advantages of model systems for investigation of coastal geomorphology, air/sea gas exchange, and the chemical and biological components of ecosystem dynamics. IOM has a strong record of national and international colloboration and virtually all of its research gains added significance in this way