What is a Coastal Zone?

New Jersey’s coastal zone covers a vast portion of the state, including parts of 17 counties and 239 municipalities. 42 percent of New Jersey’s municipalities are considered coastal municipalities. The coastal zone stretches from the Hudson River, at the interstate border with New York, south to and along the Raritan Bay. From the bay, it extends from Sandy Hook down to Cape May Point before turning north again along the waters of the Delaware Bay and River up to Trenton. In total, New Jersey’s coastal zone encompasses 1,792 miles of coastline.

The coastal zone includes tidal and non-tidal waters, but it also includes land areas – both those that are directly adjacent to coastal waters as well as inland areas. New Jersey’s coastal zone supports a variety of uses, including developed urban waterfronts, industrial ports, suburban neighborhoods, commercial centers, critical infrastructure, and parks and beaches.

Why is Protecting Coastal Zones Important?

About 9 million people call New Jersey home – and we all live within 50 miles of the coast. Our coastal zone provides a rich variety of activities and opportunities right on our doorsteps, including recreation, commerce, industry, housing, and tourism, that are critical to our quality of life and economy. However, all of these activities depend on the health of our coastal zone’s diverse coastal resources.

Coastal resources are biological or physical resources that are found within our coastal zone on a regular or cyclical basis, such as birds, fish, trees, water, and air. Our coastal waterways, such as the Atlantic Ocean, bays, rivers, and tidal creeks, are also important coastal resources, and within them are additional in-water resources, such as submerged aquatic vegetation and shellfish, which help maintain the health of our coastal waterways and support our economy. The adjacent beaches, dunes, and wetland habitats are also critical coastal resources that are important for recreation and help protect the coastal zone from natural hazards.

Unfortunately, these valuable coastal resources are under significant strain from both human and natural sources, including flooding, coastal storms, climate change, and development pressure resulting from our state’s small size, dense population, and strategic location sandwiched between the major metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia.

How Does the DEP protect Coastal Zones?

The DEP strives to protect the coastal zone by balancing the protection of our coastal resources with the many necessary uses of our coastal areas through a variety of methods, including research, planning, public involvement, permitting, mitigation, tidelands management, and education.

WLM oversees coastal permitting, mitigation, and tidelands management and contributes to DEP’s coastal education efforts. WLM is also part of the New Jersey Coastal Management Program, which is comprised of a network of offices within the DEP that work together to ensure that New Jersey’s coastal resources and ecosystems are conserved as a vital part of local, state, and federal efforts to enhance sustainable coastal communities.