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11 th International Symposium for GIS and Computer Cartography for Coastal Zones Management identify the key drivers behind the observed change; secure and improve the continued and sustainable delivery of coastal ecosystem services.The presentation will review three methods that demonstrate the potential of emerging tools of spatial integrationand GIS analysis: the spatial analysis of cumulative pressures and impacts, coastal ecosystem capital accounts andassessment of coastal vulnerability — methodologies that cover more than the waters of a single state and which canhelp taking the next step towards a true ecosystem-based approach to management of the European coasts.Spatial analysis of combined pressuresA recently proposed method to map cumulative human impacts uses expert judgment to link the spatial distributionof human maritime activities and pollution with the spatial distribution of important ecosystems, creating aglobal map of human impacts on marine ecosystems (Halpern et al., 2007, 2008). The same approach has been appliedand refined studying regional human impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems in the Pacific (Halpern et al.,2009; Selkoe et al., 2009), the Baltic Sea (Korpinen et al., 2012) and the eastern North Sea (Andersen et al., 2013).The Kattegat (Denmark and Sweden) and the coastal sea of Andalusia (Spain) were selected as two case study areasfor demonstrating the integrative power of this approach.The Kattegat is a shallow (max depth approximately 50 m) coastal sea in southern Scandinavia. The Kattegat is atransition area, connecting the brackish Baltic Sea with the North Sea. The Coast of Andalusia is characterized bythe diversity given by its location between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.Both case studies use the approach and the cumulative impact mapping tools (Andersen et al. 2013). Conceptually,the method is the same as used by Halpern et al. (2008) and other earlier studies, but includes optional refinements.The used approach has three steps. First, the most important anthropogenic stressors and biological features(which may be broad-scale ecosystems or species) of the study area are identified, and maps showing their spatialdistribution are collected or created and normalized. Second, the sensitivity of the broad-scale ecosystems or keyspecies to different human stressors is estimated based on an expert survey. Third, for each location in the studyarea, the impact of each stressor on each ecosystem component is predicted by combining the sensitivity scores andthe spatial distribution maps for the ecosystems or species. The resulting maps show deciles of predicted cumulativeimpacts.Studying cumulative human impacts on the coastal and marine environment is a new and developing field. Someof the identified problems can be mitigated by keeping them in mind when using cumulative impact maps. Otherproblems can be reduced if better data, for example detailed maps of fishing effort based on Vessel monitoring systems(VMS) and logbook data, become available.Considering their power to integrate information which has traditionally been studied separately, cumulative impactmaps can be a valuable decision support tool when interpreted correctly and used for critical reasoning andcommunication. They can show the concentration of human activities, pollution and their potential impact on ecosystemswhich could not be derived from individual sector-by-sector or species-by-species assessments. In combinationwith more specific and detailed assessments, cumulative impact maps have a great potential to contribute to the“big picture” of human impacts required for ecosystem-based marine spatial planning.Coastal ecosystem capital accountsCoastal and marine ecosystems perform a wide variety of ecological functions that directly or indirectly provide anumber of valuable economic services to society. These services include food production, climate regulation, pollutionsinks, recreational benefits and aesthetic benefits (MA, 2005). Given the policy objectives, new methods tovalue ecosystem goods and services are needed. These methods should provide key information for assessing thecapability of ecosystems to contribute to national economies and determining the responsibility of the economy forecosystem maintenance.Work on ecosystem capital accounting began as a result of the 1992 Rio Conference on Sustainable Developmentwhen the United Nations and the World Bank launched the first System of Integrated Economic and EnvironmentalAccounting (SEEA). In 2009, the EEA began an experimental project on ‘fast-track implementation of simplifiedecosystem capital accounts’ for Europe (EEA, 2011). Through ecosystem capital accounting the EEA aims to sup-54