Although the main focus of this book is on the estuaries, its scope goes well beyond this particular coastal feature. Indeed, the estuary can only be considered as part of the life cycle of the entire river and the marine area it feeds into: an area particularly subject to human and natural pressures. The main estuaries and deltas of West and Central Africa region provide a variety of goods and services to its coastal population. The most important of them are related to critical fish habitat, wood and charcoal from mangroves, as well as space for agriculture, aquaculture, urban development, tourism and transport. Particular emphasis has been made in this book on mangroves that play a significant role in terms of flood control, groundwater replenishment, coastline stabilization and protection against storms. They also retain sediments and nutrients, purify water, and provide critical carbon storage. Such hydrological and ecological functions explain the focus on serving mangrove ecosystems and the nearby communities, which draw significant income from fishing, rice production, tourism, salt extraction and other activities such as harvesting honey and medicinal plants, hence the need for preserving mangrove ecosystems to ensure sustainability of the estuaries and deltas of West and Central Africa region. The book has a foreword by Mr. Achim Steiner, United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UNEP who is stating that credible and up-to-date information is essential for the public at large but more specifically for scientists, researchers, managers, decision-makers all working together in order to safeguard, protect and sustainably manage estuaries, deltas and lagoons, and the coastal and ocean waters of Western and Central Africa.

Table of Contents:
1. The Western and Central Africa land-sea interface: A vulnerable, threatened and important 2. West African coastal area: Challenges and outlook.- 3. Morphological and hydrodynamic changes in the lower estuary of the Senegal River: Effects on the environment of the breach of the “Langue de Barbarie sand spit in 2003.- 4. Management of a tropical river: impacts on the resilience of the Senegal river estuary.- 5. Combined uses of supervised classification and normalized difference vegetation index techniques to monitor land degradation in the saloum saline estuary.- 6. Studies and transactions on pollution assessment of the lagos lagoon system, Nigeria.- 7. Estuarine and ocean circulation dynamics in the Niger delta, Nigeria: implications for oil spill and pollution management.- 8. Morphological characteristics of the bonny and cross river (Calabar) estuaries in Nigeria: implications for navigation and environmental hazards.- 9. Status of large marine flagship faunal diversity within Cameroon estuaries of Central African coast.- 10. Morphology analysis of Niger delta shoreline & estuaries for ecotourism potential in Nigeria.- 11. Importance of mangrove litter production in the protection of Atlantic coastal forest of Cameroon and Ghana.- 12. Carbon budget in mangrove forests of varying degradation regimes in the western coastal wetlands complex (ramsar site 1017) of Southern Benin, West Africa.- 13. Rapid assessment of mangrove conditions for potential payment for ecosystem services in some estuaries of western region of Ghana, West Africa.- 14. Plantation agriculture as a driver of deforestation and degradation of Central African coastal estuarine forest landscape of South Western Cameroon.- 15. Assessment of mangrove carbon stocks in Cameroon, Gabon, the Republic of Congo (RoC) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) including their potential for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+).- 16. Governing Through Networks: Working towards a sustainable management of West Africa’s coastal mangrove ecosystems.- 17. The importance of scientific knowledge as support to protection, conservation and management of West and Central African estuaries.