This thesis seeks to develop an integrated shoreline management plan (ISMP) to address problems of "ad hoc" defences, shoreline retreat and the impacts of rising sea-level on Ghana's coast. Coastal management strategies in Ghana, past and existing, have largely focused upon provision of hard protection at specific "high risk" locations. There has been little commitment to the concepts of integration of management interventions with wider natural processes and long-term sustainability. In most cases, such 'ad hoc' management interventions classically tend to stabilise the shoreline at the protected section and aggravate the situation elsewhere along the shoreline (knock-on effects). Such problems 3 occurred previously on many other developed coastlines and have consequently resulted in development and application of more holistic and potentially sustainable shoreline management methods in recent decades.