The fundamental purpose of this course is to help the students understand how the coastal area is and can be managed so that it is less vulnerable to natural hazards. It will be seen that there are a great many actors, policies and programs involved in managing the coast but it should also be abundantly clear that government has a leading role.
The purpose of this lesson is to describe the federal system of government and then to describe the three levels of government within that system: national, state and local.
