This literature review of monitoring and indicators of the coastal and estuarine environment is part of the Ministry for the Environment's National Environmental Indicators Programme. The coastal and estuarine environment is monitored at several levels in most countries, from the local authorities, NGOs and interest groups to state and/or regional government and national government. International agencies such as the IUCN and OECD also undertake monitoring, usually by assessing the data and information provided by individual nations. For this report a literature review was undertaken of monitoring projects and schemes and indicators used by agencies at the national and state or provincial level as this was considered comparable to the national set of environmental indicators that are being developed by the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment.