Coastal climate change adaptation

Coastal adaptation

Coastal climate change adaptation is the planning, management and implementation process that tries to address the challenges arising from the projected climate change and related alterations in coastal dynamics. It is a multi-disciplinary process that takes into account current and future coastal conditions, hazard levels, management measures and human interests and priorities and will generally involve a combination of larger planning and engineering decisions, stakeholder consultations and iterations over time.

The Coastal Hazard Wheel aims to support these adaptation processes by providing a universal framework for guiding wider coastal adaptation activities. It can be used as a first-line, all-in-one system for considering different coastal conditions, hazard types and management measures and as a standardized framework for evaluating, discussing and communicating different aspects of the adaptation challenge.

The Quick start guide provides a brief introduction to the use of the Coastal Hazard Wheel for coastal adaptation while the Coastal Hazard Wheel App provides an automated version that can be used for classifying a specific coastal location, obtaining guidance on possible adaptation measures and mapping the full spectrum of coastal hazards, hereunder ecosystem disruption, gradual inundation, salt water intrusion, erosion and flooding, from local to global level under the projected climate change.

For further information on coastal adaptation activities or technical support, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.