Assessment of selected climate change adaptation measures for coastal areas

Abstract

Climate change and its impacts are already perceptible in many parts of the world and coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to these changes. To address issues arising in the Aquitaine region (south-west France, now administratively part of Nouvelle-Aquitaine), we listed possible measures for adaptation to climate change impacts at the regional level and focussing on coastal hazards. Then we assessed their effectiveness with respect to long-term climate change and to the coastal management practices they are designed for. The assessment is independent of the local context and is therefore valid in most coastal areas.For this purpose, we conducted a review of the literature to select 51 measures that are potentially applicable to the Aquitaine coast. We then classified these measures combining two approaches. The first was based on the regional management practices applied by the GIP Littoral Aquitain (a public interest group for coastal management in Nouvelle-Aquitaine) while the second drew on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) classification based on the physical-environmental, socio-economic or institutional characteristics of adaptation measures. In parallel, ten criteria were defined to assess the current and future efficiency of the measure independently of the local context. Finally, by providing an assessment of the adaptation measures using nine of these criteria, this method allowed objective and easy comparisons between measures.The results were analysed taking each criterion independently and also through a multi-criteria analysis. Overall, the measures performed well against all the binary criteria except “self-sufficiency” and “synergy with mitigation”. The more detailed analysis of the results highlight the main characteristics of the measures applied in each management approach. The multi-criteria analysis identified a set of essential measures for adaptation to coastal risks in the context of climate change. 19 measures were rated at once as “no regrets”, “robust” and “reversible/flexible”. In general, the study shows that there are many short and medium term possibilities for adaptation (2030–2050, 2080–2100) and emphasises the need to implement some of these as soon as possible. According to our study, measures that generate immediate benefits are overwhelmingly predominant (86%).