Pitfalls in developing coastal climate adaptation responses

Abstract

Increasing awareness of the risks to coastal communities and infrastructure posed by sea level rise and possible climate-induced changes to the frequency and intensity of catchment flooding events have triggered a large number of studies that have assessed the risk, and developed a prioritisation of actions. These prioritised action recommendations are typically encapsulated in climate adaptation plans and pathways documents, risk reduction strategies, and climate action plans. These studies typically involve a vulnerability assessment task and an action prioritisation task, often performed in the same study. Most of the focus on research and method development over recent decades has been on the first task that aims to quantify the vulnerability of coastal communities and infrastructure. It is argued here that as a result of this emphasis on assessing vulnerability, at the cost of adequate consideration of response actions, along with the linear ‘fix and forget’ management approach to climate adaptation, has led to a lack of uptake in coastal climate adaptation studies and strategies. To this end the aim of the work presented here is to highlight common shortfalls in this fix and forget approach and in particular in the response prioritisation task. Ways that these shortfalls can be avoided, based on knowledge from decision theory, are presented.