Impact StatementCoastal risks will increase in the course of the 21 st century due to climate change, the future impacts of which will largely be driven by socioeconomic developments in coastal locations. Coastal zones have been attractive for human settlement for centuries, resulting in higher population growth in coastal compared to inland locations. Globally, these trends are expected to continue in the future, resulting in an increase in coastal exposure, the extent of which depends on changes in socioeconomic conditions that drive population growth and coastal migration processes. These processes have thus far not been accounted for in continental-to global-scale coastal risk assessments in a systematic manner. Beyond illustrating the need to mainstream the use of socioeconomic scenarios to explore future coastal exposure, this review highlights the importance to additionally account for aspects of vulnerability in assessing coastal risks, including socioeconomic characteristics of exposed populations (e.g., age, education levels, ethnicity), adaptation responses, and migration decisions. Furthermore, more systematic reporting of data and methods used in such assessments is necessary to enable comparison of the outcomes of various continental-to globalscale studies. By establishing hotspots of exposure and vulnerability, the results of such assessments can inform coastal policies and risk management strategies that are sustainable under a wide range of coastal futures.
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