An evolving research agenda for human–coastal systems

Lazarus, Eli D.; Ellis, Michael A.; Murray, A. Brad; Hall, Damon M.

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.07.043

Cited by 78 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 128 publications

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“…With the presence of coastal communities, human responses to coastal change provide additional feedbacks to coastal environments, suggesting the possibility of emergent interactions at multidecadal time scales (Jin et al, ; Lazarus et al, ; Miselis & Lorenzo‐Trueba, ; Werner & McNamara, ). Human responses intended to preserve coastal buildings and infrastructure—such as building seawalls, constructing groynes, nourishing beaches, stabilizing inlets, or armoring updrift headlands—have accumulated to the point where the evolution of coastal landscapes cannot be considered to be caused by nature alone (Hapke et al, ; Lazarus & Goldstein, ; Lazarus et al, ; Nordstrom, ; Werner & McNamara, ). The natural dynamics described in Figure are still at play but are heavily affected by human activities, development, and land‐use changes.…”

Section: Coastal Flooding In a Dynamic Physical Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Usable Science for Managing the Risks of Sea‐Level Rise

et al. 2019

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Sea-level rise sits at the frontier of usable climate climate change research, because it involves natural and human systems with long lags, irreversible losses, and deep uncertainty. For example, many of the measures to adapt to sea-level rise involve infrastructure and land-use decisions, which can have multigenerational lifetimes and will further influence responses in both natural and human systems. Thus, sea-level science has increasingly grappled with the implications of (1) deep uncertainty in future climate system projections, particularly of human emissions and ice sheet dynamics; (2) the overlay of slow trends and high-frequency variability (e.g., tides and storms) that give rise to many of the most relevant impacts; (3) the effects of changing sea level on the physical exposure and vulnerability of ecological and socioeconomic systems; and (4) the challenges of engaging stakeholder communities with the scientific process in a way that genuinely increases the utility of the science for adaptation decision making. Much fundamental climate system research remains to be done, but many of the most critical issues sit at the intersection of natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, decision science, and political economy. Addressing these issues demands a better understanding of the coupled interactions of mean and extreme sea levels, coastal geomorphology, economics, and migration; decision-first approaches that identify and focus research upon those scientific uncertainties most relevant to concrete adaptation choices; and a political economy that allows usable science to become used science.Plain Language Summary The impacts of sea-level rise pose growing threats to coastal communities, economies, and ecosystems, and decisions made today-in areas like land-use policies, coastal development, and infrastructure investment-will affect exposure and vulnerability for generations to come. Thus, the usability of sea-level science is a pressing concern. Ensuring usability requires grappling with deep uncertainty in long-term sea-level projections, the relationship between long-term trends and the impacts of short-lived extreme events, and the ways in which the physical coast, as well as people and ecosystems along the coast, respond to increasingly frequent flooding. At the same time, it also requires more extensive and deliberate stakeholder engagement throughout the scientific process, as well as cognizance of the political economy of linking stakeholder-engaged science to action.

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Section: Coastal Flooding In a Dynamic Physical Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Usable Science for Managing the Risks of Sea‐Level Rise

et al. 2019

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“…By extension, they exhibit dynamical behaviours distinct from those of natural coasts [27,[132][133][134][135], with ecological ramifications not necessarily reflected in coastal population density. This complication makes them an intriguing potential anthrome type.…”

Section: Beach Nourishment and Developed Coastlinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nourishment in one location can affect beach widths elsewhere along the coast, sometimes over significant distances. For extended reaches of coast dominated by development and carved into separate towns or municipalities, the spatio-temporal behaviour of the beach in each town may become a function of management decisions among its neighbours [27,133,139].…”

Section: Beach Nourishment and Developed Coastlinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Global Classification of Coastal Anthromes

Lazarus

2017

Land

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Given incontrovertible evidence that humans are the most powerful agents of environmental change on the planet, research has begun to acknowledge and integrate human presence and activity into updated descriptions of the world's biomes as "anthromes". Thus far, a classification system for anthromes is limited to the terrestrial biosphere. Here, I present a case for the consideration and validity of coastal anthromes. Every coastal environment on Earth is subject to direct and indirect human modification and disturbance. Despite the legacy, ubiquity, and pervasiveness of human interactions with coastal ecosystems, coastal anthromes still lack formal definition. Following the original argument and framework for terrestrial anthromes, I outline a set of coastal anthrome classifications that dovetail with terrestrial and marine counterparts. Recognising coastal environments as complex and increasingly vulnerable anthropogenic systems is a fundamental step toward understanding their modern dynamics-and, by extension, realising opportunities for and limits to their resilience.

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“…To the extent that modern coupled human-environmental systems are understood, forays into their dynamics tend to be theoretical or compiled from patchworks of case studies [103,115]. In coastal settings, specifically, exploratory numerical modelling suggests that developed coastal barriers with engineered protections against hazard impacts (i.e., chronic erosion, inundation during major storms) exhibit complex dynamical behaviours with distinct attractors, including oscillatory boom-bust cycles in which coastal development intensifies until the costs of protection become unsustainable and the area is abandoned [116][117][118][119]. Quantitative empirical tests of this theoretical work, however, are only just emerging [117,[120][121][122].…”

Section: Resilience In Coastal Human-environmental Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining Coastal Resilience

Masselink

Lazarus

2019

Water

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The concept of resilience has taken root in the discourse of environmental management, especially regarding Building with Nature strategies for embedding natural physical and ecological dynamics into engineered interventions in developed coastal zones. Resilience is seen as a desirable quality, and coastal management policy and practice are increasingly aimed at maximising it. Despite its ubiquity, resilience remains ambiguous and poorly defined in management contexts. What is coastal resilience? And what does it mean in settings where natural environmental dynamics have been supplanted by human-dominated systems? Here, we revisit the complexities of coastal resilience as a concept, a term, and a prospective goal for environmental management. We consider examples of resilience in natural and built coastal environments, and offer a revised, formal definition of coastal resilience with a holistic scope and emphasis on systemic functionality: "Coastal resilience is the capacity of the socioeconomic and natural systems in the coastal environment to cope with disturbances, induced by factors such as sea level rise, extreme events and human impacts, by adapting whilst maintaining their essential functions." Against a backdrop of climate change impacts, achieving both socioeconomic and natural resilience in coastal environments in the long-term (>50 years) is very costly. Cost trade-offs among management aims and objectives mean that enhancement of socioeconomic resilience typically comes at the expense of natural resilience, and vice versa. We suggest that for practical purposes, optimising resilience might be a more realistic goal of coastal zone management.

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An evolving research agenda for human–coastal systems

Cited by 78 publications

References 128 publications

Usable Science for Managing the Risks of Sea‐Level Rise

Usable Science for Managing the Risks of Sea‐Level Rise

Toward a Global Classification of Coastal Anthromes

Defining Coastal Resilience

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