Coastal Adaptation to Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise

Abstract

The Earth’s climate is changing; ice sheets and glaciers are melting and coastal hazards and sea level are rising in response. With a total population of over 300 million people situated on coasts, including 20 of the planet’s 33 megacities (over 10 million people), low-lying coastal areas represent one of the most vulnerable areas to the impacts of climate change. Many of the largest cities along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. are already experiencing frequent high tide flooding, and these events will increase in frequency, depth, duration and extent as sea levels continue to rise at an accelerating rate throughout the 21st century and beyond. Cities in southeast Asia and islands in the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean are also suffering the effects of extreme weather events combined with other factors that increase coastal risk. While short-term extreme events such as hurricanes, El Niños and severe storms come and go and will be more damaging in the short term, sea-level rise is a long-term permanent change of state. However, the effects of sea-level rise are compounded with other hazards, such as increased wave action or a loss of ecosystems. As sea-level rise could lead to the displacement of hundreds of millions of people, this may be one of the greatest challenges that human civilization has ever faced, with associated inundation of major cities, loss of coastal infrastructure, increased saltwater intrusion and damage to coastal aquifers among many other global impacts, as well as geopolitical and legal implications. While there are several short-term responses or adaptation options, we need to begin to think longer term for both public infrastructure and private development. This article provides an overview of the status on adaptation to climate change in coastal zones.

Effects of Internal Climate Variability on Historical Ocean Wave Height Trend Assessment

“…Furthermore, waves are important drivers of coastal dynamics processes, such as coastal erosion (Stive et al, 2002;Huppert et al, 2020), and contribute to sea-level extremes at multiple time scales (Melet et al, 2018;Melet et al, 2020). This is critical as over 300 million people live on low-lying coastal areas (Griggs and Reguero, 2021).…”

Managed retreat and planned retreat: a systematic literature review

“…A number of the publications captured within this review are concerned with the breadth and range of terminology used to describe retreat [23,43,62]. This includes papers referring to managed retreat as anticipatory relocation, resettlement, relocation, strategic retreat, climate migration and more.…”

Rising Seas and Uncertainties: Establishing Static Maritime Borders to Ensure Equity in the Face of Sea Level Rise

“…Large swaths of coastal land or entire islands are expected to experience seasonal or permanent inundation by 2100 (Martyr-Koller 2021). Unlike wealthy developed nations, SIDS do not have the financial resources to undertake large-scale coastal fortification measures to physically maintain their territories in response to sea level rise, such as the building and maintenance of sea walls, backfilling lost shoreline, tide and flood control systems, and engineering of natural barriers (Griggs and Reguero 2021). Five of the Solomon Islands have vanished within the past decade, forcing the relocation of entire communities and the loss of densely vegetated ecosystems (Albert 2016).…”