Coastal Hazards Management

Abstract

Both natural and anthropogenic forces could play significant roles in coastal erosion in Western Taiwan and Central Vietnam's coastlines. Intensive socio-economic development, sea level rise, more frequent and strong intensity of disasters are predicted to occur in a future of global climate change, which poses an urgent need for coastal hazard management strategies. This chapter describes main causes and discusses the applied engineering interventions to reduce coastal erosion at these sites. Hard engineering structures are often constructed in these areas, but they seem to be merely short-term costly solutions and have a negative impact on the coastal environment and its residents. Nature-based solutions and soft engineering approaches are proposed, which seem to be sustainable and less expensive than hard engineering options. These possible future solutions can be applied in coastal settings to meet the principles of sustainable and humanitarian engineering with multiple benefits to reduce the risk and negative impacts on both humans and the environment.