CoastalRES: Improving the resilience of UK coastal communities

University of Southampton

Coastal policy documents increasingly talk about resilience as a goal, but they are often vague and unclear about what this means in practise.

As a society we have been successful in reducing coastal risks from flooding and erosion since the 1953 disaster, but how can we enhance resilience to these same hazards?

Building on developments by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the NERC CoastalRes project has developed an approach to assess coastal resilience and this has been demonstrated for England. It shows how resilience to coastal flood and erosion hazard could be measured and applied within existing policy processes.

As the extent of climate change impacts become apparent, adapting to evolving and less certain hazards, determining thresholds or trigger points, and balancing competing demands on the coast is increasingly important.

Refocusing national policy around enhancing resilience to coastal flooding and erosion requires firm commitment from government to develop a consensus methodology in which stakeholder values are explicitly considered, and incentives for coastal managers to engage with and apply this new approach.

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