Section 4.2 demonstrates that sea level is rising and accelerating over time, and that it will continue to rise throughout the 21st century and for centuries beyond. It also shows that ESL events that are historically rare, will become common by 2100 under all emission scenarios, leading to severe flooding in the absence of ambitious adaptation efforts (high confidence). In both RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios, many low-lying coastal areas at all latitudes will experience such events annually by 2050. In this context, Section 4.3 updates knowledge on the recent methodological advances in exposure and vulnerability assessments (Box 4.2), dimensions of exposure and vulnerability (Section 4.3.2) and observed and projected impacts (Section 4.3.3). It concludes with a synthesis on future risks to illustrative low-lying coastal geographies (resource-rich coastal cities, urban atoll island, large tropical agricultural deltas and Arctic communities), and according to various adaptation scenarios (Section 4.3.4)
This box highlights recent advances in methodologies in assessing exposure and vulnerability to sea level rise (SLR) and its physical impacts, such as coastal flooding since the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (AR5). In few cases it also leverages methodological advances, which have not been yet applied in the coastal context but have great potential to inform coastal assessments. Improved spatial-temporal exposure assessments Exposure assessment is frequently based on census data, which is available at coarse resolutions. However, new technologies (e.g., drones and mobile phone data) and more available satellite products provide new tools for exposure analysis. Exposure assessment is increasingly based on the combination of high resolution satellite imagery and spatio-temporal population modelling as well as improved quality of digital elevation models (DEM; Kulp and Strauss, 2017879). This is used to understand better exposure to coastal flooding (Kulp and Strauss, 2017), diurnal differences in flood risk exposure (Smith et al., 2016880), dynamic gridded population information for daily and seasonal differences in exposure (Renner et al., 2017881), a combination of remotely-sensed and geospatial data with modelling for a gridded prediction of population density at ~100 m spatial resolution (Stevens et al., 2015882), or open building data using building locations, footprint areas and heights (Figueiredo and Martina, 2016883). In addition, methods based on mobile phone data (Deville et al., 2014884; Ahas et al., 2015885), and social media-based participation are increasingly available for population distribution mapping (Steiger et al., 2015886). Some of these methodologies have been already applied in coastal assessments (Smith et al., 2016887). Integrating daily and seasonal changes with the distribution of population improves population exposure information for risk assessments especially in areas with highly dynamic population distributions, as shown in high tourism areas in mountain regions (e.g., Renner et al., 2017), which would have advantages at touristic coastal areas as well. Projections of future exposure Recent studies assess exposure considering not only projected sea levels but also expected changes in population size (Jongman et al., 2012888; Hauer et al., 2016889). It involves different socioeconomic scenarios together with changing growth rates for coastal areas and the hinterland (Neumann et al., 2015890) and using spatially explicit simulation models for urban, residential and rural areas (Sleeter et al., 2017891). Migration-based changes in population distribution (Merkens et al., 2016892; Hauer, 2017893) are also considered, as well as simulated future land use (specifically urban growth) to investigate future exposure to SLR (Song et al., 2017894). Other studies assess future exposure trends by accounting for the role of varying patterns of topography and development projections leading to different rates of anticipated future exposure (Kulp and Strauss, 2017895), which influence how effectively coastal communities can adapt. Recent studies aim to account for the sociodemographic characteristics of potentially exposed future populations (Shepherd and Binita, 2015896), and anticipate future risk by projecting the evolution of the exposure of vulnerable populations and groups (Hardy and Hauer, 2018897). Using social heterogeneity modelling when developing future exposure scenarios enhances the quality of risk assessments in coastal areas (Rao et al., 2017858; Hardy and Hauer, 2018899). Subnational population dynamics combined with an extended coastal narrative-based version of the five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) for global coastal population distribution was used for assessing global climate impacts at the coast, highlighting regions where high coastal population growth is expected and which therefore face increased exposure to coastal flooding (Merkens et al., 2016900). SSPs have also been used to estimate future population in regional coastal-hazard risk exposure studies (Vousdoukas et al., 2018b901). Advances in vulnerability assessment Since the IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters (SREX) report, vulnerability has been more consistently considered in climate risk assessments (medium confidence). It is recognised that climate risk is not only hazard-driven, but also a sociopolitical and economic phenomenon that evolves with changing societal and institutional conditions (high confidence). Many studies related to climate risk and adaptation include vulnerability assessments, most of them considering vulnerability as a pre-existing condition while some interpret vulnerability as an outcome (Jurgilevich et al., 2017902). Increasing importance of dynamic assessments The dynamic nature of vulnerability, and the need to align climate forecasts with socioeconomic scenarios, was a key message of IPCC SREX. Challenges in methodology and data availability, particularly of future socioeconomic data is overcome by extrapolating empirical information of past trends in vulnerability to flooding (Jongman et al., 2015903; Mechler and Bouwer, 2015904; Kreibich et al., 2017905), downscaling global scenarios, for example, the SSPs (Van Ruijven et al., 2014; Viguié et al., 2014906; Absar and Preston, 2015907), or by using participatory methods, surveys and interviews to develop future scenarios (Ordóñez and Duinker, 2015908; Tellman et al., 2016909). The uncertainty of the downscaled projections needs to be considered along with the limitation that, even if population data projections are available, the future level of education, poverty, etc. is hard to predict (Jurgilevich et al., 2017910). Suggestions to overcome these shortcomings entail the use of a combination of different data sources for triangulation and inclusion of uncertainties (Hewitson et al., 2014911), or the meaningful involvement of stakeholders to project plausible future socioeconomic conditions through co-production (Jurgilevich et al., 2017912). Recent innovations in (flood) risk assessment include the integration of behaviour into risk assessments (Aerts et al., 2018b913) as well as vulnerabilities related to cascading events (Serre and Heinzlef, 2018914). Social-ecological vulnerability assessments Especially in rural, natural resource-dependent settings, where the population directly rely on the services provided by ecosystems, the vulnerability of the ecosystems (e.g., fragmented, degraded ecosystems with low biodiversity) directly influence that of the population. Since AR5, several methods have been developed and piloted to assess and map social-ecological vulnerability. Examples include the use of i) the sustainable livelihood approach and resource dependence metrics for Australian coastal communities (Metcalf et al., 2015915), ii) integration of local climate forecasts for coral reef fisheries in Papua New Guinea (Maina et al., 2016916), iii) ecosystem supply-demand model for an integrated vulnerability assessment in Rostock, Germany (Beichler, 2015917), iv) participatory indicator development for multiple hazards in river deltas (Hagenlocher et al., 2018918), and v) human-nature dependencies and ecosystem services for small‐scale fisheries in French Polynesia (Thiault et al., 2018919). Areas, where social vulnerability prevail may be, but are not necessarily associated with hotspots of ecosystem vulnerability, highlighting the need to specifically adapt management interventions to local social-ecological settings and to adaptation goals (Hagenlocher et al., 2018920; Thiault et al., 2018921). The number of assessments considering both the social and the ecological part of the system are increasingly used (Sebesvari et al., 2016922). Assessment of vulnerability to multiple hazards simultaneously Increasingly, multi-hazard risk assessments are undertaken at the coast (e.g., flooding and inundation of coastal lands in India; Kunte et al., 2014923), to understand the inter-relationships between hazards (e.g., Gill and Malamud, 2014), and by focusing on hazard interactions where one hazard triggers another or increases the probability of others occurring. Liu et al. (2016a) provide a systematic hazard interaction classification based on the geophysical environment that allows for the consideration of all possible interactions (independent, mutex, parallel and series) between different hazards, and for the calculation of the probability and magnitude of multiple interacting natural hazards occurring together. Advances have been reported since AR5 by using, for example, modular sets of vulnerability indicators, flexibly adapting to the hazard situation (Hagenlocher et al., 2018924). Using vulnerability functions, thresholds, innovative ways of aggregation in indicator-based assessment, improved data sources The use of vulnerability functions has been shown to be helpful in assessing the damage response of buildings to tsunamis (Tarbotton et al., 2015925), to coastal surge and wave hazards (Hatzikyriakou and Lin, 2017926) and accounting for non-linear relationships between mortality and temperature above a ‘comfort temperature’ (El-Zein and Tonmoy, 2017927). Acknowledging the non-compensatory nature of different vulnerability indicators (e.g., proximity to the sea cannot always be fully compensated by being wealthy), the concepts of preference, indifference and dominance thresholds have been applied as a form of data aggregation (Tonmoy and El-Zein, 2018928). Similar to advances in exposure assessments, freely available data and mobile technologies hold promise for enabling better input data for vulnerability assessments. Examples include using a combination of mobile phone and satellite data to determine and monitor vulnerability indicators such as poverty (Steele et al., 2017), and using data on subnational dependency ratios and high resolution gridded age/sex group datasets (Pezzulo et al., 2017930).
Major changes in coastal settlement patterns have occurred in the course of the 20th century, and are continuing to take place due to various complex interacting processes (Moser et al., 2012; Bennett et al., 2016) that together configure and concentrate exposure and vulnerability to climate change and SLR along the coast (Newton et al., 2012; Bennett et al., 2016). These processes include population growth and demographic changes (Smith, 2011; Neumann et al., 2015), urbanisation and a rural exodus, tourism development, and displacement or (re)settlement of some indigenous communities (Ford et al., 2015). This has resulted in a growing number of people living in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ, coastal areas below 10 m of elevation; around 11% of the world’s population in 2010; Neumann et al., 2015; Jones and O’Neill, 2016; Merkens et al., 2016) and in significant infrastructure and assets being located in risk-prone areas (high confidence). High density coastal urban development is commonplace in both developed and developing countries, as documented in recent case studies, for example in Canada (Fawcett et al., 2017), China (Yin et al., 2015; Lilai et al., 2016; Yan et al., 2016), Fiji (Hay, 2017), France (Genovese and Przyluski, 2013; Chadenas et al., 2014; Magnan and Duvat, 2018), Israel (Felsenstein and Lichter, 2014), Kiribati (Storey and Hunter, 2010; Duvat et al., 2013), New Zealand (Hart, 2011) and the USA (Heberger, 2012; Grifman et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2016b). This has implications for levels of SLR risk at regional and local scales (medium evidence, high agreement). In Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, it is estimated that 6–8% of the population live in areas that are at high or very high risk of being affected by coastal hazards (Reguero et al., 2015; Calil et al., 2017; Villamizar et al., 2017), with higher percentages in Caribbean islands (Mycoo, 2018). In the Pacific, ~57% of Pacific Island countries’ built infrastructure are located in risk-prone coastal areas (Kumar and Taylor, 2015). In Kiribati, due to the flow of outer, rural populations to limited, low-elevated capital islands, together with constraints inherent in the sociocultural land tenure system, the built area located <20 m from the shoreline quadrupled between 1969 and 2007–2008 (Duvat et al., 2013). Other examples of rural exodus are reported in the recent literature, for example in the Maldives (Speelman et al., 2017). Population densification also affects rural areas’ exposure and vulnerability, and interacts with other factors shaping settlement patterns, such as the fact that ‘indigenous peoples in multiple geographical contexts have been pushed into marginalised territories that are more sensitive to climate impacts, in turn limiting their access to food, cultural resources, traditional livelihoods and place-based knowledge (…) [and therefore undermining] aspects of social-cultural resilience’ (Ford et al., 2016b, p. 350). In the Pacific, for example, ‘while traditional settlements on high islands (…) were often located inland, the move to coastal locations was encouraged by colonial and religious authorities and more recently through the development of tourism’ (Ballu et al., 2011; Nurse et al., 2014, p. 1623; Duvat et al., 2017). Although these population movements are orders of magnitude smaller than the global trends described above, they play a critical role at the very local scale in explaining the emergence of, or changes in exposure and vulnerability. In atoll contexts, for example, the growing pressure on freshwater resources together with a loss in local knowledge (e.g., how to collect water from palm trees), result in increased exposure of communities to brackish, polluted groundwater, inducing water insecurity and health problems (Storey and Hunter, 2010; Lazrus, 2015).
The development of local scale case studies from a social science perspective, for example, in the Arctic (Ford et al., 20121075; Ford et al., 20141076), small islands (Petzold, 20161077; Duvat et al., 20171078) and within cities (Rosenzweig and Solecki, 20141079; Paterson et al., 20171080; Texier-Teixeira and Edelblutte, 20171081) or at the household level (Koerth et al., 20141082) support a better understanding of the anthropogenic drivers of exposure and vulnerability. Four examples of drivers that were only emerging at the time of the AR5 are discussed below. Very importantly, another major emerging dimension that is not discussed here but rather in Section 4.4.4, relates to power asymmetries, politics, and the prevailing political economy, which are important drivers of exposure and vulnerability to SLR-related coastal hazards, and consequently adaptation prospects (Eriksen et al., 20151083; Dolšak and Prakash, 20181084). Recent literature provides examples in coastal megacities like Jakarta, Indonesia (Shatkin, 20191085) as well as in smaller cities, like Maputo, Mozambique (Broto et al., 20151086) and Surat, India (Chu, 2016a; Chu, 2016b), and many other coastal cities and settlements around the world (high confidence; Jones et al., 20151087; Allen et al., 20181088; Hughes et al., 20181089; Sovacool, 20181090).
Recent literature confirms that anthropogenic drivers played an important role, over the last century, in increasing exposure and vulnerability worldwide, and indicates that they will continue to do so in the absence of adaptation (medium evidence, high agreement). Some scholars argue that ‘even with pervasive and extensive environmental change associated with ~2oC warming, it is non-climatic factors that primarily determine impacts, response options and barriers to adapting’ (Ford et al., 2015, p. 1046). Although it is the interaction of climate and non-climate factors that eventually determine the level of impacts, acknowledging the role of a range of purely anthropogenic drivers has important implications for action. It suggests that major action can be taken now to enhance long-term adaptation prospects, notwithstanding uncertainty about local RSL rise and resultant impacts in the distant future (medium evidence, high agreement; Magnan et al., 20161155). Acting on the human-driven drivers and root causes of vulnerability could yield co-benefits, for example by improving the state and condition of coastal ecosystems – and hence the capacity to cope with or adapt to SLR impacts – or, in deltaic regions, lowering the rates of anthropogenic subsidence and, in turn, minimising changes in sea level.
In addition, coastal ecosystem degradation is acknowledged as another major non-climatic driver of exposure and vulnerability (high confidence). The ability of coastal ecosystems to serve as a buffer zone between the sea and human assets (settlements and infrastructure), and to provide regulating services with respect to SLR-related coastal hazards (including inundation and salinisation), is progressively being lost due to coastal squeeze, pollution, and habitat and land degradation mainly due to land-use conversion. We now better understand the diversity and interactions of the climate and non-climate drivers of exposure and vulnerability, as well as their dynamics over time (Bennett et al., 20161156; Duvat et al., 20171157). As a result, it is now realised how many context-specificities interact (including geography, economic development, social inequity, power and politics, and risk perceptions) and play a critical role in shaping the direction and influence of individual drivers and of their possible combinations on the ground (medium evidence, high agreement; Eriksen et al., 20151158; Hesed and Paolisso, 20151159; McCubbin et al., 20151160). This also provides a stronger foundation to identify the range of possible responses (Sections 1.6.1, 1.6.2 and 4.4.3) to observed impacts and projected risks, as well as critical areas of action to enhance adaptation pathways (Section 4.4.4).
Recent studies (e.g., cited in Sections 4.3.2.1.1, 4.3.2.2, 4.3.2.4.2 and 4.3.2.4.4) also confirm AR5 conclusions that both developing and developed countries are exposed and vulnerable to SLR (high confidence).
Coastal areas, including deltas, are highly dynamic as they are affected by natural and/or human-induced processes locally or originating from both the land and the sea. Changes within the catchment can therefore have severe consequences for coastal areas in terms of sediment supply, pollution, and/or land subsidence. Sediment supply reaching the coast is a critical factor for delta sustainability (Tessler et al., 20181037) and has declined drastically in the last few decades due to dam construction, land use changes and sand mining (Ouillon, 20181038; high confidence). For instance, Anthony et al. (2015) reported large-scale erosion affecting over 50% of the delta shoreline in the Mekong delta between 2003 and 2012, which was attributed in part to a reduction in surface-suspended sediments in the Mekong river potentially linked to dam construction within the river basin, sand mining in the river channels, and land subsidence linked to groundwater over-abstraction locally. Schmitt et al. (2017)1039 demonstrated that these and other drivers in sediment budget changes can have severe effects on the very physical existence of the Mekong delta by the end of this century, with the most important single driver leading to inundation of large portions of the delta being ground-water pumping induced land subsidence. Thi Ha et al. (2018) estimated the decline in sediment supply to the Mekong delta to be around 75% between the 1970s and the period 2009–2016. In the Red River, the construction of the Hoa Binh Dam in the 1980s led to a 65% drop in sediment supply to the sea (Vinh et al., 20141040). Based on projections of historical and 21st century sediment delivery to the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mahanadi and Volta deltas, Dunn et al. (2018) showed that these deltas fall short in sediment and may not be able to maintain their current elevation relative to sea level, suggesting increasing salinisation, erosion, flood hazards and adaptation demands. Another rarely considered factor is the shift in TC climatology which also plays a critical role in explaining changes in fluvial suspended sediment loads to deltas as demonstrated by Darby et al. (2016)1041, again for the Mekong delta. More generally, most conventional engineering strategies that are commonly employed to reduce flood risk (including levees, sea walls, and dams) disrupt a delta’s natural mechanisms for building land. These approaches are rather short-term solutions which overall reduce the long-term resilience of deltas (Tessler et al., 20151042; Welch et al., 20171043). Systems particularly prone to flood risk due to anthropogenic activities include North America’s Mississippi River delta, Europe’s Rhine River delta, and deltas in East Asia (Renaud et al., 20131044; Day et al., 20161045). In regions where suspended sediments are still available in relatively large quantities, rates of sedimentation can vary depending on multiple factors, including the type of infrastructure present locally, as was shown by Rogers and Overeem (2017)1046 for the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (Bengal) delta in Bangladesh as well as seasonal differences in sediment supply and place of deposition. For example, in meso-tidal and macro-tidal estuaries, during floods most of the sediments are depositing in the coastal zones and a large part of these sediments are brought back to the estuary during the low flow season by tidal pumping. This can lead to significantly higher deposition rates in the dry season as shown by Lefebvre et al. (2012) in the lower Red River estuary and by Gugliotta et al. (2018)1048 in the Mekong delta. Enhanced sedimentation further upstream in estuaries and a silting-up of estuarine navigation channels can have high economic consequences for cities with a large estuarine harbour. In Haiphong city, in North Vietnam, the authorities decided to build a new harbour further downstream, for a cost estimated at 2 billion USD (Duy Vinh et al., 2018). Overall, reduced freshwater and sediment inputs from the river basins are critical factors determining delta sustainability (Renaud et al., 20131049; Day et al., 20161050). In some contexts, this can be addressed through basin-scale management which allow more natural flows of water and sediments through the system, including methods for long-term flood mitigation such as improved river-floodplain connectivity, the controlled redirection of a river (i.e., avulsions) during times of elevated sediment loads, the removal of levees, and the redirection of future development to lands less prone to extreme flooding (Renaud et al., 20131051; Day et al., 20161052; Brakenridge et al., 20171053). These actions could potentially increase the persistence of coastal landforms in the context of SLR. Next to decreasing sediment inputs to the coast, river bed and beach sand mining has been shown to contribute to shoreline erosion, for example, for shorelines of Crete (Foteinis and Synolakis, 20151054), and several sub-Saharan countries such Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania (UNEP, 20151055). At the global scale, 24% of the world’s sandy beaches are eroding at rates exceeding 0.5 m yr–1, while 28% are accreting for the period 1984–2016. The largest and longest eroding sandy coastal stretches are in North America (Texas; Luijendijk et al., 20181056). Shoreline erosion leads to coastal squeeze if the eroding coastline approaches fixed and hard built or natural structures as noted in AR5 (Pontee, 20131057; Wong et al., 20141058), a process to which SLR also contributes (Doody, 20131059; Pontee, 20131060). The AR5 further noted that coastal squeeze is expected to accelerate due to rising sea levels (Wong et al., 20141061). Doody (2013) characterised coastal squeeze as coastal habitats being pushed landward through the effects of SLR and other coastal processes on the one hand and, on the other hand, the presence of static natural or artificial barriers effectively blocking this migration, thereby squeezing habitats into an ever narrowing space. Distinctions are made between coastal squeeze being limited to (1) the consequences of SLR vs. other environmental changes on the coastline and (2) the presence of only coastal defence structures vs. natural sloping land or other artificial infrastructure (Pontee, 20131062). Recent publications have emphasised coastal squeeze related to SLR, although inland infrastructure blocking habitat migration is not necessarily limited to defence structures (Torio and Chmura, 20151063; McDougall, 20171064). Coastal ecosystem degradation by human activities leading to coastal erosion is also an important consideration (McDougall, 20171065). Taking into consideration the current challenges to attribute coastal impacts to SLR (Section 4.3.3.1), it can be hypothesised here that as long as SLR impacts remain moderate, the dominant driving factor of coastal squeeze will be anthropogenic land-based development (e.g., Section 4.3.2.2). With higher SLR scenarios and in the case of no further development at the coast, SLR may become the dominant driver before the end of this century. Preserved coastal habitats can play important roles in reducing risks related to some coastal hazards and initiatives are being put in place to reduce coastal squeeze, such as managed realignment (Sections 4.1, 4.4.3.1) which includes removing inland barriers (Doody, 20131066). Coastal squeeze can lead to degradation of coastal ecosystems and species (Martínez et al., 20141067), but if inland migration is unencumbered, observation data and modelling have shown that the net area of coastal ecosystems could increase under various scenarios of SLR, depending on the ecosystems considered (Torio and Chmura, 20151068; Kirwan et al., 20161069; Mills et al., 20161070). However, recent modelling research has shown that rapid SLR in a context of coastal squeeze could be detrimental to the areal extent and functionality of coastal ecosystems (Mills et al., 20161071) and, for marshes, could lead to a reduction of habitat complexity and loss of connectivity, thus affecting both aquatic and terrestrial organisms (Torio and Chmura, 20151072). Contraction of marsh extent is also identified by Kirwan et al. (2016)1073 when artificial barriers to landward migration are in place. Adaptation to SLR therefore needs to account for both development and conservation objectives so that trade-offs between protection and realignment that satisfy both objectives can be identified (Mills et al., 20161074). In summary, catchment-scale changes have very direct impacts on the coastline, particularly in terms of water and sediment budgets (high confidence). The changes can be rapid and modify coastlines over short periods of time, outpacing the effects of SLR and leading to increased exposure and vulnerability of social-ecological systems (high confidence). Without losing sight of this fact, management of catchment-level processes contribute to limiting rapid increases in exposure and vulnerability. Further to hinterland influences, coastal squeeze increases coastal exposure as well as vulnerability by the loss of a buffer zone between the sea and infrastructure behind the habitat undergoing coastal squeeze. The clear implication is that coastal ecosystems progressively lose their ability to provide regulating services with respect to coastal hazards, including as a defence against SLR driven inundation and salinisation (high confidence). Vulnerability is also increased if freshwater resources become salinised, particularly if these resources are already scarce. The exposure and vulnerability of human communities is exacerbated by the loss of other provisioning, supporting and cultural services generated by coastal ecosystems, which is especially problematic for coast-dependent communities (high confidence).
SLR leads to hazards and impacts that are also partly inherent in other processes such as starvation of sediments provided by rivers (Kondolf et al., 2014); permafrost thaw and ice retreat; or the disruption of natural dynamics by land reclamation or sediment mining. Six main concerns for low-lying coasts (Figure 4.13) are: (i) permanent submergence of land by mean sea levels or mean high tides; (ii) more frequent or intense flooding; (iii) enhanced erosion; (iv) loss and change of ecosystems; (v) salinisation of soils, ground and surface water; and (vi) impeded drainage. This section discusses some of these hazards (flooding, erosion, salinisation) as well as observed and projected impacts on some critical marine ecosystems (marshes, mangroves, lagoons, coral reefs and seagrasses), ecosystem services (coastal protection) and human societies (people, assets, infrastructures, economic and subsistence activities, inequity and well-being, etc.). In many cases, the Chapter 4 assessment of impacts and responses uses results from literature based on values of SLR and ESL events prior to SROCC. However, the general findings reported here also carry forward with the new SROCC SLR and ESL values. Except in the case of submergence and flooding of coastal areas (Section 4.3.3.2), this section assumes no major additional adaptation efforts compared to today (i.e., neither significant intensification of ongoing action nor new types of action), thus reflecting the state of knowledge in the literature.
The AR5 concludes that attribution of coastal changes to SLR is difficult because ‘the coastal sea level change signal is often small when compared to other processes’ (Wong et al., 2014: 375). New literature, however, shows that extreme water levels at the coast are rising due to mean SLR (4.2.2.4 for observations, and 4.3.5 for projections), with observable impacts on chronic flooding in some regions (Sweet and Park, 2014; Strauss et al., 2016). On coastal morphological changes for example, contemporary SLR currently acts as a ‘background driver’, with extreme events, changes in wave patterns, tides and human intervention often described as the prevailing drivers of observed changes (Grady et al., 2013; Albert et al., 2016). Morphological changes are also interacting with other impacts of SLR, such as coastal flooding (Pollard et al., 2018). Despite the complexity of the attribution issue (Romine et al., 2013; Le Cozannet et al., 2014), recent literature suggests possibly emerging signs of the direct influence of recent SLR on shoreline behaviour, for example on small highly-sensitive reef islands in New Caledonia (Garcin et al., 2016) and in the Solomon Islands (Albert et al., 2016). Early signs of the direct influence of SLR on estuaries’ water salinity are also emerging, for example, in the Delaware, USA, where Ross et al. (2015) estimate a rate of salinity increase by as much as 4.4 psu (Practical Salinity Unit) per metre of SLR since the 1950s. Overall, while the literature suggests that it is still too early to attribute coastal impacts to SLR in most of the world’s coastal areas, there is very high confidence that as sea level continues to rise (Sections 4.2.3.2, 4.2.3.3), the frequency, severity and duration of hazards and related impacts increases (Woodruff et al., 2013; Lilai et al., 2016; Vitousek et al., 2017; Sections 4.2.3.4, 6.3.1.3). Detectable impacts and attributable impacts on shoreline behaviour are expected as soon as the second half of the 21st century (Nicholls and Cazenave, 2010; Storlazzi et al., 2018).
Recent global assessments of coastal erosion indicate that land losses currently dominate over land gains and that human interventions are a major driver of shoreline changes (Cazenave and Cozannet, 20141212; Luijendijk et al., 20181213; Mentaschi et al., 20181214). Luijendijk et al. (2018)1215 estimate that over the 1984–2016 period, about a quarter of the world’s sandy beaches eroded at rates exceeding 0.5m yr–1 while about 28% accreted. While such global results can be challenged due to the relatively large detection threshold used (±0.5 m yr–1), there is growing literature indicating that coastal erosion is occurring or increasing, e.g. in the Arctic (Barnhart et al., 2014a1216; Farquharson et al., 20181217; Irrgang et al., 20191218), Brazil (Amaro et al., 20151219), China (Yang et al., 20171220), Colombia (Rangel-Buitrago et al., 20151221), India (Kankara et al., 20181222), and along a large number of deltaic systems worldwide (e.g., Section 4.2.2.4). Since AR5, however, there is growing appreciation and understanding of the ability of coastal systems to respond dynamically to SLR (Passeri et al., 20151223; Lentz et al., 20161224; Deng et al., 20171225). Most low-lying coastal systems exhibit important feedbacks between biological and physical processes (e.g., Wright and Nichols, 2018), that have allowed them to maintain a relatively stable morphology under moderate rates of SLR (<0.3 cm yr–1) over the past few millennia (Woodruff et al., 20131226; Cross-Chapter Box 5 in Chapter 1). In a global review on multi-decadal changes in the land area of 709 atoll islands, Duvat (2019)1227 shows that in a context of more rapid SLR than the global mean (Becker et al., 20121228; Palanisamy et al., 20141229), 73.1% of islands were stable in area, while respectively 15.5% and 11.4% increased and decreased in size. While anthropogenic drivers played a major role, especially in urban islands (e.g., shoreline stabilisation by coastal defences, increase in island size as a result of reclamation works), this study and others (e.g., McLean and Kench, 2015) suggest that these islands have had the capacity to maintain their land area by naturally adjusting to SLR over the past decades (high confidence). However, it has been argued that this capacity could be reduced in the coming decades, due to the combination of higher rates of SLR, increased wave energy (Albert et al., 20161230), changes in run-up (Shope et al., 20171231) and storm wave direction (Harley et al., 20171232), effects of ocean warming and acidification on critical ecosystems such as coral reefs (Section 4.3.3.5.2), and a continued increase in anthropogenic pressure.
From a global scale perspective, based on AR4 SLR scenarios and without considering the potential benefits of adaptation, Hinkel et al. (2013b) estimate that about 6000 to 17,000 km2 of land is expected to be lost during the 21st century due to enhanced coastal erosion associated with SLR, in combination with other drivers. This could lead to a displacement of 1.6–5.3 million people and associated cumulative costs of 300 to 1000 billion USD (Section 4.4.3.5). Importantly, these global figures mask the wide diversity of local situations; and some literature is emerging on the non-physical and non-quantifiable impacts of coastal erosion, for example, on the loss of recreational grounds and the induced risks to the associated social dimensions (i.e., how local communities experience coastal erosion impacts; Karlsson et al., 20151233).
With rising sea levels, saline water intrusion into coastal aquifers and surface waters and soils is expected to be more frequent and enter farther landwards. Salinisation of groundwater, surface water and soil resources also increases with land-based drought events, decreasing river discharges in combination with water extraction and SLR (high confidence).
Groundwater volumes will primarily be affected by variations in precipitation patterns (Taylor et al., 2013; Jiménez Cisneros et al., 2014), which are expected to increase water stress in small islands (Holding et al., 2016). While SLR will mostly impact groundwater quality (Bailey et al., 2016) and in turn exacerbate salinisation induced by marine flooding events (Gingerich et al., 2017), it will also affect the watertable height (Rotzoll and Fletcher, 2013; Jiménez Cisneros et al., 2014; Masterson et al., 2014; Werner et al., 2017). In addition, the natural migration of groundwater lenses inland in response to SLR can also be severely constrained by urbanisation, for example, in semi-arid South Texas, USA (Uddameri et al., 2014). These changes will affect both freshwater availability (for drinking water supply and agriculture) and vegetation dynamics. At many locations, however, direct anthropogenic influences, such as groundwater pumping for agricultural or urban uses, already impact salinisation of coastal aquifers more strongly than what is expected from SLR in the 21st century (Ferguson and Gleeson, 2012; Jiménez Cisneros et al., 2014; Uddameri et al., 2014), with trade-offs in terms of groundwater depletion that may contribute to anthropogenic subsidence and thus increase coastal flood risk. Recent studies also suggest that the influence of land-surface inundation on seawater intrusion and resulting salinisation of groundwater lenses on small islands has been underestimated until now (Ataie-Ashtiani et al., 2013; Ketabchi et al., 2014). Such impacts will potentially also combine with a projected drying of most of the tropical-to-temperate islands by mid-century (Karnauskas et al., 2016).
The quality of surface water resources (in estuaries, rivers, reservoirs, etc.) can be affected by the intrusion of saline water, both in a direct (increased salinity) and indirect way (altered environmental conditions which change the behaviour of pollutants and microbes). In terms of direct impacts, statistical models and long-term (1950 to present) records of salinity show significant upward trends in salinity and a positive correlation between rising sea levels and increasing residual salinity, for example in the Delaware Estuary, USA (Ross et al., 2015). Higher salinity levels, further inland, have also been reported in the Gorai river basin, southwestern Bangladesh (Bhuiyan and Dutta, 2012), and in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. In the Mekong Delta for instance, salinity intrusion extends around 15 km inland during the rainy season and typically around 50 km during dry season (Gugliotta et al., 2017). Importantly, salinity intrusion in these deltas is caused by a variety of factors such as changes in discharge and water abstraction along with relative SLR. More broadly, the impact of salinity intrusion can be significant in river deltas or low-lying wetlands, especially during low-flow periods such as in the dry season (Dessu et al., 2018). In Bangladesh, for instance, some freshwater fish species are expected to lose their habitat with increasing salinity, with profound consequences on fish-dependent communities (Dasgupta et al., 2017). In the Florida Coastal Everglades, sea level increasingly exceeds ground surface elevation at the most downstream freshwater sites, affecting marine-to-freshwater hydrologic connectivity and transport of salinity and phosphorous upstream from the Gulf of Mexico. The impact of SLR is higher in the dry season when there is practically no freshwater inflow (Dessu et al., 2018). Salinity intrusion was shown to cause shifts in the diatom assemblages, with expected cascading effects through the food web (Mazzei and Gaiser, 2018). Salinisation of surface water may lead to limitations in drinking water supply (Wilbers et al., 2014), as well as to future fresh water shortage in reservoirs, for example in Shanghai (Li et al., 2015). Salinity changes the partitioning and mobility of some metals, and hence their concentration or speciation in the water bodies (Noh et al., 2013; Wong et al., 2015; de Souza Machado et al., 2018). Varying levels of salinity also influence the abundance and toxicity of Vibrio cholerae in the Ganges Delta (Batabyal et al., 2016).
Salinisation is one of the major drivers of soil degradation, with sea water intrusion being one of the common causes (Daliakopoulos et al., 2016). In a study in the Ebro Delta, Spain, for instance, soil salinity was shown to be directly related to distances to the river, to the delta inner border, and to the old river mouth (Genua-Olmedo et al., 2016). Land elevation was the most important variable in explaining soil salinity. SLR was also shown to decrease organic carbon (Corg) concentrations and stocks in sediments of salt marshes as reworked marine particles contribute with a lower amount of Corg than terrigenous sediments. Corg accumulation in tropical salt marshes can be as high as in mangroves and the reduction of Corg stocks by ongoing SLR might cause high CO2 releases (Ruiz-Fernández et al., 2018). In many cases attribution to SLR is missing, but, independent from clear attribution, sea water intrusion leads to a salinisation of exposed soils with changes in carbon dynamics (Ruiz-Fernández et al., 2018) and microbial communities (Sánchez-Rodríguez et al., 2017), soil enzyme activity and metal toxicity (Zheng et al., 2017). Water salinity levels in the pores of coastal marsh soils can become significantly elevated in just one week of flooding by sea water, which can potentially negatively impact associated microbial communities for significantly longer time periods (McKee et al., 2016). SLR will also alter the frequency and magnitude of wet/dry periods and salinity levels in coastal ecosystems, with consequences for the formation of climate relevant GHGs (Liu et al., 2017b) and therefore feedbacks to the climate. Soil salinisation affects agriculture directly with impacts on plant germination (Sánchez-García et al., 2017), plant biomass (rice and cotton) production (Yao et al., 2015), and yield (Genua-Olmedo et al., 2016). Impact on agriculture is especially relevant in low-lying coastal areas where agricultural production is a major land use, such as in river deltas.
Global coastal wetlands have been reduced by a half since the pre-industrial period due to the impacts of both climatic and non-climatic drivers such as flooding, coastal urbanisation, alterations in drainage and sediment supply. (Sections 4.3.2.3, 5.3.2). Potentially one of the most important of the eco-morphodynamic feedback allowing for relatively stable morphology under SLR is the ability of marsh and mangrove systems to enhance the trapping of sediment, which in turn allows tidal wetlands to grow and increase the production and accumulaGlobal coastal wetlands have been reduced by a half since the pre-industrial period due to the impacts of both climatic and non-climatic drivers such as flooding, coastal urbanisation, alterations in drainage and sediment supply. (Sections 4.3.2.3, 5.3.2). Potentially one of the most important of the eco-morphodynamic feedbacks allowing for relatively stable morphology under SLR is the ability of marsh and mangrove systems to enhance the trapping of sediment, which in turn allows tidal wetlands to grow and increase the production and accumulation of organic material (Kirwan and Megonigal, 20131272). When ecosystem health is maintained and sufficient sediment exists to support their growth, this particular feedback has generally allowed marshes and mangrove systems to build vertically at rates equal to or greater than SLR up to the present day (Kirwan et al., 20161273; Woodroffe et al., 20161274). While recent reviews suggest that mangroves’ surface accretion rate will keep pace with a high SLR scenario (RCP8.5) up to years 2055 and 2070 in fringe and basin mangrove settings, respectively (Sasmito et al., 20161275), process-based models of vertical marsh growth that incorporate biological and physical feedbacks support survival under rates of SLR as high as 1–5 cm yr–1 before drowning (Kirwan et al., 20161276). Threshold rates of SLR before marsh drowning however vary significantly from site-to-site and can be substantially lower than 1 cm yr–1 in micro-tidal regions where the tidal trapping of sediment is reduced and/or in areas with low sediment availability (Lovelock et al., 20151277; Ganju et al., 20171278; Jankowski et al., 20171279; Watson et al., 20171280). Global environmental change may also to lead to changes in growth rates, productivity and geographic distribution of different mangrove and marsh species, including the replacement of environmentally sensitive species by those possessing greater climatic tolerance (Krauss et al., 20141281; Reef and Lovelock, 20141282; Coldren et al., 20191283). Processes impacting lateral changes at the marsh boundary including wave erosion are just as important, if not more, than vertical accretion rates in determining coastal wetland survival (e.g., Mariotti and Carr, 2014). For most low-lying coastlines, a seaward loss of wetland area due to marsh retreat could be offset by a similar landward migration of coastal wetlands (Kirwan and Megonigal, 20131284; Schile et al., 20141285), this landward migration having the potential to maintain and even increase the extent of coastal wetlands globally (Morris et al., 20121286; Kirwan et al., 20161287; Schuerch et al., 20181288). This natural process will however be constrained in areas with steep topography or hard engineering structures (i.e., coastal squeeze, Section 4.3.2.4). Seawalls, levees and dams can also prevent the fluvial and marine transport of sediment to wetland areas and reduce their resilience further (Giosan, 20141289; Tessler et al., 20151290; Day et al., 20161291; Spencer et al., 20161292). When ecosystem health is maintained and sufficient sediment exists to support their growth, this particular feedback has generally allowed marshes and mangrove systems to build vertically at rates While recent reviews suggest that mangroes’ surface accretion rate will keep pace with a high SLR scenario (RCP8.5) up to years 2055 and 2070 in fringe and basin mangrove settings, respectively (Sasmito et al., 20161275), process-based models of vertical marsh growth that incorporate biological and physical feedbacks support survival under rates of SLR as high as 1–5 cm yr–1 before drowning (Kirwan et al., 20161276). Threshold rates of SLR before marsh drowning however vary significantly from site-to-site and can be substantially lower than 1 cm yr–1 in micro-tidal regions where the tidal trapping of sediment is reduced and/or in areas with low sediment availability (Lovelock et al., 20151277; Ganju et al., 20171278; Jankowski et al., 20171279; Watson et al., 20171280). Global environmental change may also to lead to changes in growth rates, productivity and geographic distribution of different mangrove and marsh species, including the replacement of environmentally sensitive species by those possessing greater climatic tolerance (Krauss et al., 20141281; Reef and Lovelock, 20141282; Coldren et al., 20191283). Processes impacting lateral changes at the marsh boundary including wave erosion are just as important, if not more, than vertical accretion rates in determining coastal wetland survival (e.g., Mariotti and Carr, 2014). For most low-lying coastlines, a seaward loss of wetland area due to marsh retreat could be offset by a similar landward migration of coastal wetlands (Kirwan and Megonigal, 20131284; Schile et al., 20141285), this landward migration having the potential to maintain and even increase the extent of coastal wetlands globally (Morris et al., 20121286; Kirwan et al., 20161287; Schuerch et al., 20181288). This natural process will however be constrained in areas with steep topography or hard engineering structures (i.e., coastal squeeze, Section 4.3.2.4). Seawalls, levees and dams can also prevent the fluvial and marine transport of sediment to wetland areas and reduce their resilience further (Giosan, 20141289; Tessler et al., 20151290; Day et al., 20161291; Spencer et al., 20161292).
Coral reefs are considered to be the marine ecosystem most threatened by climate-related ocean change, especially ocean warming and acidification, even under an RCP2.6 scenario (Gattuso et al., 20151293; Albright et al., 20181294; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 20181295; Díaz et al., 20191296; Section 5.3.4). AR5 concluded that ‘a number of coral reefs could […] keep up with the maximum rate of SLR of 15.1 mm yr–1 projected for the end of the century […] (medium confidence) [but a future net accretion rate lower] than during the Holocene (Perry et al., 20131297) and increased turbidity (Storlazzi et al., 20111298) will weaken this capability (very high confidence)’ (Wong et al., 2014: 3791299). Subsequently, some studies suggested that SLR may have negligible impacts on coral reefs’ vertical growth because the projected rate and magnitude of SLR by 2100 are within the potential accretion rates of most coral reefs (van Woesik et al., 20151300). Other studies, however, stressed that the overall net vertical accretion of reefs may decrease after the first 30 years of rise in a 1.2 m SLR scenario (Hamylton et al., 20141301), and that most reefs will not be able to keep up with SLR under RCP4.5 and beyond (Perry et al., 20181302). The SR1.5 also concludes that coral reefs ‘are projected to decline by a further 70–90% at 1.5°C (high confidence) with larger losses (>99%) at 2°C (very high confidence)’ (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018: 101303). A key point is that SLR will not act in isolation of other drivers. Cumulative impacts, including anthropogenic drivers, are estimated to reduce the ability of coral reefs to keep pace with future SLR (Hughes et al., 20171304; Yates et al., 20171305) and thereby reduce the capacity of reefs to provide sediments and protection to coastal areas. For example, the combination of reef erosion due to acidification and human-induced mechanical destruction is altering seafloor topography, increasing risks from SLR in carbonate sediment dominated regions (Yates et al., 20171306). Both ocean acidification (Albright et al., 20181307; Eyre et al., 20181308) and ocean warming (Perry and Morgan, 20171309) have been considered to slow future growth rates and reef accretion (Section 5.3.4). Recent literature also shows that alterations of coral reef 3D structure from changes in growth, breakage, disease or acidification can profoundly affect their ability to buffer waves impacts (through wave breaking and wave energy damping), and therefore keep-up with SLR (Yates et al., 20171310; Harris et al., 20181311). Such prospects contribute to raise concerns about the future ability of atoll islands to adjust naturally to SLR and persist (Section 4.3.3.3, Cross-Chapter Box 9). Another concern is that locally, even minimal SLR can increase turbidity on fringing reefs, reducing light and, therefore, photosynthesis and calcification. SLR-induced turbidity can be caused by increased coastal erosion and the transfer of sediment to nearby reefs and enhanced sediment resuspension (Field et al., 20111312).
Due to their natural capacity to enhance accretion and in the absence of mechanical or chemical destruction by human activities, seagrasses are not expected to be severely affected by SLR, except indirectly through the increase of the impacts of extreme weather events and waves on coastal morphology (i.e., erosion) as well as through changes in light levels and through effects on adjacent ecosystems (Saunders et al., 20131313). Extreme flooding events have also been shown to cause large-scale losses of seagrass habitats (Bandeira and Gell, 20031314), for example seagrasses in Queensland, Australia, were lost in a disastrous flooding event (Campbell and McKenzie, 20041315). Changes in ocean currents can have either positive or negative effects on seagrasses, creating new space for seagrasses to grow or eroding seagrass beds (Bjork et al., 20081316). But overall, seagrass will primarily be negatively affected by the direct effects of increased sea temperature on growth rates and the occurrence of disease (Marba and Duarte, 20101317; Burge et al., 20131318; Koch et al., 20131319; Thompson et al., 20151320; Chefaoui et al., 20181321; Gattuso et al., 20181322; Section 5.3.2) as well as by heavy rains that may dilute the seawater to a lower salinity. Such impacts will be exacerbated by major causes of seagrass decline including coastal eutrophication, siltation and coastal development (Waycott et al., 20091323). Noteworthy is that some positive impacts are expected, as ocean acidification is expected to benefit photosynthesis and growth rates of seagrass (Repolho et al., 20171324).
Major ‘protection’ benefits derived from the above-mentioned coastal ecosystems include wave attenuation and shoreline stabilisation, for example, by coral reefs (Elliff and Silva, 20171325; Siegle and Costa, 20171326), mangroves (Zhang et al., 20121327; Barbier, 20161328; Menéndez et al., 20181329) or salt marshes (Möller et al., 20141330; Hu et al., 20151331). Recently, a global meta-analysis of 69 studies demonstrated that, on average, these ecosystems together reduced wave heights between 35–71% at the limited locations considered (Narayan et al., 20161332), with coral reefs, salt marshes, mangroves and seagrass/kelp beds reducing wave heights by 54–81%, 62–79%, 25–37% and 25–45% respectively (see Narayan et al., 2016 for map of locations considered). Additional studies suggest greater wave attenuation in mangrove systems (Horstman et al., 20141333), and highlight broader complexities in wave attenuation related to total tidal wetland extent, water depth, and species. Global analyses show that natural and artificial seagrasses can attenuate wave height and energy by as much as 40% and 50%, respectively (Fonseca and Cahalan, 19921334; John et al., 20151335), while coral reefs have been observed to reduce total wave energy by 94–98% (n = 13; Ferrario et al., 20141336) and wave driven flooding volume by 72% (Beetham et al., 20171337). In addition, storm surge attenuation based on a recent literature review by Stark et al. (2015)1338 range from -2–25 cm km–1 length of marsh, where the negative value denotes actual amplification. Other ecosystems provide coastal protection, including macroalgae, oyster and mussel beds, and also beaches, dunes and barrier islands, but there is less understanding of the level of protection conferred by these other organisms and habitats (Spalding et al., 20141339). While there is little literature on the extent to which SLR specifically will affect coastal protection by coastal and marine ecosystems, it is estimated that SLR may reduce this ecosystem service (limited evidence, high agreement) through the above-described impacts on the ecosystems themselves, and in combination with the impacts of other climate-related changes to the ocean (e.g., ocean warming and acidification; Sections 5.3.1 to 5.3.6, 5.4.1). Wave attenuation by coral reefs, for example, is estimated to be negatively affected in the near future by changes in coral reefs’ structural complexity more than by SLR (Harris et al., 20181340); changes in mean and ESL events will rather add a layer of stress. Beck et al. (2018) estimate that under RCP8.5 by 2100, a 1 m loss in coral reefs’ height will increase the global area flooded under a 100-year storm event by 116% compared to today, against +66% with no reef loss.
SLR projections for the 21st century, together with other ocean related changes (e.g., acidification and warming) and the possible increase in human-driven pressures at the coast (e.g., demographic and settlement patterns), make low-lying islands, coasts and communities relevant illustrations of some of the five Reasons for Concern (RFCs) developed by the IPCC since the Third Assessment Report (McCarthy et al., 2001; Smith et al., 2001) to assess risks from a global perspective. The AR5 Synthesis Report (IPCC, 2014) as well as the more recent SR1.5 (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018) refined the RFC approach. The AR5 Synthesis Report (IPCC, 2014) developed two additional RFCs related to the coasts, subsequently updated along with the other RFCs (O’Neill et al., 2017). One refers to risks to marine species arising from ocean acidification, and the other one refers to risks to human and natural systems from SLR. Despite the difficulty in attributing observed impacts to SLR per se (Section 4.3.3.1), O’Neill et al. (2017) estimate that risks related to SLR are already detectable globally and will increase rapidly, so that high risk may occur before a 1m rise level is reached. O’Neill et al. (2017) also suggest that limits to coastal protection and EbA by 2100 could occur in a 1 m SLR rise scenario. Previous assessments however left gaps, including quantifying the benefits from adaptation in terms of risk reduction.
Rather than revisiting the AR5 and O’Neill et al. (2017) assessments from the particular perspective of risk related to SLR and for the global scale, this section provides a complementary perspective by assessing risks for specific geographies (resource-rich coastal cities, urban atoll islands, large tropical agricultural deltas and selected Arctic communities), based on the methodological advances below. Scale of analysis and geographical scope – To date, the RFCs and associated burning embers have been developed at a global scale (Oppenheimer et al., 2014; Gattuso et al., 2015; O’Neill et al., 2017) and do not address the spatial variability of risk highlighted in this report (Sections 4.3.2.7, 4.3.4, 5.3.7, Cross-Chapter Box 9, Box 4.1). In addition, assessments usually identify risks either for global human dimensions (e.g., to people, livelihood, breakdown of infrastructures, biodiversity, global economy, etc.; IPCC, 2014; Oppenheimer et al., 2014; O’Neill et al., 2017) or for ecosystems and ecosystem services (Gattuso et al., 2015; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018) (Section 5.3.7). This section moves the focus from the global to more local scales by considering four generic categories of low-lying coastal areas (Figure 4.3, Panel B): selected Arctic communities remote from regions of rapid GIA, large tropical agricultural deltas, urban atoll islands, and resource-rich coastal cities. Each of these categories is informed by several real-world case studies. Risks considered – In line with the AR5 (IPCC, 2014), current and future risks result from the interaction of SLR-related hazards with the vulnerability of exposed ecosystems and societies. According to the specific scope of the chapter, this assessment focusses on the additional risks due to SLR and does not account for changes in extreme event climatology. Hazards considered are coastal flooding (Section 4.3.4.2), erosion (Section 4.3.4.3) and salinisation (Section 4.3.4.4). The proxies used to describe exposure and vulnerability are the density of assets at the coast (Section 4.3.2.2) and the level of degradation of natural buffering by marine and terrestrial ecosystems (Sections 4.3.2.3, 4.3.3.5.4, and 5.3.2 to 5.3.4). The assessment especially addresses risks to human assets at the coast, including populations, infrastructures and livelihoods. Specific metrics were developed (see SM4.3 for details), and their contribution to present-day observed impacts and to end-century risk have been assessed based on the authors’ expert judgment and a methodological grid presented in SM4.3 (SM4.3.1 to SM4.3.6). The author’s expert judgment draws on Sections 4.3.3.2 to 4.3.3.5 as well as additional literature for local scale perspectives (SM4.3.9). Sea level rise scenarios – Based on the updates for ranges and mean values developed in this chapter (Section 4.2, Table 4.3), this assessment considers the end-century GMSL (2100) relative to 1986–2005 levels for two scenarios, SROCC RCP2.6 and SROCC RCP8.5. Both mean values and the SROCC RCP8.5 upper end of the likely range are used to assess risk transitions (Figure 4.3, Panel A). For the sake of readability, the following values were used: 43 cm (mean SROCC RCP2.6), 84 cm (mean SROCC RCP8.5) and 110 cm (SROCC RCP8.5 upper end of likely range). While GMSL serves as a representation of different possible climate change scenarios (see Panel A in Figure 4.3, Section 4.1.2), the assessment of additional risks due to SLR on specific geographies is developed against end-century relative SLR (RSL) in order to allow a geographically accurate approach (Panel B, Figure 4.3). Accordingly, risk was assessed to illustrative geographies based on RSLs for each of the two SROCC RCP scenarios and each of the real-world case studies to (SM4.3.6 and Table SM4.3.2; see dotted lines in Panel B of Figure 4.3). RSL observations include some or all of the following VLMs: both uplift (e.g., due to tectonics) and subsidence due to natural (e.g., tectonics, sediment compaction) and human (e.g., oil/gas/water extraction, mining activities) factors, as well as to GIA. However, in SROCC, numerical RSL projections only include GIA and the regional gravitational, rotational, and deformational responses (GRD, see Section 4.2.1.5) to ice mass loss. The main reason is the difficulty of projecting the influence on some factors such as human interventions to the end of the century. Adaptation scenarios – Risk will also depend on the effectiveness of coastal societies’ responses to both extreme events and slow onset changes. To capture the response dimension, four metrics have been considered that refer to the implementation of adequately calibrated hard, engineered coastal defences (Section 4.4.2.2), the restoration of the degraded ecosystems or the creation of new natural buffers areas (Section 4.4.2.2 and 4.4.2.3), planned and local-scale relocation (Section 4.4.2.6), and measures to limit human-induced subsidence (Sections 4.4.2.2, 4.4.2.5). On these bases, two contrasting adaptation scenarios were considered. The first one is called ‘No-to-moderate response’ (see (A) bars in Panel B, Figure 4.3) and represents a business-as-usual scenario where no major additional adaptation efforts compared to today are implemented. That is, neither substantial intensification of current actions nor new types of actions, e.g., only moderate raising of existing protections in high-density areas or sporadic episodes of relocation or beach nourishment where largescale efforts are not already underway. The second one, called ‘Maximum potential response’ (bars (B) in Figure 4.3), refers to an ambitious combination of both incremental and transformational adaptation (i.e., significantly upscaled effort); for example, relocation of entire districts or raised protections in some cities, or creation/restoration at a significant scale of beach-dune systems including indigenous vegetation.
B in Figure 4.3), and that risk is expected to increase over this century in virtually all low-lying coastal areas whatever their context-specificities or nature (island/continental, developed/developing county) (Cross-Chapter Box 9). In the absence of high adaptation (bars (A)), risk is expected to significantly increase in urban atoll islands and the selected Arctic coastal communities even in a SROCC RCP2.6 scenario, and all geographies are expected to experience almost high to very high risks at the upper likely range of SROCC RCP8.5. These results allow refining AR5 conclusions by showing, first, that high risk can indeed occur before the 1m rise benchmark (Oppenheimer et al., 2014; O’Neill et al., 2017) and, second, that risk as a function of SLR is highly variable from one geography to another. Some rationale is provided below for our assessment of illustrative geographies, summarising the more detailed description provided in SM4.3 (SM4.3.6 to SM4.3.8). Note however that the text below is not intended to be fully comprehensive and does not necessarily include all elements for which there is a substantive body of literature, nor does it necessarily include all elements which are of particular interest to decision makers. Resource-rich coastal cities (SM4.3.8.1, Panel B in Figure 4.3) – Resource-rich coastal cities considered in this analysis are Shanghai, New York (see Box 4.1 for further details and references on Shanghai and NYC), and Rotterdam (Brinke et al., 20101400; Hinkel et al., 20181401). High, and in many cases, growing population density and total population, and high exposure of people and infrastructure to GMSL rise and ESL events characterise coastal megacities (Hanson et al., 20111402). These are high concentrations of income and wealth in geographic terms but within relatively small area exhibit large distributional differences of both with important implications for emergency response and adaptation. Concentration translates into high exposure of monetary value to coastal hazards and the cities noted here have both historical and recent experience with damaging ESL events, such as Typhoon Winnie which struck Shanghai in 1997 (Xian et al., 20181403), Hurricane Sandy in New York in 2012 (Rosenzweig and Solecki, 20141404), and the North Sea storm of 1953 which impacted the Rotterdam area (Gerritsen, 20051405; Jonkman et al., 20081406). However, high density, limited space and high cost of land leads to development of below-ground space for transportation (e.g., subways, road tunnels; MTA, 2017) and storage, and even habitation, creating vulnerabilities not seen in low-density areas. Natural ecosystems within the megacity boundaries and nearby have been exploited for centuries and in some cases decimated or even extirpated (Hartig et al., 20021407). Accordingly, they provide limited benefits in terms of coastal protection for the densest part of these cities but can be critically important for protection of lower-density areas, for example, wetlands and sandy beaches in the Jamaica Bay/Rockaway sector of New York that protect nearby residential communities (Hartig et al., 20021408). Space limitations also constrain the potential benefits of EbA measures. Instead, resource-rich coastal cities depend largely on hard defences like sea walls and surge barriers for coastal protection (Section 4.4.2.2). Such defences are costly but generally cost effective due to the aforementioned concentration of population and value. However, barriers to planning and implementing adaptation include governance challenges (Section 4.4.2) such as limited control over finances and the intermittent nature of ESLs which inhibit focused attention over the long time scales needed to plan and implement hard defences (Section 4.4.2.2). As a result, coastal adaptation for resource-rich cities is uneven and the three presented here were selected with a view toward exhibiting a range of current and potential future effectiveness. Urban atoll islands (SM4.3.8.2, Panel B in Figure 4.3) – The capital islands (or groups of islands) of three atoll nations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are considered here: Fongafale (Funafuti Atoll, Tuvalu), the South Tarawa Urban District (Tarawa Atoll, Kiribati) and Male’ (North Kaafu Atoll, Maldives). Urban atoll islands have low elevation (<4 m above mean sea level; in South Tarawa, e.g., lagoon sides where settlement concentrates are <1.80 m in elevation) (Duvat, 20131409) and are mainly composed of reef-derived unconsolidated material. Their future is of nation-wide importance as they concentrate populations, economic activities and critical infrastructure (airports, main harbours).They illustrate the prominence of anthropogenic-driven disturbances to marine and terrestrial ecosystems (e.g., mangrove clearing in South Tarawa or human-induced coral reef degradation through land reclamation in Male’; Duvat et al., 20131410; Naylor, 20151411) and therefore to services such as coastal protection delivered by the coral reef (i.e., wave energy attenuation that reduces flooding and erosion, and sediment provision that contributes to island persistence over time) (McLean and Kench, 20151412; Quataert et al., 20151413; Elliff and Silva, 20171414; Storlazzi et al., 20181415). The controlling factors of urban atoll islands’ future habitability are the density of assets exposed to marine flooding and coastal erosion (SM4.3.8.2), future trends in these hazards, and ecosystem response to both ocean-climate related pressures and human activities. Urban atoll islands already experience coastal flooding, for example, in Male’ (Wadey et al., 20171416) and Funafuti (Yamano et al., 20071417; McCubbin et al., 20151418). Coastal erosion is also a major concern along non-armoured shoreline in South Tarawa (Duvat et al., 20131419) and Fongafale (Onaka et al., 20171420), but not in Male’ where surrounding fortifications have extended along almost the entire shoreline from several decades (Naylor, 20151421). Salinisation already affects groundwater lenses, but its contribution to risk varies from one case to another, from low in Male’ (relying on desalinised seawater) to important for human consumption and agriculture in South Tarawa (Bailey et al., 20141422; Post et al., 20181423). Together, high population densities (from ~3,200 people per km2 in South Tarawa to ~65,700 people per km2 in Male’) (Government of the Maldives, 20141424; McIver et al., 20151425) and the concentration of critical infrastructure and settlements in naturally low-lying flood-prone areas already substantially contribute to coastal risk (Duvat et al., 20131426; Field et al., 20171427). Even stabilised densities in the future would translate into a substantial increase of risk under a 43cm GMSL rise. Risk will also be exacerbated by the negative effects of ocean warming and acidification, especially on coral reef and mangrove capacity to cope with SLR (Pendleton et al., 20161428; Van Hooidonk et al., 20161429; Perry and Morgan, 20171430; Perry et al., 20181431) (Sections 4.3.3.5, 5.3). In addition, even small values of SLR will significantly increase risk to atoll islands’ aquifers (Bailey et al., 20161431; Storlazzi et al., 20181432). Finally, land scarcity in atoll environments will exacerbate the importance of SLR induced damages (on housing, agriculture and infrastructure especially) and cascading impacts (on livelihoods, for example, as a result of groundwater and soil salinisation). Large tropical agricultural deltas (SM4.3.8.3, Panel B in Figure 4.3) – River deltas considered in this analysis are the Mekong Delta and the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta. Both deltas are large, low-lying and dominated by agricultural production. The risk assessment to SLR considered the entire delta area (not only the coastal fringe; see SM4.3.6 for explanation). High population densities (1280 people per km2 and 433 people per km2 in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Mekong deltas, respectively) (Ericson et al., 20061433; Government of the Maldives, 20141434) and the removal of natural vegetation buffers contribute to high exposure rates to coastal flooding, erosion, and salinisation. Agricultural production contributes to GDP strongly (Smajgl et al., 20151435; Hossain et al., 20181436), making agricultural fields important assets. In both deltas, mangroves are partially degraded (Ghosh et al., 20181437; Veettil et al., 20181438) as well as other wetlands at the coast and further inland (Quan et al., 2018a1439; Rahman et al., 20181440). Currently, riverine flooding dominates in both deltas (Auerbach et al., 20151411; Rahman and Rahman, 20151442; Ngan et al., 20181443). However, high tides and cyclones can generate large coastal flooding events, especially in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta (Auerbach et al., 20151444; Rahman and Rahman, 20151445). Human-induced subsidence increases the likelihood of flooding in both deltas (Brown et al., 2018b1446). Coastal and river bank erosion is already a problem in both delta (Anthony et al., 20151447; Brown and Nicholls, 20151448; Li et al., 20171449) as well as salinity intrusion, which is impacting coastal aquifers, soils and surface waters (Anthony et al., 20151450; Brown and Nicholls, 20151451; Li et al., 20171452). Salinisation of water and soil resources remains a coastal phenomenon (Smajgl et al., 20151453), but salinity intrusion can reach far inland in some extreme years and significantly contribute to risk at the delta scale (Section 4.3.3.4.2). Both deltas are partly protected with hard engineered defences such as dikes and sluice gates to prevent riverine flooding, and polders and dikes in some coastal stretches to prevent salinity intrusion and storm surges (Smajgl et al., 20151454; Rogers and Overeem, 20171455; Warner et al., 2018a1456). Today, in both deltas, the measures implemented to restore natural buffers are still limited to mangroves ecosystems (Quan et al., 2018a1457; Rahman et al., 20181458), and the measures aiming at reducing subsidence are underdeveloped (Schmidt, 20151459; Schmitt et al., 20171460). Assuming stable population densities in the future, coastal flooding will contribute increasingly to risk at the delta level (Brown and Nicholls, 20151461; Brown et al., 2018a1462; Dang et al., 20181463). Coastal erosion will increase (Anthony et al., 20151464; Liu et al., 2017a1465; Uddin et al., 20191466) and salinisation of coastal waters and soils will be more significant (Tran Anh et al., 20181467; Vu et al., 20181468; Rakib et al., 20191469) and will strongly impact agriculture and water supply for the entire delta (Jiang et al., 20181470; Timsina et al., 20181471; Nhung et al., 20191472). Without increased adaptation, coastal ecosystems will be largely destroyed at 110 cm of SLR (Schmitt et al., 20171473; Mehvar et al., 20191474; Mukul et al., 20191475).Given the size of these deltas, it is only under high emission scenarios, that flooding, erosion and salinisation lead to high risk at the entire delta scale. Arctic communities (SM4.3.8.4, Panel B in Figure 4.3) – Five small indigenous settlements located on the Arctic Coastal Plain are considered in this analysis: Bykovsky (Lena Delta, Russian Federation), Shishmaref and Kivalina (Alaska, USA), and Shingle Point and Tuktoyaktuk (Mackenzie Delta, Canada). They lie on exposed coasts composed of unlithified ice-rich sediments in permafrost, in areas with seasonal sea ice and slow to moderate SLR. These communities have populations ranging from 380 to 900 (fewer and seasonal at Shingle Point) that are heavily dependent on marine subsistence resources (Forbes, 20111476; Ford et al., 2016a1477). Shishmaref and Kivalina are located on low-lying barrier islands highly susceptible to rising sea level (Marino, 20121478; Bronen and Chapin, 20131479; Fang et al., 20181480; Rolph et al., 20181481). Shingle Point is situated on an active gravel spit; Tuktoyaktuk is built on low ground with high concentrations of massive ice; and Bykovsky is mostly situated on an ice-rich eroding terrace about 20 m above sea level. All the selected communities are remote from regions of rapid positive GIA; many other areas in the Arctic experience rapid GIA uplift (James et al., 20151482; Forbes et al., 20181483) and have very low sensitivity to SLR, which may in fact help to reduce shoaling. Especially in the Arctic, anthropogenic drivers in recent decades resulted in the induced settlement of indigenous peoples in marginalised climate-sensitive communities (Ford et al., 2016b) and the construction of infrastructure in nearshore areas, with the assumption of stable coastlines. This resulted in increased exposure to coastal hazards. Coastal erosion is already a major problem in all of the case studies, where space for building is usually limited. Accelerating permafrost thaw is promoting rapid erosion of ice-rich sediments, e.g., at Bykovsky (Myers, 20051485; Lantuit et al., 20111486; Vanderlinden et al., 20181487) and Tuktoyaktuk (Lamoureux et al., 20151488; Ford et al., 2016a1489). Related to this, Kivalina, Shishmaref, Shingle Point, Tuktoyaktuk, and parts of the Lena delta (less so for Bykovsky) are already facing high risk of flooding. Shishmaref, for example, experienced 10 flooding events between 1973 and 2015 that resulted in emergency declarations (Bronen and Chapin, 20131490; Lamoureux et al., 20151491; Irrgang et al., 20191492). There is however no evidence of salinisation in the selected communities, but brackish water flooding of the outer Mackenzie Delta caused by a 1999 storm surge (a rare event due to upwelling ahead of the storm) led to widespread die-off of vegetation with negative ecosystem impacts (Pisaric et al., 20111493; Kokelj et al., 20121494). Permafrost thaw is already accelerating due to increasing ground temperatures that weaken the mechanical stability of frozen ground (Section 3.4.2.2). Arctic SLR and sea surface warming have the potential to substantially contribute to this thawing (Forbes, 20111495; Barnhart et al., 2014b1496; Lamoureux et al., 20151497; Fritz et al., 20171498). An additional factor unique to the polar regions is the decrease in seasonal sea ice extent in the Arctic (Sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2), which together with a lengthening open water season, provides less protection from storm impacts, particularly later in the year when storms are prevalent (Forbes, 20111499; Lantuit et al., 20111500; Barnhart et al., 2014a1501; Melvin et al., 20171502; Fang et al., 20181503; Forbes, 20191504) and therefore reduces the physical protection of the land (Section 6.3.1.3).
The assessment also shows that benefits in terms of risk reduction over this century are to be expected from ambitious adaptation efforts (bars (B), Sections 4.4.2, 4.4.3 and 4.4.3). In the case of resource-rich coastal cities especially, adequately engineered coastal defences can play a decisive role in reducing risk (Section 4.4.2.2, Box 4.1), for example from high to moderate at the SROCC RCP8.5 upper likely range. In other contexts, such as atoll islands for example, while engineered protection structures will reduce risk of flooding, they will not necessarily prevent seawater infiltration due to the permeable nature of the island substratum. So even adequate coastal protection would not eliminate risk (SM4.3.8.3). In urban atoll islands, large tropical agricultural deltas and the selected Arctic communities, ambitious adaptation efforts mixing adequate coastal defences, the restoration and creation of buffering ecosystems (e.g., coral reefs), and a moderate amount of relocation are expected to reduce risk. For resource-rich coastal cities, adequately engineered hard protection can virtually eliminate risk of flooding up to 84 cm except for residual risk of structural failure (Sections 4.4.2 to 4.4.5). Benefits are relatively important in a 84 cm SLR scenario, as they reduce risk from high-to-very-high to moderate-to-high (atolls, Arctic) and from moderate-to-high to moderate (deltas). These benefits become more modest when approaching the upper likely range of SROCC RCP8.5, and risk tends to return to high-to-very-high (atolls, Arctic) levels once the 110 cm rise in sea level is reached. Noteworthy in urban atoll islands, intensified proactive coastal relocation (e.g., relocation of buildings and infrastructures that are very close to the shoreline) is expected to play a substantial role in risk reduction under all SLR scenarios. Proactive relocation can indeed compensate for the increasing extent of coastal flooding and associated damages (SM4.3.8.3). When taken to the extreme, relocation could lead to the elimination of risk in situ, for example in the case of the relocation of the full population of urban atoll islands either elsewhere in the country (e.g., on another island) or abroad (i.e., international migration). This is an extreme situation where it is hard to distinguish whether the measure is an impact of SLR (and ocean change more broadly), for example, displacement, or an adaptation solution. In addition, relocation of people displaces pressure to destination areas, with a potential increase of risk for the latter. In other words, the broader ‘coastal retreat’ category (Section 4.4.2.6) raises the issue of the ‘limits to adaptation’, which is not represented in Figure 4.3. These conclusions must be nuanced, first, by the fact that our assessment does not consider either financial or social aspects that can act as limiting factors to the development of adaptation options (Sections 4.4.3 and 4.4.5), for instance, hard engineering coastal defences (Hurlimann et al., 20141505; Jones et al., 20141506; Elrick-Barr et al., 20171507; Hinkel et al., 20181508). However, from a general perspective, these findings suggest that although ambitious adaptation will not necessarily eradicate end-century risk from SLR across all low-lying coastal areas around the world, it will help to buy time in many locations and therefore contribute to developing a robust foundation for adaptation beyond 2100. Second, the future of other climate-related drivers of risk (such as ESL, waves and cyclones; Sections 4.2.3.4.1 to 4.2.3.4.3, 6.3.1.1 to 6.3.1.3) is not fully and systematically included in each risk assessment above, so that much larger risks than assessed here are to be expected.
SLR responses refer to legislation, plans and actions undertaken to reduce risk and build resilience in the face of SLR (see Cross-Chapter Box 3 in Chapter 1). These responses range from protecting the coast, accommodating SLR impacts, retreating from the coast, advancing into the ocean by building seawards and EbA (Box 4.3). Identifying the most appropriate way to respond to SLR is not straightforward and is politically and socially contested with a range of governance challenges (also called barriers) arising. This section first assesses the post-AR5 literature on the different types of SLR responses (i.e., protection, accommodation, advance, retreat and EbA) in terms of their effectiveness, technical limits, costs, benefits, co-benefits, drawbacks, economic efficiency and barriers, and the specific governance challenges associated with each type of response (Section 4.4.2). It then identifies a set of overarching governance challenges that arise from the nature of SLR, such as its long-term commitment and uncertainty, and the associated politically and socially contested choices that need to be made (Section 4.4.3). Next, planning, public participation, conflict resolution and decision analysis approaches and tools are assessed that, when applied in combination, can help to address the governance challenges identified, facilitating social choices about SLR responses (Section 4.4.4). Finally, enablers and lessons learned from practical efforts to implement SLR responses are assessed (Section 4.4.5), concluding with a synthesis emphasising the utility of climate resilient development pathways (Section 4.4.6).
Protection reduces coastal risk and impacts by blocking the inland propagation and other effects of mean or extreme sea levels (ESL). This includes: i) hard protection such as dikes, seawalls, breakwaters, barriers and barrages to protect against flooding, erosion and salt water intrusion (Nicholls, 2018), ii) sediment-based protection such as beach and shore nourishment, dunes (also referred to as soft structures), and iii) ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) (see below). The three subcategories are often applied in combination as so-called hybrid measures. Examples are a marsh green-belt in front of a sea wall, or a sea wall especially designed to include niches for habitat formation (Coombes et al., 2015). Accommodation includes diverse biophysical and institutional responses that mitigate coastal risk and impacts by reducing the vulnerability of coastal residents, human activities, ecosystems and the built environment, thus enabling the habitability of coastal zones despite increasing levels of hazard occurrence. Accommodation measures for erosion and flooding include building codes, raising house elevation (e.g., on stilts), lifting valuables to higher floors and floating houses and gardens (Trang, 2016). Accommodation measures for salinity intrusion include changes in land use (e.g., rice to brackish/salt shrimp aquaculture) or changes to salt tolerant crop varieties. Institutional accommodation responses include EWS, emergency planning, insurance schemes and setback zones (Nurse et al., 2014; Wong et al., 2014). Advance creates new land by building seaward, reducing coastal risks for the hinterland and the newly elevated land. This includes land reclamation above sea levels by land filling with pumped sand or other fill material, planting vegetation with the specific intention to support natural accretion of land and surrounding low areas with dikes, termed polderisation, which also requires drainage and often pumping systems (Wang et al., 2014; Donchyts et al., 2016). Retreat reduces coastal risk by moving exposed people, assets and human activities out of the coastal hazard zone. This includes the following three forms: i) Migration, which is the voluntary permanent or semi-permanent movement by a person at least for one year (Adger et al., 2014). ii) Displacement, which refers to the involuntary and unforeseen movement of people due to environment-related impacts or political or military unrest (Black et al., 2013; Islam and Khan, 2018; McLeman, 2018; Mortreux et al., 2018). iii) Relocation, also termed resettlement, managed retreat or managed realignment, which is typically initiated, supervised and implemented by governments from national to local levels and usually involves small sites and/or communities (Wong et al., 2014; Hino et al., 2017; Mortreux et al., 2018). Managed realignment may also be conducted for the purpose of creating new habitat. These three sub-categories are not neatly separable– any household’s decision to retreat may be ‘voluntary’ in theory, but in practice, may result from very limited choices. Displacement certainly occurs in response to extreme events but some of those retreating may have other options. Relocation programs may rely on incentives such as land buyouts that households adopt voluntarily. The need for retreat and other response measures can be reduced by avoiding new development commitments in areas prone to severe SLR hazards (Section 4.4.4.2) Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) responses provide a combination of protect and advance benefits based on the sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems (Van Wesenbeeck et al., 2017). Examples include the conservation or restoration of coastal ecosystems such as wetlands and reefs. EbA measures protect the coastline by (i) attenuating waves, and, in the case of wetlands storm surge flows, by acting as obstacles and providing retention space (Krauss et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2012; Vuik et al., 2015; Rupprecht et al., 2017); and (ii) by raising elevation and reducing rates of erosion through trapping and stabilising coastal sediments (Shepard et al., 2011), as well as building-up of organic matter and detritus (Shepard et al., 2011; McIvor et al., 2012a; McIvor et al., 2012b; Cheong et al., 2013; McIvor et al., 2013; Spalding et al., 2014). EbA is also referred to by various other names, including Natural and Nature-based Features, Nature-based Solutions, Ecological Engineering, Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction or Green Infrastructure (Bridges, 2015; Pontee et al., 2016).
Following earlier IPCC Reports Protection, Retreat and Accommodation responses to SLR and its impacts are distinguished between (Nicholls et al., 2007; Wong et al., 2014), and Advance is added as a fourth type of response that consists in building seaward and upward (Box 4.3). Advance had not received much attention in the climate change literature but plays an important role in coastal development across the world (e.g., Institution of Civil Engineers, 2010; Lee, 2014; Donchyts et al., 2016). The broader term response is used here instead of adaptation, because some responses such as retreat may or may not be meaningfully considered to be adaptation (Hinkel et al., 2018). Responses that address the causes of climate change, such as mitigating GHGs or geoengineering temperature and sea level responses to emissions fall beyond the scope of this chapter, and are addressed in SR1.5 (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018). In coastal areas where anthropogenic subsidence contributes to relative SLR, another important type of response is the management of subsidence by, for instance, restricting ground fluid abstraction. Although this type of measure is considered in the risk assessment developed in Section 4.3.4, it is not assessed here due to a lack of space. Observed coastal responses are rarely responses to climate-change induced SLR only, but also to relative SLR caused by land subsidence as well as current coastal risks and many socioeconomic factors and related hazards. As a consequence, coastal responses have been practised for centuries, and there are many experiences specifically in places that have subsided up to several metres due to earthquakes or anthropogenic ground fluid abstraction in the last century that responding to climate-change induced SLR can draw upon (Esteban et al., 2019). Finally, in practise, many responses are hybrid, applying combinations of protection, accommodation, retreat, advance and EbA. Since AR5, the literature on SLR responses has grown significantly. It is assessed in this section for the five above-described broad types of responses in terms of the following six criteria:
Sediment-based measures are generally costed as the unit cost of sand (or gravel) delivery multiplied by the volumetric demand. Unit costs range from 3–21 USD m–³ sand , with some high outlier costs in, for example, the UK, South Africa and New Zealand (Linham et al., 20101596; Aerts, 20181597). Costs are small where sources of sand are plentiful and close to the sites of demand. Costs are further reduced by shoreface nourishment approaches. The Netherlands maintains its entire open coast with large-scale shore nourishment (Mulder et al., 20111598) and the innovative sand engine has been implemented as a full-scale decadal experiment (Stive et al., 20131599). The capital costs for dunes are similar to beach nourishment, although placement and planting vegetation may raise costs. Maintenance costs vary from almost nothing to several million USD km–1, although costs are usually at the lower end of this range (Environment Agency, 20151600).
Advance has a long history in most areas where there are dense coastal populations and a shortage of land (very high confidence). This includes land reclamation through polders around the southern North Sea (Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and England) and China (Wang et al., 2014), which coincides with regions where there is extensive hard protection in place (Section 4.4.2.4). Land reclamation has also taken place in all major coastal cities to some degree, even if only for the creation of port and harbour areas by raising coastal flats above normal tidal levels through sediment infill. On some steep coasts, where there is little flat land, such as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, material from elevated areas has been excavated to create fill material to build land out into the sea. Globally, it is estimated that about 33,700 km2 of land has been gained from the sea during the last 30 years (about 50% more than has been lost), with the biggest gains being due to land reclamation in places like Dubai, Singapore and China (Wang et al., 2014; Donchyts et al., 2016). In Shanghai alone, 590 km2 land has been reclaimed during the same period (Sengupta et al., 2018). In Lagos, 25 km² of new land is currently being reclaimed (www.ekoatlantic.com). Land reclamation is also popular in some small island settings. The Maldives has recently increased the land area of their capital region by constructing a new island called Hulhumalé, which has been built 60 cm higher than the normal island elevation of 1.5 m, in order to take into account future SLR (Hinkel et al., 2018).
Advance was not primarily a response to SLR in the past, but due to a range of drivers, including land scarcity, population pressure and extreme events, future advance measures are expected to become more integrated with coastal adaptation and might even be seen as an opportunity to support and fund adaptation in some cases (Linham and Nicholls, 2010; RIBA and ICE, 2010; Nicholls, 2018). While there is no literature on this topic, significant further advance measures can be expected in land scarce situations, such as found in China, Japan and Singapore, in coming decades.
Contrary to protection measures, little systematic monetary information is available about costs of advance measures, specifically not in the peer reviewed literature. The costs of land reclamation are extremely variable and depend on the unit cost of fill versus the volumetric requirement to raise the land. Hence, filling shallow areas is preferred on a cost basis.
Similar to hard protection, land reclamation is mature and effective technology and can provide predictable levels of safety. If the entire land area is raised above the height of ESLs, residual risks are lower as compared to hard protection as there is no risk of catastrophic defence failure.
The major co-benefit of advance is the creation of new land. The major drawbacks include groundwater salinisation, enhanced erosion and loss of coastal ecosystems and habitat, and the growth of the coastal floodplain (Li et al., 2014; Nadzir et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2014; Chee et al., 2017). In China, for example, about 50% of coastal ecosystems have been lost due to land reclamation, leading to a range of impacts such as loss of biodiversity, decline of bird species and fisheries resources, reduced water purification, and more frequent harmful algal blooms (Wang et al., 2014). For example, the reclamation of about 29,000 ha of land in Saemangeum, Republic of Korea, in 2006, has led to a decrease in shorebird numbers by over 30% in two years, probably caused by mortality (Moores et al., 2016). Inadvertently, historic land reclamation through polderisation may have enhanced exposure and risk to coastal flooding by creating new populated floodplains, but this has not been evaluated.
Land reclamation raises equity issues with regards to access and distribution of the new land created, specifically due to the political economy associated with high coastal land values, and the involvement of private capital and interests (Bisaro and Hinkel, 2018), but this has hardly been explored in the literature.
There is limited evidence on the efficiency of advance responses in the scientific literature. Benefit-cost ratios of land reclamation can be very high in urban areas due to high land and real estate prices (Bisaro and Hinkel, 2018).
There is a high agreement that accommodation is a core element of adaptation, and it is taking place on various scales based on measures such as flood proofing and raising buildings, implementing drainage systems, land use changes as well as EWS, emergency planning, setback zones and insurance schemes. However, no literature is available that summarises observed accommodation worldwide. There is low evidence of accommodation occurring directly as a consequence of SLR but high evidence of accommodation measures being implemented in response to coastal hazards such as coastal flooding, salinisation and other sea-borne hazards such as cyclones. Flood proofing may include the use of building designs and materials which make structures less vulnerable to flood damages and/or prevent floodwaters from entering structures. Examples include floating houses in Asia, such as in Vietnam (Trang, 2016), raising the floor of houses in the lower Niger delta (Musa et al., 2016), construction of verandas with sandbags and shelves in houses to elevate goods during floods in coastal communities in Cameroon (Munji et al., 2013). In Semarang City, Indonesia, residents adapted to coastal flooding by elevation of their houses by 50–400 cm or by moving their goods to safer places, without making structural changes (Buchori et al., 2018). Residents of Can Tho City of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam elevated houses in response to tidal flooding (Garschagen, 2015). In urban areas extensive drainage systems contribute to accommodation such as in Hong Kong and Singapore, which rely on urban drainage systems to handle large volumes of surface runoff generated during storm events (Chan et al., 2018). Farming practices have been adapted to frequent flooding in the lower Niger delta: farmers raise crops above floodwaters by planting on mounds of soil and apply ridging and terracing on farmlands to form barriers (Musa et al., 2016). In the floodplains of Bangladesh, floating gardens help to maintain food production even if the area is submerged (Irfanullah et al., 2011). Here, the traditional way to build homesteads is on a raised mound, built with earth from the excavation of canals and ponds (ADPC, 2005). Coastal infrastructure, such as ports, having a functional need to be at the coast, accommodate SLR with elevated piers and critical infrastructure. One example is Los Angeles, where PierS was raised to an elevation of 6 m (Aerts, 2018). Communities in the Netherlands are experimenting with floating/amphibious houses capable of adapting to different water levels, and similar considerations are also discussed in other geographies, such as in Bangkok (Nilubon et al., 2016). Flood proofing is widely applied in the USA, where wet and dry flood proofing measures are recognised: wet flood proofing reduces damage from flooding while dry flood proofing makes a building watertight or substantially impermeable to floodwaters up to the expected flood height (FEMA, 2014). In that sense, dry flood proofing could also be interpreted as a protection measure on the level of individual structures. Physical accommodation to salinisation and saline water intrusion is more poorly documented. It mainly entails agricultural adaptation to soil salinity, and saline surface and ground water, as described for the land use changes aimed at alternating rice-shrimp systems and shrimp aquaculture in the Mekong Delta (Renaud et al., 2015) or using methods which decrease soil salinity, such as flushing rice fields with fresh water to wash out salinity (Renaud et al., 2015), or applying maize straw in wheat fields (Xie et al., 2017). Coastal communities are also experimenting with the use of salt tolerant varieties as a result of breeding programmes, for example, in Indonesia (Rumanti et al., 2018), or saline irrigation water in conjunction with fresh water, such as for maize in coastal Bangladesh (Murad et al., 2018). Adaptation planning for SLR has been incorporated into land use planning in several states in the USA (Butler et al., 2016b). In the Yangtze River Delta, landscape planning designs floodplain zones to accept floodwaters (Seavitt, 2013). In the Mekong Delta, different land use options, including shifting from freshwater agriculture to brackish and saline agriculture, were proposed as seawater intrudes farther inland (Smajgl et al., 2015). EWS are frequently incorporated into overall risk reduction strategies and are applied for various coastal hazards such as tsunamis in coastal areas of Indonesia (Lauterjung et al., 2017) and hydro-meteorological coastal hazards in Bangladesh and Uruguay (Leal Filho et al., 2018). They fall under ‘accommodation’ as they allow people to remain in the hazard-prone area but provide advance warning or evacuation in the face of imminent danger. In contrast to hard protection measures, EWS have shorter installation time and lower impact on the environment (Sättele et al., 2015). They can work effectively to reduce risk arising from predictable hazardous events but are less well-suited to accommodate slow onset change (i.e., events or processes that happen with high certainty under different climate change scenarios) Climate risk insurance schemes have been recently developed to address sudden, and in rare cases, slow onset hazards at the coast, and to increase overall resilience. For coastal risks, insurance is mainly applicable for sudden onset hazards, including storm surges and coastal flooding, to buffer against the financial impacts of loss events. For slow onset hazards, insurance schemes are not the first-best tool, whereas resilience building and prevention of loss and damage in such instances may be more cost-effective ways to address these risks (Warner et al., 2013). In this context, index based insurance products are increasingly offered, particularly in low-income countries and have also been included in a number of countries in their NDCs and in some cases in their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs; Kreft et al., 2017). Countries with existing climate risk insurance schemes include, for example, Haiti, Maldives, Seychelles and Vietnam. The InsuResilience Global Partnership for Climate and Disaster Risk Finance and Insurance Solutions was launched at the 2017 UN Climate Conference (COP 23) in Bonn. InsuResilience aims to enable more timely response after a disaster and helps to better prepare for climate and disaster risk through the use of climate and disaster risk finance and insurance solutions. So far, climate risk insurance was used mainly in the context of agriculture, where it has showed great efficacy in boosting investments for increasing productivity (Fernandez and Schäfer, 2018). However, on the global scale, the uptake of index insurance is still low (Yuzva et al., 2018).
While there is no literature on projected accommodation, current trends suggest further uptake of accommodation approaches in coming decades, especially where protection approaches are not economically viable. Flood proofing of houses and establishment of new building codes to accommodate coastal hazards is also expected to become more common in coming decades. Similarly, accommodation measures for salinity are under further development, such as rice breeding programs to improve salt tolerance (Linh et al., 2012; Quan et al., 2018b). However, the achievements to improve salinity tolerance in rice are rather modest so far (Hoang et al., 2016) although efforts are expected to continue or even intensify. Given that index based insurance products have been included in NDCs and NAPs in a number of countries (Kreft et al., 2017), uptake is expected to grow. Ports can continue elevating hazard-prone facilities and the critical parts of port infrastructure can be protected by flood walls. Alternatively, ports can use advance measures to develop port facilities seaward (Aerts, 2018). In summary, due to the large variety of different measures implemented in ad hoc ways worldwide, there is low confidence in quantitative projections of accommodation measures in response to SLR. However, there is high confidence that accommodation measures will continue to be a widespread adaptation option especially in combination with protection and retreat measures.
The cost of accommodation varies widely with the measures taken as well as the expected flood height. For flood proofing of buildings in New York City for instance, Aerts et al. (2014) provided an economic rationale for the implementation of improved building codes, such as elevating new buildings and protecting critical infrastructure (see also Box 4.1). Flood proofing can also be undertaken by individuals and even small, inexpensive flood proofing efforts can result in reductions in flood damage (Zhu et al., 2010). In general, costs for flood proofing increase as the flood protection elevation increases. Other costs include those for maintenance and, if applicable, insurance premiums. For example, deciding to elevate a building in the USA will increase the project’s cost; however, the additional elevation may lead to significant savings on flood insurance premiums (FEMA, 2014).
Accommodation measures can be very effective for current conditions and small amounts of SLR, also buying time to prepare for future SLR. Success stories include the case of Bangladesh where improved early warnings, the construction of shelters, and development of evacuation plans, helped to reduce fatalities as a result of flooding and cyclones (Haque et al., 2012). Illiteracy, lack of awareness and poor communication are, however, still hampering the effectiveness of early warnings (Haque et al., 2012). If well designed, and if the premiums reflect individual risks, insurance can effectively discourage further investments in risky areas as insurance cost provides information on the nature of locality-specific risks and can incentivise investment in risk reduction by requiring that certain minimum standards are met before granting insurance coverage (Kunreuther, 2015). Limits to such accommodation occur much earlier compared to protect, advance and retreat measures. While dikes can be raised to 10 m, and retreat can be implemented to the 10 m contour or higher, accommodating SLR has practical and economic limits, and ultimately retreat or protection will be required.
The major co-benefit of accommodation is improved resilience of in situ communities without retreat or the use of land and resources for the construction of protection measures. Flood proofing, for example, helps prevent demolition or relocation of structures and it is often an affordable and cost effective approach to reducing flood risk (Zhu et al., 2010). Specific accommodation measures have different co-benefits such as that stilt houses not only protect from flooding but also from wild animals (Biswas et al., 2015). Accommodation—depending on the measure implemented—has the potential to maintain landscape connectivity allowing access to the ocean as well as landward migration of ecosystems, at least to some degree. It also retains flood dynamics and with that the benefits of flooding such as sediment re-distribution. Stilt houses leave space for the floodwater while wet-flood proofing maintains a low hydrostatic pressure on the buildings so that structures are less prone to failure during flooding (FEMA, 2014) The major drawback of accommodation is that it actually does not prevent flooding or salinisation, which might have consequences not addressed by the accommodation measure itself. Examples include inundation of an area where houses are flood proofed but schooling of children and business operations are nevertheless disrupted. Significant clean up may also be needed after flood water enters buildings, including the removal of sediment, debris or chemical residues (FEMA, 2014). Also, flood proofing measures require the current risk of flooding to be known and communicated to and understood by the public through flood hazard mapping studies and flood warning information (Zhu et al., 2010). Small businesses in particular may face difficulties to recover from flooding due to lack of forward planning (Hoggart et al., 2014). Co-benefits of insurance include the possibility that sovereign level insurance may improve the credit ratings of vulnerable countries, reducing the cost of capital and allowing them to borrow to invest in resilient infrastructure (Buhr et al., 2018). Major natural disasters can weaken sovereign ratings, especially if there is no insurance in place (Moritz Kramer, 2015). One much discussed drawback of insurance is the moral hazard that may result: since someone else bears the costs of a loss, those insured may be less inclined to take precautionary measures or may act recklessly (Duus-Otterström and Jagers, 2011).
While accommodation measures to coastal hazards are often taking place at the local level, and are decided by individual homeowners, farmers or communities, from a governance perspective it is important to provide guidance on how and to what extent owners can retrofit their homes to reduce the risk to coastal flooding. In New York City, for instance, changes to building codes, require elevating, or flood proofing of existing and new buildings in the 100-year floodplain, and prevent construction of critical infrastructure like hospitals in the flood zone (NYC, 2014; see also Box 4.1).
Effective coastal risk management efforts rely on good governance that includes understanding the probability and consequences of hazard impacts like flooding and salinisation, and implementing mechanisms to prevent or manage all possible events (EEA, 2013). The effectiveness of accommodation measures based on institutional measures, such as EWS and evacuation plans, largely depends on the governance capabilities they are embedded in.
There is high confidence that many accommodation measures are very cost-efficient. Flood EWS coupled with precautionary measures have been shown to produce significant economic benefits (Parker, 2017). Elevating areas at high risk and retrofitting buildings in Ho Chi Minh City, for example, have benefit-cost ratios of 15 under SLR of 180 cm and a discount rate of 5% during the 21st century (Scussolini et al., 2017). In the context of the National Flood Insurance Program in the USA, it has been estimated that elevating new houses by 60 cm might raise mortgage payments by 240 USD yr-1, but reduce flood insurance by 1000–2000 USD yr-1 depending on the flood zone (FEMA, 2018), although this only addresses present extremes and ignores future SLR (Zhu et al., 2010). In Europe, the benefits of installing a cross-border continental-scale flood EWS are estimated at 400 EUR per EUR invested (Pappenberger et al., 2015).
Governance is pivotal to shaping SLR responses. The assessment of SLR responses above has shown that each type of response raises specific governance challenges associated with the distribution of costs, benefits and negative consequences of responses across societal actors. Hence, SLR responses require governance efforts if social conflicts are to be resolved and mutual opportunities amongst all actors realised. Generally, responses involve the interaction of diverse public and private actors at different levels of decision making with divergent values, interests and goals on coastal activities, lifestyles, livelihoods, risks, resilience and sustainability (high confidence; Dovers and Hezri, 2010; Foerster et al., 2015; Giddens, 2015; Mills et al., 2016; Dolšak and Prakash, 2018; Hinkel et al., 2018; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018; AR5). This leads to a number of overarching governance challenges that arise from the nature of SLR, which will be assessed in this section. While there is a substantial literature on coastal governance, little attention has been focused explicitly on SLR governance, as was also the case in AR5 (Wong et al., 2014). Furthermore, much of the adaptation governance literature has focused on putting forward normative prescriptions on how governance arrangements ought to be (e.g., transformative governance; Chaffin et al., 2016), but with limited empirical evidence on the actual effectiveness of these prescriptions (Klostermann et al., 2018; Runhaar et al., 2018). Hence, understanding the social mechanisms leading to the emergence of particular governance arrangements, and how effective they are in addressing climate change and SLR, is limited (Wong et al., 2014; Bisaro and Hinkel, 2016; Oberlack, 2017; Bisaro et al., 2018; Roggero et al., 2018a; Roggero et al., 2018b). An important post-AR5 development has thus been to move beyond descriptions and normative prescriptions about ‘good governance’ to explore which factors help (called enablers) or hinder (called barriers) how social choices are made and implemented on complex issues like climate change and SLR, as elaborated in the next subsection.
AR5 stated that there are many reasons why adaptation governance is complex (Klein et al., 2014). The first generation of studies that investigated this question empirically identified many (lists of) barriers that people have experienced in adaptation governance in specific case contexts, including political, institutional, social-cognitive, economic, financial, biophysical and technical barriers (Klein et al., 2014). Although insightful for these specific cases, including SLR (Hinkel et al., 2018), accumulation of empirical findings in building theory proved to be limited, and it did not result in more evidence-informed advice to policy makers on how to deal with barriers (Biesbroek et al., 2013; Eisenack et al., 2014). In response, in a second generation of studies, several frameworks have been proposed and tested to advance scholarship on barriers to adaptation (Eisenack and Stecker, 2012; Barnett et al., 2015; Lehmann et al., 2015; Bisaro and Hinkel, 2016). A frequently used framework was developed by Moser and Ekstrom (2010) who identified and linked key barriers to certain stages of the policy process: understanding, planning and management stages. Moser and Ekstrom (2010) argue that conditions, such as the scope and scale of adaptation, have significant implications for which barriers are activated in the policy process, and how persistent and difficult they are to overcome. This and other frameworks have been applied in a diversity of contexts, providing valuable insights about the governance challenges involved in adapting to climate change and suggestions for improvement (Ekstrom and Moser, 2014; Rosendo et al., 2018; Thaler et al., 2019). A recent generation of studies takes more theory based approaches and includes contextual factors to analyse the key social mechanisms that explain why adaptation processes are often complex, result in deadlocks, delays or even failure (Biesbroek et al., 2014; Eisenack et al., 2014; Wellstead et al., 2014; Biesbroek et al., 2015; Bisaro and Hinkel, 2016; Oberlack and Eisenack, 2018; Sieber et al., 2018; Wellstead et al.). Such insights are critical as they can be used by practitioners for policy design (e.g., to prevent certain deadlocks from emerging by (re)designing contextual conditions), or provide insights on strategic interventions in ongoing processes to revitalise deadlocked adaptation governance (Biesbroek et al., 2017).
There is a wide diversity of governance challenges and opportunities for tackling SLR, with marked differences within and between coastal communities in developed and developing counties. Five salient overarching governance challenges that arise due to distinctive features of SLR were highlighted. This typology is then used to assess how planning, participation and conflict resolution (Section 4.4.4.2), decision analysis methods (Section 4.4.4.3), and enabling conditions (Section 4.5) can help to address these five challenges. Time horizon and uncertainty: The long-term commitment to SLR (Section 4.2.3.5) and the large and deep uncertainty about the magnitude and timing of SLR beyond 2050 (Section 4.4.4.3.2), challenge standard planning and decision making practises for several reasons (high confidence; Peters et al., 2017; Pot et al., 2018; Hall et al., 2019; Hinkel et al., 2019). The time horizon of SLR extends beyond usual political, electoral and budget cycles. Furthermore, many planning and decision making practices strive for predictability and certainty, which is at odds with the dynamic risk and deep uncertainty characterising SLR (Hall et al., 2019). Tensions can arise between established risk-based planning that seeks to measure risk, and adaptation responses that embrace uncertainty and complexity (Kuklicke and Demeritt, 2016; Carlsson Kanyama et al., 2019). For example, tensions arise because of the mismatch between the relative inflexibility of existing law and institutions and the evolving nature of SLR risk and impacts (Cosens et al., 2017; Craig et al., 2017; DeCaro et al., 2017). Possible limits of in situ responses to ongoing SLR (e.g., protection and accommodation), bring into question prevailing legal approaches to property rights and land use regulation (Byrne, 2012). In addition, because uncertainty about SLR makes it difficult to decide when to wait and when to act, public actors fear being held accountable for misjudgments (Kuklicke and Demeritt, 2016). The long time horizon and uncertainty of SLR make it difficult to mobilise political will and the leadership required to take visionary action (Cuevas et al., 2016; Gibbs, 2016; Yusuf et al., 2016; Yusuf et al., 2018b). Cross-scale and cross-domain coordination: SLR creates new coordination problems across jurisdictional levels and domains, because impacts cut across scales, sectors and policy domains and responding often exceeds the capacities of local governments and communities (medium confidence; Araos et al., 2017; Termeer et al., 2017; Pinto et al., 2018; Clar, 2019; Clar and Steurer, 2019; Sections 4.3.2 and 4.4.2). Local responses are generally nested within a hierarchy of local, regional, national and international governance arrangements and cut across sectors (Cuevas, 2018; Chhetri et al., 2019; Clar, 2019). Furthermore responding to SLR is only one administrative priority amongst many, and the choice of SLR response is influenced by multiple co-existing functional responsibilities and perspectives (e.g., planning, emergency management, asset management and community development) that compete for legitimacy, further complicating the coordination challenge (Klein et al., 2016; Vij et al., 2017; Jones et al., 2019). Equity and social vulnerability: SLR and responses may affect communities and society in ways that are not evenly distributed, which can compound vulnerability and inequity, and undermine societal aspirations, such as achieving SDGs (high confidence; Section 4.3.3.2; Eriksen et al., 2015; Foerster et al., 2015; Sovacool et al., 2015; Clark et al., 2016; Gorddard et al., 2016; Adger et al., 2017; Holland, 2017; Dolšak and Prakash, 2018; Lidström, 2018; Matin et al., 2018; Paprocki and Huq, 2018; Sovacool, 2018; Warner et al., 2018a). Costs and benefits of action and inaction are distributed unevenly, with some coastal nations, particularly small island states, being confronted with adaptation costs amounting to several percent of GDP in the 21st century (Section 4.3.3.2). Land use planning for climate adaptation can exacerbate sociospatial inequalities at the local level, as illustrated in a study of eight cities, namely Boston (USA), New Orleans (USA), Medellin (Colombia), Santiago (Chile), Metro Manila (Philippines), Jakarta (Indonesia), Surat (India), and Dhaka (Bangladesh; Anguelovski et al., 2016). Private responses may also exacerbate inequalities as, for example, in Miami, USA, where purchase of homes in areas at higher elevation has increased property prices displacing poorer communities from these areas (Keenan et al., 2018). In Bangladesh, some adaptation practices have enabled land capture by elites, public servants, the military and roving gangs, and resulted in various forms of marginalisation that compound vulnerability and risk (Sovacool, 2018); a reality also faced by many other coastal communities around the world (Sovacool et al., 2015). Social conflict: Ongoing SLR could become a catalyst for possibly intractable social conflict by impacting human activities, infrastructure and development along low-lying shorelines (high confidence). Social conflict refers here to the non-violent struggle between groups, organisations and communities over values, interests, resources, and influence or power, whereby parties seek to achieve their own goals, and may seek to prevent others from realising their goals and possibly harm rivals (Coser, 1967; Oberschall, 1978; Pruitt et al., 2003). SLR impacts that could contribute to conflict include: disruptions to critical infrastructure, cultural ties to the coast, livelihoods, coastal economies, public health, well-being, security, identity and the sovereignty of some low-lying island nations (Sections 4.3.2.4, 4.3.3.2, 4.3.3.6; Mills et al., 2016; Yusuf et al., 2016; Nursey-Bray, 2017; Hinkel et al., 2018). SLR responses inevitably raise difficult trade-offs between private and public interests, short- and long-term concerns, and security and conservation goals, which are difficult to reconcile due to divergent problem framing, interests, values and ethical positions (Eriksen et al., 2015; Foerster et al., 2015; Mills et al., 2016; Termeer et al., 2017; Sovacool, 2018). To some countries, SLR presents a security risk due to the scale of potential displacement and migration of people (Section 4.4.2.6). Climate change, and rising seas in particular, could compound sociopolitical stressors (Sovacool et al., 2015), challenge the efficacy of prevailing legal processes (Byrne, 2012; Busch, 2018; Setzer and Vanhala, 2019), and spark or escalate conflict (Lusthaus, 2010; Nursey-Bray, 2017). Complexity: SLR introduces novel and complex problems that are difficult to understand and address (high confidence; Moser et al., 2012; Alford and Head, 2017; Wright and Nichols, 2018; Hall et al., 2019). As a result of the preceding features of the SLR problem, and the complexity of the nonlinear interactions between biogeophysical and human systems, SLR challenges may be difficult to frame, understand and respond to. Often, disciplinary science is not sufficient for understanding complex problems like SLR and traditional technical problem solving may not be well suited for crafting enduring SLR responses (Lawrence et al., 2015; Termeer et al., 2015). SLR poses a challenge for bridging gaps between science, policy and practice (Hall et al., 2019). The complexity and rapid pace of SLR in some localities is also challenging traditional community decision making practices, for example, in some Pacific Island communities (Nunn et al., 2014).
Land use or spatial planning has the potential to help communities prepare for the future and decide how to manage coastal activities and land use taking into account the uncertainty, complexity and contestation that characterise SLR (high confidence; Hurlimann and March, 2012; Hurlimann et al., 2014; Berke and Stevens, 2016; King et al., 2016; Reiblich et al., 2017) Planners work with governing authorities, the private sector, and local communities to integrate and apply tailor-made decision analysis, public participation and conflict resolution approaches that can be institutionalised in statutory provisions, and aligned with informal institutional structures and processes carried out at various scales (Hurlimann and March, 2012; Smith and Glavovic, 2014; Berke and Stevens, 2016). Planning can play an important role in crafting SLR responses, addressing several of the governance challenges identified above (Section 4.4.3). Planning is future focused and can assist communities to develop and pursue a shared vision, and understand and address SLR concerns in locality-specific ways (Hurlimann and March, 2012; Berke and Stevens, 2016). Planning can help articulate and clarify roles and responsibilities through statutory planning provisions, complemented by non-statutory processes (Vella et al., 2016). It can build social and administrative networks that mobilise cross-scale SLR responses, and facilitate integration of diverse mitigation and adaptation goals alongside other public aspirations and policy imperatives (Hurlimann and March, 2012; Vella et al., 2016). Planning can also facilitate the establishment of collaborative regional forums that cross jurisdictional boundaries and assist local governments and other stakeholders to pool resources and coordinate roles and responsibilities across multiple governance levels, such as the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, USA (Shi et al., 2015; Vella et al., 2016). Regulatory planning can be used by governing authorities to steer future infrastructure, housing, industry and related development away from areas exposed to SLR (Hurlimann and March, 2012; Hurlimann et al., 2014; Smith and Glavovic, 2014; Berke and Stevens, 2016). The extent to which planning is effective in reducing coastal risk, however, varies widely between and within coastal nations (Glavovic and Smith, 2014; Shi et al., 2015; Cuevas et al., 2016; King et al., 2016; Woodruff and Stults, 2016). Planning can fail to prevent development in at-risk locations, and may even accelerate such development, as experienced in settings as diverse as Java, Indonesia (Suroso and Firman, 2018), the Philippines (Cuevas, 2018), Australia (Hurlimann et al., 2014), and the USA (Vella et al., 2016; Woodruff and Stults, 2016). Planning has exacerbated sociospatial inequalities in cities like Boston, USA, Santiago, Chile, and Jakarta, Indonesia (Anguelovski et al., 2016). A study of vulnerability dynamics in Houston, New Orleans and Tampa, USA shows that vulnerability can be reinforced or ameliorated through adaptation planning and decision making processes (Kashem et al., 2016). Regulatory planning may be non-existent in some settings, such as informal settlements, or when used can paradoxically entrench vulnerability and compound risk (Berquist et al., 2015; Amoako, 2016; Ziervogel et al., 2016b). Planning practice is thus both a contributor to and an outcome of local politics and power. Recognising and navigating these challenges is key to realising the promise of planning for reducing SLR risk, and participatory planning processes that reconcile divergent interests are central to this endeavour (Forester, 2006; Smith and Glavovic, 2014; Anguelovski et al., 2016; Cuevas et al., 2016). Public participation refers to directly involving citizens in decision making processes rather than only indirectly via voting. Citizen participation is commonplace in public decision making that addresses important societal concerns like SLR (Sarzynski, 2015; Berke and Stevens, 2016; Gorddard et al., 2016; Baker and Chapin III, 2018; Yusuf et al., 2018b). Practices sit along a continuum from manipulation to minimal involvement and more empowering and self-determining practices (Arnstein, 1969; International Association for Public Participation, 2018). Public participation draws on a wide variety of tailored engagement processes and practices, from ‘serious games’ (Wu and Lee, 2015) to role-play simulations (Rumore et al., 2016), and deliberative-analytical engagement (Webler et al., 2016). There has been a proliferation of public engagement approaches and practices applied to adaptation in recent decades (Webler et al., 2016; Kirshen et al., 2018; Mehring et al., 2018; Nkoana et al., 2018; Yusuf et al., 2018a; Uittenbroek et al., 2019). Increasing citizen participation in adaptation and other public decision making processes shifts the role of government from a chiefly steering and regulating role towards more responsive and enabling roles, sometimes referred to as co-design, co-production, and co-delivery of adaptation responses (Ziervogel et al., 2016a; Mees et al., 2019). Engagement strategies grounded in community deliberation can help to improve understanding about SLR and response options, reducing the polarising effect of alternative political allegiances and worldviews (Akerlof et al., 2016; Uittenbroek et al., 2019). Public participation has also the potential to successfully include vulnerable groups in multi-level adaptation processes (Kirshen et al., 2018), promote justice and enable transformative change (Broto et al., 2015; Schlosberg et al., 2017). It is widely recognised that authentic and meaningful public participation is important and can help in crafting effective and enduring adaptation responses, but is invariably difficult to achieve in practice (Barton et al., 2015; Cloutier et al., 2015; Sarzynski, 2015; Serrao-Neumann et al., 2015; Berke and Stevens, 2016; Chu et al., 2016; Schlosberg et al., 2017; Baker and Chapin III, 2018; Kirshen et al., 2018; Lawrence et al., 2018; Mehring et al., 2018; Lawrence et al., 2019; Uittenbroek et al., 2019). There is limited empirical evidence that public participation per se improves environmental outcomes (Callahan, 2007; Reed, 2008; Newig and Fritsch, 2009). Major factors determining outcomes are tacit, including trust, environmental preferences, power relationships and the true motivations of sponsor and participants (Reed, 2008; Newig and Fritsch, 2009). Difficulties in realising the anticipated benefits of public participation have been shown in coastal settings including Queensland, Australia (Burton and Mustelin, 2013), Germany’s Baltic Sea (Schernewski et al., 2018), England (Mehring et al., 2018), Sweden (Brink and Wamsler, 2019), and South Africa (Ziervogel, 2019). Research by Uittenbroek et al. (2019) in the Netherlands, for example, shows that public participation objectives are more probable if participation objectives and process design principles and practices are co-produced by community and government stakeholders. In some cities in the Global South, experience shows that a focus on building effective multi-sector governance institutions can facilitate ongoing public involvement in adaptation planning and implementation, and enhance long-term adaptation prospects (Chu, 2016b). Conflict resolution refers to formal and informal processes that enable parties to create peaceful solutions for their disputes (Bercovitch et al., 2008). They range from litigation and adjudication to more collaborative processes based on facilitation, mediation and negotiation (Susskind et al., 1999; Bercovitch et al., 2008). Such processes can be used in the public domain to make difficult social choices. Whilst it may be impossible to eliminate controversy and disputes due to SLR, conflict resolution can be foundational for achieving effective, fair and just outcomes for coastal communities (Susskind et al., 2015; Nursey-Bray, 2017). Whereas some responses to social conflict (see definition in Section 4.4.3.3) can be destructive (e.g., resorting to violence), constructive approaches to conflict resolution (e.g., negotiation and mediation) can help disputants satisfy their interests and even have transformational adaptation potential (Laws et al., 2014; Nursey-Bray, 2017). Laws et al. (2014), for example, use the term ‘hot adaptation’ to describe adaptation efforts that harness the energy and engagement that conflict provokes; and create opportunities for public deliberation and social learning about complex problems like SLR. Such an approach has particular relevance in settings most at risk to SLR. Realising this potential is, however, challenging in the face of local politics and the differential power and influence of disputants. These realities have been accounted for in public conflict resolution scholarship and practice for many decades (Forester, 1987; Dukes, 1993; Forester, 2006), and lessons learned are beginning to be applied to adaptation (Laws et al., 2014; Nursey-Bray, 2017; Sultana and Thompson, 2017) and SLR response planning (Susskind et al., 2015). Conflict was turned into cooperation in some villages in floodplains in Bangladesh, for example, by facilitated dialogue and incentivised cooperation between local communities and government, with external facilitator assistance, leading to improved water security in a climate stressed environment (Sultana and Thompson, 2017). At a larger scale, the Mekong River Commission, with its water diplomacy framework, provides an institutional structure and processes, with technical support, and legal and strategic mechanisms, that help to negotiate solutions for complex delta problems and, in so doing, help avert widespread destruction of livelihoods and conflict (Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018). Many of the techniques used in planning, public participation and conflict resolution, at times together with decision analysis and support tools, are being applied in combination. In New Zealand, for example, a participatory approach was used to combine dynamic adaptive pathways planning with multi-criteria and real options analysis (Section 4.4.4.3.4) to develop a 100-year strategy to manage coastal hazard risk (Lawrence et al., 2019; see Box 4.1). Public participation thereby helped to shift communities towards a longer-term view and towards considering a wider range of adaptation options and pathways. Such combined approaches are also sometimes referred to as Community Based Adaptation, which involve local people directly in understanding and addressing the climate change risks they face (Box 4.4). These processes and practices are used in many settings, from small, isolated indigenous communities to large-scale coastal infrastructure projects in both the Global North and South. See Table 4.9 in Section 4.4.5 for illustrative examples.
Climate-Change Adaptation on the Canadian Arctic Coast Communities of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR), established under the Inuvialuit Final Agreement (Government of Canada, 1984), include the delta communities of Aklavik and Inuvik (the regional hub) and the coastal hamlets of Tuktoyaktuk, Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour, and Ulukhaktok. The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) administers Inuvialuit lands, a portfolio of businesses, and social and cultural services, including co-management of food harvest resources. Other social, education, health, and infrastructure services are managed by the Government of the Northwest Territories and municipal Councils. Community Corporations and Hunters and Trappers Committees handle other aspects of governance and socioeconomic development. Very high ground-ice content renders the coast and coastal infrastructure in this region sensitive to rising temperatures and largely precludes conventional hard shore protection. Higher temperatures (>3°C rise since 1948), combined with rising sea level and a lengthening open-water season, contribute to accelerating coastal erosion, threatening infrastructure, cultural resources, and the long-term viability of Tuktoyaktuk Harbour, while impacting winter travel on ice, access to subsistence resources, food security, safety and well-being (Lamoureux et al., 2015). Despite ongoing shore recession, there is strong attachment to the most vulnerable sites and a reluctance to relocate. Adaptation challenges include technical issues (e.g., the ice-rich substrate, sea ice impacts), high transportation costs (until recent completion of an all-weather road to Tuktoyaktuk, heavy or bulky material had to come in by sea or ice road), availability of experienced labour, and, crucially, financial resources. Other inhibitors of adaptation include access to knowledge in suitable forms for uptake, gaps in understanding, research readiness, and institutional barriers related to multiple levels of decision making (Ford et al., 2016a). The IRC, as the indigenous leadership organisation in the ISR, is moving to play a more proactive role in driving adaptation at the regional level (IRC, 2016), as indigenous leaders across the country are demanding more control of the northern research agenda for adaptation action (Bell, 2016; ITK, 2018). For a number of years, IRC has promoted community-based monitoring, incorporating Inuvialuit knowledge in partnership with trusted research collaborators. Recently IRC is exploring partnership with the community-based ice awareness service and social enterprise, SmartICE Inc. Despite the inherent adaptability of Inuit culture, concentration in locality bound communities dependent on physical infrastructure has increased vulnerability, as changing climate has raised exposure. Various government and academic initiatives and tools over many years to promote resilience and adaptation strategies have had limited impact. Current engagement supporting locally driven knowledge acquisition and management capacity, combined with IRC institutional leadership with government support, are expected to enable a more effective co-designed and co-delivered adaptation agenda. Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy 2120 Hawkes Bay, New Zealand: A community-based and science-informed decision making process New Zealand is applying tools for decision making under deep uncertainty (Lawrence and Haasnoot, 2017; Lawrence et al., 2019) to address the changing risk and uncertainties related to SLR impacts on coastal settlements. An opportunity arose in 2017 for the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge, “The Living Edge” research project (https://resiliencechallenge.nz/edge), to co-develop a Coastal Hazards Strategy for the Clifton to Tangoio coast in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. The Strategy, a joint council/ community/ iwi Māori initiative (Kench et al., 2018), planned to use Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) within their decision framework—a static tool in time and space, unsuited for decision making where changing risk and uncertainties exist over long timeframes. The Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (Haasnoot et al., 2013) approach and a modified Real Options Analysis were proposed by the ‘Edge Team’ and integrated with MCDA (Lawrence et al., 2019) in a process comprising a Technical Advisory Group of councils and two community panels of directly affected communities, infrastructure agencies, business, conservation interests, and iwi Māori. Many adaptation options and pathways were assessed for their ability to reduce risk exposure and maintain flexibility for switching pathways over a 100-year timeframe, which is the planning timeframe mandated by the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (Minister of Conservation, 2010) with the force of law under the Resource Management Act, 1991. The recently revised New Zealand national coastal hazards and climate change guidance for local government (Bell et al., 2017a) provided context. This novel assessment, engagement and planning approach to the formulation of a Coastal Hazards Strategy was undertaken through a non-statutory planning process. The agreed options and pathways have yet to be implemented through statutory processes that will test the risk tolerance of the wider community. This example illustrates how tailor-made assessment that addresses SLR uncertainty and change by keeping options open and reducing path-dependency, and engagement and planning processes can be initiated with leadership across councils, sectors and stakeholders, before being implemented, thus reducing contestation. Lessons learned include the central role of: leadership, governance and iwi Māori; Local Authority collaboration; taking time to build trust; independent knowledge brokers for credibility; nuanced project leadership and facilitation, enabling a community-based process. The preferred intervention options and pathways have been agreed for implementation. The remaining challenges are to cost the range of actions, decide funding formulae, develop physical and socioeconomic signals and triggers for monitoring changing risk, embed the strategy in statutory plans and practices, and socialise the strategy with the wider public in the context of competing priorities.
In addition to the literature on planning, public participation, conflict resolution and decision making assessed in the last Section, much is being learned from practical experiences gained in adapting to climate change and SLR at the coast. Some salient enabling conditions and lessons learnt are illustrated in Table 4.9 through case studies or examples of real-world experience in diverse coastal communities around the world, structured according to the five overarching SLR governance challenges identified in Section 4.4.3. In these cases, the following stands out as being foundational for enabling the implementation of SLR responses and addressing the governance challenges that arise. First, effective SLR responses take a long-term perspective (e.g., 100 years and beyond) and explicitly account for the uncertainty of locality-specific risks beyond 2050. Second, given the locality-specific but cross-cutting nature of SLR impacts, improving cross-scale and cross-domain coordination of SLR responses may be beneficial. Third, prioritising social vulnerability and equity in SLR responses may be essential because SLR impacts and risks are spread unevenly across society, and within and between coastal communities. Fourth, safe community arenas for working together constructively can help to resolve social conflict arising from SLR. Fifth, a sharp increase may be needed in governance capabilities to tackle the complex problems caused by SLR. There is, however, no one-size-fits-all solution to SLR, and responses need to be tailored to the environmental, social, economic, political, technological, and cultural context in which they are to be implemented. Enablers that work in one context might not be effective in another case. As sea level rises, more experience in addressing SLR governance challenges will be gained, which can in turn be evaluated in order to obtain a better contextual understanding of enabling conditions and effective SLR governance.
Table 4.9: Enablers and lessons learned to overcome governance challenges arising from sea level rise (SLR).
Our assessment shows that failure to mitigate GHG emissions or to adapt to SLR will cause major disruptions to many low-lying coastal communities and jeopardise achievement of all UN SDGs and other societal aspirations. Immediate and ambitious GHG emissions reduction is necessary (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018) to contain the rate and magnitude of SLR, and consequently adaptation prospects. Under unmitigated emissions (RCP8.5), coastal societies, especially poorer, rural and small islands societies, will struggle to maintain their livelihoods and settlements during the 21st century (Sections 4.3.4; 4.4.2). Without mitigation, sea levels will continue to rise for centuries, reaching 2.3–5.4 m by 2300 (likely range) and much more beyond (Section 4.2.3.5), making adaptation extremely challenging, if not impossible, for all low-lying coasts, including more intensively developed urbanised coasts. But even with ambitious mitigation (RCP2.6), sea levels will continue to rise, reaching 0.6–1.1 m by 2300 (likely range; Figure 4.2 Panel B). Hence, adaptation will continue to be imperative irrespective of the uncertainties about future GHG emissions and key physical processes such as those determining the Antarctic contribution to SLR. Our assessment also shows that all types of responses, from hard protection to EbA, advance and retreat, have important and synergistic roles to play in an integrated and sequenced response to SLR. The merits of a particular type of response, at a particular point in time, critically depends on the biophysical, cultural, economic, technical, institutional and political context. In this context, AR5 put forward the vision of Climate Resilient Development Pathways, which is “a continuing process for managing changes in the climate and other driving forces affecting development, combining flexibility, innovativeness, and participative problem solving with effectiveness in mitigating and adapting to climate change” (Denton et al., 2014: 1106).Charting Climate Resilient Development Pathways in the face of rising sea level depends on how well mitigation, adaption and other sustainable development efforts are combined, and the governance challenges introduced by SLR are resolved. There are no panaceas for solving these complex issues. However, the wise application of the planning, public participation, conflict resolution, and decision analysis methods assessed above can help coastal communities, cities and settlements develop locally relevant, enabling and adaptive SLR responses. Difficult social choices will nonetheless need to be made as sea levels continue to rise. Given the SLR projections outlined here, it is concluded that global resilience and sustainability prospects depend, to a large extent, on how effectively coastal communities develop and implement ambitious, forward-looking adaptation plans in synchrony with drastic mitigation of GHG emissions. |
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