A LINE IN THE SAND: Towards a new framework for sustainable coastal communities

英国气候变化问题官方顾问-气候变化委员会-将英国海岸线面临的环境和社会经济问题描述为“沿海定时炸弹”。这一戏剧性的论断源于三个关键因素：1）全球气候变化将导致海平面上升和风暴模式的改变，这将导致英国沿海洪水增加和海岸侵蚀加速。2）沿海洪水和侵蚀的保护费用昂贵，并干扰重要的自然过程，这意味着只有最发达的沿海定居点才有理由。3）沿海社区的高度贫困意味着人们建立抵御气候变化影响的能力较低。潜在的问题是巨大的：英国的气候变化风险评估估计，到2100年，沿海洪水风险预计造成的损失可能增加5倍，暴露于海岸侵蚀的人数可能增加30倍。目前的政府政策和行动不足以管理这些迅速增加的沿海气候变化风险。事实上，气候变化委员会每两年对这些政策和行动进行一次评估，他们始终认为，风险的增长大于管理这些风险的新政策和现有政策的潜力。存在着显著的“适应差距”，造成这种情况的原因是多方面的，错综复杂。举几个例子：所需的调整费用昂贵，预算有限;关于何时何地将发生最大影响的确切数据不确定;管理问题的责任在许多组织之间分配不当;过去70年来制定的复杂的立法拼凑在一起，使未来的政策制定特别困难;围绕保险、赔偿和城镇规划的具体沿海问题造成了独特的问题;在某些情况下，可能的最差反应在技术上和社会上仍然难以实施，例如海岸线的管理撤退，这些都是难以解决的问题，但它们需要得到承认和解决。扭转潮流与我们的智库合作伙伴-政策连接-这个博士项目旨在开发一个新的，社会科学驱动的方法来可持续地评估和管理沿海风险。我们的目标是：1）审查和综合以前的沿海风险评估，成本效益分析和政策方法。2）根据步骤1开发一系列可行的沿海适应方案。3）与受影响的社区和政策专家一起测试步骤2的选项，以开发可持续的适应方案。4）应用并改进一种创新的方法来可视化沿海适应决策，该方法使用环境，经济和社会因素的措施来确定通往可持续未来的路线。这种方法被称为“动态适应途径”，它根据不断变化的背景条件和先前决定的影响，提出了一系列风险管理或适应备选办法（途径）。将这些途径放在一起，可以让决策者了解他们所选择的选项的长期影响。

The UK's official advisor on climate change - the Committee on Climate Change - has described the environmental and socioeconomic issues facing the UK's shorelines as a "coastal timebomb". This dramatic assertion stems from three key factors:1) Global climate change will lead to rising sea levels and changing storm patterns that will result in increased UK coastal flooding and accelerated coastal erosion.2) Protection from coastal flooding and erosion is expensive and interferes with important natural processes meaning that it can only be justified for the most developed coastal settlements.3) High levels of deprivation in coastal communities means that there is less capacity for people to build resilience to climate change impacts.The potential problem is huge: the UK's Climate Change Risk Assessment estimated that by 2100 the damages expected from coastal flood risk could increase by 5 times and the number of people exposed to coastal erosion could increase by 30 times.HEADS IN THE SANDWhilst these issues are well-known, current government policies and actions are not adequate to manage these rapidly increasing coastal climate change risks. Indeed, the Committee on Climate Change assesses these policies and actions every two years and they consistently find that the growth of the risks is greater than the potential of new and existing policies to manage those risks. There is a significant "adaptation gap".There are many complicated and intertwined reasons why this is the case. To name a few: the required adaptations are expensive and there is a limited budget; the data on exactly when and where the greatest impacts will occur are uncertain; responsibility for managing the problem is split inelegantly between many organisations; there is a complex patchwork of legislation that has developed over the last 70 years that makes future policy making especially difficult; there are specific coastal issues around insurance, compensation and town planning that cause unique problems; and the likely least-worst responses in some cases will still be incredibly hard to implement technically and socially e.g. managed retreat of coastlines, abandonment of settlements.These are difficult problems to solve but they need to be acknowledged and addressed.TURNING THE TIDEIn close collaboration with our think-tank partner - Policy Connect - this PhD project aims to develop a new, social science driven approach to sustainably assessing and managing coastal risks. We aim to:1) Review and synthesise previous coastal risk assessments, cost-benefit analyses and policy approaches.2) Develop a range of viable coastal adaptation options based on Step 1.3) Test the options from Step 2 with impacted communities and policy experts to develop sustainable adaptation options.4) Apply and improve an innovative approach to visualising coastal adaptation decision making that uses measures of environmental, economic and social factors to identify routes to a sustainable future.A COASTAL PATHWAYStep 4 of this project is the key to unlocking new insights for coastal communities and policy makers regarding the range of options open to them. The technique is called "dynamic adaptation pathways" and it sets out series of risk management, or adaptation, options over time (the pathways) depending on the changing background conditions and on the implications of their previous decisions. Seeing these pathways together allows decisionmakers to understand the long-term implications of the options they chose.