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

英国气候变化官方顾问——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变化，这将导致英国沿海洪水增加和海岸侵蚀加速。2)防止沿海洪水和侵蚀是昂贵的，并且会干扰重要的自然过程，这意味着它只能适用于最发达的沿海定居点。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弱。潜在的问题是巨大的：英国气候变化风险评估（Climate Change Risk Assessment）估计，到2100年，沿海洪水风险造成的损失可能增加5倍，受海岸侵蚀影响的人数可能增加30倍。虽然这些问题众所周知，但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，他们一致认为，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。存在显著的“适应差距”。造成这种情况的原因有许多复杂而相互交织的原因。举几个例子：所需的改编费用昂贵，预算有限；关于最大影响将在何时何地发生的确切数据是不确定的；管理这个问题的责任在许多组织之间划分得很不得体；过去70年里形成的错综复杂的立法体系使得未来的政策制定变得尤为困难；沿海地区在保险、补偿和城镇规划方面存在一些具体问题，这些问题会造成独特的问题；在某些情况下，最不坏的反应可能仍然难以在技术和社会上实施，例如管理海岸线的撤退，放弃定居点。这些都是难以解决的问题，但它们需要得到承认和处理。该博士项目与我们的智库合作伙伴Policy Connect密切合作，旨在开发一种新的、社会科学驱动的方法，以可持续地评估和管理沿海风险。我们的目标是：1)回顾和综合以往的沿海风险评估、成本效益分析和政策方法。2)在步骤1.3的基础上制定一系列可行的沿海适应方案)与受影响的社区和政策专家一起测试步骤2中的方案，以制定可持续的适应方案。4)应用和改进一种创新方法，使沿海适应决策可视化，该方法利用环境、经济和社会因素来确定通往可持续未来的路线。沿海路径这个项目的第4步是为沿海社区和政策制定者提供关于他们面临的选择范围的新见解的关键。这种技术被称为“动态适应路径”，它根据不断变化的背景条件和他们先前决策的影响，在一段时间内设定了一系列风险管理或适应选项（路径）。把这些途径放在一起，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.