Operationalising coastal resilience to flood and erosion hazard: A demonstration for England
Operationalising coastal resilience to flood and erosion hazard: A demonstration for England
Resilience is widely seen as an important attribute of coastal systems and, as a concept, is increasingly prominent in policy documents. However, there are conflicting ideas on what constitutes resilience and its operationalisation as an overarching principle of coastal management remains limited. In this paper, we show how resilience to coastal flood and erosion hazard could be measured and applied within policy processes, using England as a case study. We define resilience pragmatically, integrating what is presently a disparate set of policy objectives for coastal areas. Our definition uses the concepts of resistance, recovery and adaptation, to consider how the economic, social and environmental dimensions of coastal systems respond to change. We develop a set of composite indicators for each dimension, grounded empirically with reference to national geospatial datasets. A prototype Coastal Resilience Model (CRM) has been developed, which combines the dimensions and generates a quantitative resilience index. We apply it to England's coastal hazard zone, capturing a range of different stakeholder perspectives using relative indicator weightings. The illustrative results demonstrate the practicality of formalising and quantifying resilience. To re-focus national policy around the stated desire of enhancing resilience to coastal flooding and erosion would require firm commitment from government to monitor progress towards resilience, requiring extension of the present risk-based approach, and a consensus methodology in which multiple (and sometimes conflicting) stakeholder values are explicitly considered. Such a transition may also challenge existing governance arrangements at national and local levels, requiring incentives for coastal managers to engage with and apply this new approach, more departmental integration and inter-agency cooperation. The proposed Coastal Resilience Model, with the tools to support planning and measure progress, has the potential to help enable this transition.
Adaptation pathways, Management, Policy, Resilient communities, Socio-economic resource allocation
Townend, Ian
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French, J.R.
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Nicholls, Robert
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Brown, Sally
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Carpenter, Stephen
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Haigh, Ivan
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Hill, Christopher
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Lazarus, Eli
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Penning-Rowsell, Edmund
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Thompson, Charlotte
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Tompkins, Emma
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20 August 2021
Townend, Ian
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French, J.R.
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Nicholls, Robert
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Brown, Sally
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Carpenter, Stephen
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Haigh, Ivan
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Hill, Christopher
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Lazarus, Eli
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Penning-Rowsell, Edmund
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Thompson, Charlotte
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Tompkins, Emma
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Townend, Ian, French, J.R., Nicholls, Robert, Brown, Sally, Carpenter, Stephen, Haigh, Ivan, Hill, Christopher, Lazarus, Eli, Penning-Rowsell, Edmund, Thompson, Charlotte and Tompkins, Emma
(2021)
Operationalising coastal resilience to flood and erosion hazard: A demonstration for England.
Science of the Total Environment, 783, [146880].
(doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146880).
Abstract
Resilience is widely seen as an important attribute of coastal systems and, as a concept, is increasingly prominent in policy documents. However, there are conflicting ideas on what constitutes resilience and its operationalisation as an overarching principle of coastal management remains limited. In this paper, we show how resilience to coastal flood and erosion hazard could be measured and applied within policy processes, using England as a case study. We define resilience pragmatically, integrating what is presently a disparate set of policy objectives for coastal areas. Our definition uses the concepts of resistance, recovery and adaptation, to consider how the economic, social and environmental dimensions of coastal systems respond to change. We develop a set of composite indicators for each dimension, grounded empirically with reference to national geospatial datasets. A prototype Coastal Resilience Model (CRM) has been developed, which combines the dimensions and generates a quantitative resilience index. We apply it to England's coastal hazard zone, capturing a range of different stakeholder perspectives using relative indicator weightings. The illustrative results demonstrate the practicality of formalising and quantifying resilience. To re-focus national policy around the stated desire of enhancing resilience to coastal flooding and erosion would require firm commitment from government to monitor progress towards resilience, requiring extension of the present risk-based approach, and a consensus methodology in which multiple (and sometimes conflicting) stakeholder values are explicitly considered. Such a transition may also challenge existing governance arrangements at national and local levels, requiring incentives for coastal managers to engage with and apply this new approach, more departmental integration and inter-agency cooperation. The proposed Coastal Resilience Model, with the tools to support planning and measure progress, has the potential to help enable this transition.
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 28 March 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 5 April 2021
Published date: 20 August 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Strategic Priorities Fund, UK Climate Resilience Programme through a UK Research & Innovation award NE/S016651/1. Project partners included ABPmer, the Coastal Group Network, National trust, RSPB, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, National Flood Forum, Natural England and Network Rail. The East Solent Coastal Partnership and the Scarborough District Council hosted our regional workshops. We thank all the participants at our national and regional workshops. Susan Hanson helped prepare the figures, including drafting Figs. 2, 4 and 5. We are also grateful to the reviewers for the insights and suggestions they provided.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors
Keywords:
Adaptation pathways, Management, Policy, Resilient communities, Socio-economic resource allocation
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 448359
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/448359
ISSN: 0048-9697
PURE UUID: 8d183eb9-63da-4715-85e3-e762d615dfdf
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Date deposited: 21 Apr 2021 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:44
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Contributors
Author:
J.R. French
Author:
Robert Nicholls
Author:
Stephen Carpenter
Author:
Edmund Penning-Rowsell
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