Coasts are complex social-ecological systems that host diverse economic activities, cultures, political arrangements and ecosystems with local, national, regional and global implications.They face multiple, interacting and cumulative pressures including those resulting from increasing greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. sea-level rise, Ocean warming, Ocean acidification, extreme events) and localised activities such as fishing, aquaculture, waste disposal and coastal urbanisation. These create a unique set of context-specific issues that need to be addressed holistically using a systems approach, considering the dynamics between both coastal societies and ecosystems as part of interconnected social-ecological systems.
EMB Policy Brief No. 12 provides an overview of approaches for the governance and management of coasts and their human communities towards resilience, and the knowledge required to build coastal resilience, with a specific focus on coastal protection and Nature-based Solutions. It summarises the main messages and recommendations from the EMB Position Paper No. 27 “Building Coastal Resilience in Europe”.
You can find the news item about the document launch here, infographic summaries of scientific recommendations here, policy recommendations here and coastal pressures here, and more about the Coastal Resilience Working Group here.
Note that these infographics are licenced under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 and credit should be given to Amy Dozier when re-publishing.