Drawing on insights from the Coast-R Network+ and the Resilient UK Coastal Communities and Seas programme, the new report focuses on coastal change and transition, and its impacts on coastal communities and the natural capital of our coastal zones.
What’s in the Report?
The report sets out urgent cross-cutting challenges facing the UK’s coasts, where climate change, coastal erosion, flood risk, biodiversity loss and pollution intersect with longstanding social and economic inequalities. It argues that coastal change has profound implications for housing, health, infrastructure, heritage, community identity and wellbeing in the UK’s coastal and estuarine communities – and that urgent action is needed to strengthen national and local action on coastal adaptation and community decision-making.
Drawing on more than 1,400 distinct engagements and events during the first year of the Coast-R Network programme, the report:
- Defines key terms and outlines the current policy and governance landscape across the four UK nations
- Identifies policy gaps and interfaces including around SMPs, relocation and rollback, and marine-terrestrial integration
- Presents powerful first-hand testimony from community workshops in places experiencing rapid coastal change
- Reports on key learnings from the Coast-R Collaborative Coastal Enquiry and on Coast-R’s three cross-cutting themes: Working Together at Interfaces, Living with Coastal (Un)certainties, and People, Places and Participation
- Offers a set of recommendations for action for policymakers, practitioners, funders and researchers
At its heart, the report calls for joined-up, place-sensitive and equitable approaches to coastal adaptation — including stronger planning frameworks, better support for communities most affected by coastal change, and deeper collaboration across sectors, systems and scales.
Read the report here.
The report is the first of a regular series from the Coast-R Network team, who coordinate and champion the ReCCS programme. Other coastal and marine resilience topics will be considered in later briefs.
