Rethinking Coastal Community Approaches to Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation

Low-lying coastal communities face almost insurmountable challenges from floods and climate change. Research work on adaptation and mitigation particularly emphasizes on cities and mega-cities as a natural consequence of their agglomeration of people and assets. Less focus is put on smaller coastal communities and their challenges, one of which is a lack of local expertise and knowledge. Adaptation to climate change is often a local governance level task, however. Co-work between municipal and national authorities, the utility company, research, business, consultants and citizens has resulted in a common framework to address and deal with water-related challenges in a Danish coastal community. From an assessment of combined impacts of climate change (i.e. sea level rise and storm surges, precipitation and cloudbursts and associated groundwater level responses) and stresses from degrading sewer systems and land subsidence, impact zones are mapped. The multi-player, end-user defined work transcends sectors and builds capacity by sharing data and knowledge. It mainstreams climate change issues into business, management, planning and early warning: the overall goal is an adaptation strategy unfolded from stakeholder involvement and responsibility, cost-effective decision making, climate-related asset management processes and a holistic livable cities approach to this highly vulnerable coastal community. The collaboration and common framework enable the actors to articulate need of information and establish feedback mechanisms between local level work and e.g. sea level research and climate services.