Study title

The prototype Coastal Resilience Model (CRM) quantifies the economic, environmental and social dimensions of resilience with reference to a suite of performance measures that can be assessed using open-access geospatial datasets. The analytical approach uses Multiple-Criteria Analysis (MCA) methodology to derive a composite Resilience Index derived from a broad set of diverse measures and data, as well as stakeholder weightings. MCA has been criticised for the inherent subjectivity in the identification of the measures, and their normalisation (scoring) and relative weighting. However, used constructively, it provides an explicit and transparent representation of different stakeholder perspectives and priorities which are an essential component of evaluating resilience. CRM expands current risk-based shoreline management planning to take account of some of the complexity of community characteristics and local priorities, while recognising that these occur within a much broader coastal system. In addition to mapping the current state of coastal resilience, the CRM can also represent past and future resilience. Given suitable hazard and socio-economic scenarios, modelled resilience time trajectories can be created using CRM to reveal the impact of alternative coastal development and adaptive pathwaysSea-level rise is one of the most profound aspects of human-induced climate change and its steady but uncertain rate of rise will transform the world's coasts in the coming decades. While this is understood in a technical sense, wider society has not grasped the scale of change produced by expected rise in sea level over the next century. Many defences are uneconomic to maintain and renew, and widespread 'realignment' is planned within the strategic process of Shoreline Management Planning (SMP). Efforts to better understand the full range of adaptation options and their implementation, including realignment, offer potentially significant rewards in terms of tangible...