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COASTAL VULNERABILITY, RESILIENCE AND
ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE
Richard J.T. Klein
Kumulative Dissertation

This thesis has been submitted to the Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät of the
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel in part-fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of Dr. rer. nat.
December 2002
Referent: Prof. Dr. Horst Sterr
Ko-Referent: Prof. Dr. Ir. Pier Vellinga
Cover photo: Cley-next-the-Sea, United Kingdom.
Photograph taken by Richard Klein in June 1996.

This PhD thesis is dedicated to Michiel, Ma and Ruth.
Thank you for your inspiration and love, for being there as long as it lasted. I wish I could
share the joy of completion with you. You will always be in my heart.

Preface and acknowledgements
This thesis is the result of about eight years of sometimes more, sometimes less focused research
on a subject that took a long time to be defined as the topic of a PhD. This thesis does
not originate from a single, well-defined PhD project but rather combines and integrates results
of a number of different studies that at first seemed only loosely related at best. However,
some three years ago a common theme emerged, which also happened to be most
timely in the scientific and policy debates on climate change. It is increasingly recognised
that the concept of vulnerability to climate change encompasses more than the exposure and
sensitivity of natural and human systems to potential impacts of climate change; it is also defined
by the degree to which these systems can prepare for and respond to impacts.
The common theme in my work of the past eight years has been the analysis of elements
that, one way or another, determine or describe this latter part of vulnerability to climate
change. My research has aimed to contribute to answering the question as to how coastal systems
and communities would and could respond to climate change and, in particular, how
this response may be assessed as part of coastal vulnerability studies. The focus on coastal
zones was not a conscious decision but it has turned out to be a fortunate one, as coastal
zones provide an ideal “laboratory” for developing and testing new conceptual ideas. Compared
to other effects of climate change, sea-level rise is relatively straightforward in that
the direction of change is known. Moreover, it is a fairly certain consequence of climate
change, which has well-documented analogues in recent geological history.
For the same reason that this thesis did not start off from a clearly defined question or
hypothesis it does not have well-defined results or conclusions. This thesis is to be considered
very much as “work in progress” and indeed, a range of initiatives are currently being developed
that use concepts and information presented in this thesis and elsewhere as a starting
point or framework for their analysis. I find it very exciting to see the way in which my work
contributes to the development of what have been referred to as “second-generation vulnerability
studies”, also in sectors other than coastal zones. Second-generation vulnerability
studies promise to provide a much stronger link between science and policy than the previous
generation of studies could.
The research presented in this thesis has been conducted at the following three institutes:
the Institute for Environmental Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the School of Environmental
Sciences of the University of East Anglia and the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research. In addition, I have benefited from the many interactions with the Flood
Hazard Research Centre of Middlesex University. I am proud not only that I have worked with
some of the brightest minds in the field but also that some close friendships have developed.
I hope there will be many more opportunities to work together and cultivate our friendships.
I am very grateful to everybody who, over the course of the past eight years, has stimulated
me to do the work that I have done and convinced me not to be discouraged by the initial
lack of focus, the difficulties in securing research funding or the fact that my work does
not have an empirical basis. I would like to mention the following people in particular.
Pier Vellinga introduced me to the work on climate change and coastal zones, particularly
in relation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Pier motivated me to develop
and explore my initial ideas and gave me the courage to share them with a network of
distinguished yet approachable international scientists. Robert Nicholls in particular has been
a wonderful sounding board for my ideas, always willing to discuss them, preferably over a
drink. These discussions often turned out to be a fruitful basis for joint publications and have
thus been instrumental in shaping my thoughts and developing the focus I needed to complete
my PhD. Ian Bateman and Kerry Turner have added an environmental economics dimension to
my work and have generated my strong interest in interdisciplinary research. I am grateful for
the time they were willing to invest in me and I cherish the memories of my stay in Norwich.
iv

Perhaps without knowing it, Richard Tol, by being his provocative self, has always stimulated
and in a way empowered me to pursue my own ideas. Whilst at times we disagree about
the use of different analytical methods and the interpretation of results, I greatly value our
mutual respect and willingness to learn from each other. I would like to thank John Schellnhuber
and Carlo Jaeger for being so supportive of my work and for encouraging me to finalise
this thesis. They have created a highly stimulating working environment in which I have the
opportunity to continue and expand my research on environmental vulnerability and adaptation.
Finally, I could not have wished for a better PhD supervisor than Horst Sterr, whose constructive
criticism is certainly not the reason why it took me longer than anticipated to complete
my PhD. I thank him for his motivating style of supervision and, above all, his patience.
I am also grateful to all those with whom I have had the privilege and pleasure to work
over the past eight years and who have been willing to share their ideas so as to help me to
develop mine. These include Neil Adger, Joe Alcamo, James Aston, Pieter van Beukering,
Luitzen Bijlsma, Luke Brander, Nick Brooks, Earle Buckley, Ian Burton, Michele Capobianco,
Alexander Carius, Brian Challenger, Dave Dokken, Peter Doktor, Kees Dorland, Tom Downing,
Kris Ebi, Bud Ehler, Frank Eierdanz, Jan Feenstra, Hasse Goosen, Poul Grashoff, Dolf de
Groot, Joyeeta Gupta, John Handmer, Madeleen Helmer, Frank Hoozemans, Cees Hulsbergen,
Saleemul Huq, Venugopalan Ittekkot, Roger Jones, Arun Kashyap, Mick Kelly, Philipp Knill,
Sari Kovats, Alcira Kreimer, Dörthe Krömker, Onno Kuik, Kavi Kumar, Liza Leclerc, Neil Leary,
Rik Leemans, Bo Lim, Holger Liptow, Don MacIver, Marcel Marchand, Ajay Mathur, Elisabeth
Mausolf, Roger McLean, Bettina Menne, Bert Metz, Ben Mieremet, Nobuo Mimura, Robbert
Misdorp, Richard Moss, Isabelle Niang-Diop, Leonard Nurse, Brett Orlando, Gualbert Oude
Essink, Jean Palutikof, Anand Patwardhan, Stephen Peake, Edmund Penning-Rowsell, Martha
Perdomo, John Pernetta, Olga Pilifosova, Sachooda Ragoonaden, Agustin Sánchez-Arcilla, Ravi
Sharma, Barry Smit, Joel Smith, Marcel Stive, Roger Street, Dennis Tänzler, Ferenc Tóth, Nassos
Vafeidis, Bert van der Valk, Laura Van Wie-McGrory, Roda Verheyen, Jan Vermaat, Claudio
Volonté, Richard Warrick, Robert Watson, Gary Yohe, as well as all my colleagues in Potsdam.
Of my colleagues in Potsdam I would particularly like to thank Johann Grüneweg for translating
the summary of this thesis into German and Lilibeth Acosta-Michlik for scanning the published
papers that form the core of this thesis.
Financial support for my work has been kindly provided by the Dutch and German governments,
the British Council, the European Union, the United Nations Development Programme,
the United Nations Environment Programme, the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, the Disaster Management Facility of the World Bank, Delft
Hydraulics, Norfolk Wildlife Trust, the Institute for Environmental Studies at the Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Finally, I would like to thank my friends for putting up with me, for supporting me and
for being there when it mattered. You know who you are. I also thank my father and sister for
being the best father and sister I have. And I thank Kate for being at the right place at the
right time and for being there ever since. Poppy, I love you to bits!
This PhD thesis is dedicated to three people who I miss every day and without whom I
would not have been the person I am today. Death and divorce hurt, yet they can never erase
the wonderful memories I have. Michiel, Ma, Ruth, this is for you.
Potsdam, December 2002
Richard Klein
v

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a
boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or
a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Sir Isaac Newton
vii

viii

Table of contents
Preface and acknowledgements
Table of contents
Klein, R.J.T., 2002: Coastal vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to climate change:
an introductory overview.
Klein, R.J.T. and R.J. Nicholls, 1999: Assessment of coastal vulnerability to climate
change. Ambio, 28(2), 182–187.
Klein, R.J.T., M.J. Smit, H. Goosen and C.H. Hulsbergen, 1998: Resilience and
vulnerability: coastal dynamics or Dutch dikes? The Geographical Journal, 164(3),
259–268.
Klein, R.J.T. and I.J. Bateman, 1998: The recreational value of Cley Marshes Nature
Reserve: an argument against managed retreat? Water and Environmental
Management, 12(4), 280–285.
Smit, B., I. Burton, R.J.T. Klein and J. Wandel, 2000: An anatomy of adaptation to
climate change and variability. Climatic Change, 45(1), 223–251.
Klein, R.J.T., R.J. Nicholls and N. Mimura, 1999: Coastal adaptation to climate change:
can the IPCC Technical Guidelines be applied? Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies
for Global Change, 4(3–4), 239–252.
Klein, R.J.T., R.J. Nicholls, S. Ragoonaden, M. Capobianco, J. Aston and E.N. Buckley,
2001: Technological options for adaptation to climate change in coastal zones.
Journal of Coastal Research, 17(3), 531–543.
iv
ix
1
32
39
50
57
87
103
Klein, R.J.T., 2002: Synthesis and next steps. 117
Summary 127
Deutsche Zusammenfassung 129
Biography 133
ix

Coastal Vulnerability, Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change:
An Introductory Overview
Richard J.T. Klein
1. Introduction
The work presented in this PhD thesis has not been carried out within a single, well-defined
project. Instead, it integrates the results of a number of studies conducted from 1994 onwards,
each of which had different clients and objectives. The common theme of the studies
has been the description and analysis of elements that determine how coastal systems and
communities would and could respond to climate change and, in particular, how this response
may be assessed as part of coastal vulnerability studies.
Coastal zones are amongst the most dynamic natural environments on earth, providing a
range of goods and services that are essential to human social and economic well-being.
Coastal zones represent the narrow transitional zone between the world’s land and oceans,
characterised by highly diverse ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangroves, beaches, dunes
and wetlands. Many people have settled in coastal zones to take advantage of the range of
opportunities for food production, transportation, recreation and other human activities provided
here. A large part of the global human population now lives in coastal areas: estimates
range from 20.6 per cent within 30 km of the sea to 37 per cent in the nearest 100 km to the
coast (Cohen et al., 1997; Gommes et al., 1998; Nicholls and Small, 2002). In addition, a considerable
portion of global economic wealth is generated in coastal zones (Turner et al.,
1996). Many coastal locations exhibit a growth in population and income higher than their national
averages (Carter, 1988; WCC’93, 1994), as well as substantial urbanisation (Nicholls,
1995a).
In the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), Bijlsma et al. (1996) noted that climate-related change in coastal zones represents
potential additional stress on systems that are already under intense and growing pressure.
The IPCC concluded that although the potential impacts of climate change by themselves may
not always pose the greatest threat to natural coastal systems, in conjunction with other
stresses they could become a serious issue for coastal societies, particularly in those places
where the resilience of the coast has been reduced. This conclusion has been the main motivation
behind my research, which has aimed at better understanding the vulnerability, resilience
and adaptation of coastal zones in the face of climate change.
The insights gained in the various studies have been the basis of a number of peer-reviewed
and published papers, six of which form the core of this PhD thesis. Each of these papers
explores different aspects of coastal vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to climate
change. This introductory chapter provides the context for coastal vulnerability assessment
by giving an overview of current stresses in coastal zones, as well as of the possible effects of
climate change on coastal sustainability. It also explores how the three concepts that form
the basis of this PhD thesis (vulnerability, resilience and adaptation) have been defined and
applied in other disciplines. Finally, this chapter defines the research objectives pursued in
this thesis, outlines the methodological approach taken and introduces the six papers.
Following the six peer-reviewed and published papers, a synthesis chapter aims to draw
conclusions in the light of existing and emerging scientific and policy needs. The synthesis
chapter also provides an agenda for research that can build on the findings of this PhD thesis.
2. Sustainable development and global change in coastal zones
This PhD thesis focuses on coastal vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to climate change.
However, climate change is not the only challenge to sustainable development in coastal
zones. Other developments taking place on a global scale also have a pervasive but immediate
impact on coastal sustainability. These developments are associated with the many eco-
1

nomic opportunities offered by natural coastal systems. They include overexploitation of
coastal resources, pollution, increasing nutrient fluxes, decreasing freshwater availability,
sediment starvation and urbanisation. These non-climatic changes affect the natural capacity
of coastal systems to cope with stresses such as climate change and therefore need to be considered
along with the potential impacts of climate change on coastal zones.
All natural coastal systems are—to varying degrees—able to offset the effects of human
intervention. However, many coastal areas have been so heavily modified and intensively developed
that their natural resilience to further changes has been substantially reduced (see
Section 4.2). In many places, unsustainable development of coastal resources has progressively
increased vulnerability to both the natural dynamics associated with present-day climate
variability and anticipated impacts of global climate change.
2.1. Functions of natural coastal systems
Natural coastal systems (comprising both the geomorphic and ecological components) support
a variety of socio-economic activities, including tourism and recreation, exploitation of living
and non-living resources (e.g., fisheries, aquaculture, agriculture and extraction of water, oil
and gas), industry and commerce, infrastructure development (e.g., ports, harbours, bridges,
roads and coastal defence works) and nature conservation. In addition, natural coastal systems
are crucial in safeguarding environmental quality. For example, they are important in
assimilating waste, maintaining migration and nursery habitats—and thereby biodiversity—and
providing protection against extreme events. Thus, human well-being depends directly or indirectly
on the availability of environmental goods and services provided by natural coastal
systems.
In general terms, environmental functions (defined by De Groot (1992a) as the capacity
of the natural environment to provide goods and services that satisfy human needs in a sustainable
manner) can be categorised as regulation functions, user and production functions
and information functions (De Groot, 1992a; Vellinga et al., 1994). Table 1 gives an overview
of all environmental functions identified in the literature. Most of these functions are relevant
to coastal zones. The relative importance of these functions for a given coastal area depends
on the ecological characteristics, socio-economic circumstances and management objectives
of the area in question.
Regulation functions
Protection against harmful cosmic influences;
Regulation of the local and global energy balance;
Regulation of the chemical composition of the atmosphere;
Regulation of the chemical composition of the oceans;
Regulation of the local and global climate;
Regulation of runoff, flood prevention;
Water catchment, groundwater recharge;
Prevention of soil erosion, sediment control;
Formation of topsoil, maintenance of soil fertility;
Fixation of solar energy, biomass production;
Storage and recycling of organic matter;
Storage and recycling of nutrients;
Storage and recycling of human waste;
Regulation of biological control mechanisms;
Maintenance of migration and nursery habitats;
Maintenance of biological (and genetic) diversity.
Information functions
User and production functions
Providing space and a suitable substrate for:
– human habitation and (indigenous) settlements;
– cultivation (crop growing, animal husbandry, aquaculture);
– energy conversion;
– transportation and navigation;
– recreation and tourism;
– nature protection;
Production of:
– oxygen;
– water (for drinking, irrigation, industry, etc.);
– food and nutritious drinks;
– genetic resources;
– medicinal resources;
– raw materials for clothing and household fabrics;
– raw materials for building, construction and industrial use;
– biochemicals (other than fuels and medicines);
– fuel and energy;
– fodder and fertiliser;
– ornamental resources.
Aesthetic information;
Spiritual and religious information;
Historic information;
Cultural and artistic inspiration;
Scientific and educational information.
Table 1 — Functions of the biosphere (adapted from De Groot, 1992a).
Regulation functions are crucial in safeguarding environmental quality. They include the
regulation of erosion and sedimentation patterns, which helps to prevent floods, the regulation
of the chemical composition of the atmosphere and the oceans, which helps to control
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pollution, and the maintenance of migration and nursery habitats, which sustains biological
diversity. Thus, many natural and semi-natural ecosystems play a fundamental part in the
regulation of essential processes that contribute to the maintenance of a healthy environment
and the long-term stability of the biosphere. In coastal zones, regulation functions are
particularly important in maintaining resilience in the face of natural hazards such as storm
surges (Nicholls and Branson, 1998) and epidemiological threats such as those posed by harmful
algae blooms (Anderson and Garrison, 1997).
User and production functions are essential in providing the many living and non-living
resources that are utilised by society. These functions include the provision of space and a
suitable substrate for human habitation, agriculture, recreation and tourism and the production
of, among other things, food, raw materials, fuel and energy. Coastal resources are often
of great commercial importance, yet their full exploitation can cause multiple-use conflicts
amongst diverse stakeholders (Goldberg, 1994; Vallega, 1996).
Information functions relate to the part that nature plays in meeting human intellectual
and emotional needs. The scientific, historical, spiritual and aesthetic information derived
from coastal ecosystems provides unique opportunities for cognitive development and emotional
enrichment. In addition, the awareness of human society being part of a larger system
forms an important basis for the notion that nature, including coastal ecosystems, also has a
value of its own, independent of human needs or perceptions (Turner, 1988).
Sustainable development in coastal zones is only attained when it enables the coastal
system to self-organise, that is, to perform all its potential functions without adversely affecting
other natural or human systems (cf. Klein et al., 1998). However, coastal zones have
increasingly been subjected to the unsustainable use and unrestricted development of land
and resources, with the sole aim of maximising the financial benefits provided by user and
production functions. This has resulted in an increasingly large area of cultivated and managed
systems where the performance of one particular function is overexploited.
Overexploitation of user and production functions results not only in the depletion of the
resource stock or flow provided but also in the inability of other functions to perform to their
full potential. The same applies when the capacity of regulation functions is exceeded, for
example when coastal waters are polluted beyond their waste-assimilation capacity. Both
forms of unsustainable development can inhibit or destroy the working of functions that are
essential to the provision of resources that are valued less financially or to the maintenance
of coastal resilience. This can ultimately result in the degradation of natural systems that
provide protection against the sea, habitat for many species and food for many people.
If, owing to internal or external stresses on the coastal system, one or more of the desired
functions cannot perform to their full potential, conflicts could arise. For example, if
mangroves are polluted beyond their filtering capacity or logged and cleared in an unsustainable
manner, this will be at the expense of processes that enable fish to breed and be caught
in the same area and hence of those depending on fisheries (e.g., Gilbert and Janssen, 1998).
The maintenance of all functions at a sustainable level would provide higher economic returns
over a longer period of time.
Traditionally, coastal zone management has been described as a process to handle conflicts
between the various (potential) users of increasingly scarce coastal resources and to
address current problems that result from stakeholders pursuing their own sectoral interests
(e.g., Cicin-Sain, 1993; Post and Lundin, 1996; Vallega, 1996; Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1998). In
other words, coastal zone management has focused strongly on conflicts stemming from the
multiple uses of resources provided by user and production functions.
The purpose of the following sections is to show that coastal zone management is also
appropriate to tackle or anticipate issues that rely on the robust performance of the coastal
system’s regulation functions. Such issues are typically associated with longer-term developments
that mostly occur on a larger, often global scale. These longer-term global developments,
often denoted as “global change”, include demographic trends and economic developments,
as well as human interference with global environmental systems such as climate.
Before Section 3 discusses the implications of climate change for coastal zones, the following
sections focus on demographic trends and economic developments.
3

2.2. Demographic trends
There is a long history of human settlement in coastal zones, but until the twentieth century
the level of disturbance to natural processes did not appear to be critical. During the twentieth
century, urbanised coastal populations have been growing rapidly around the globe because
of the many economic opportunities and environmental amenities that coastal zones
provide (Turner et al., 1996). Low-lying areas near coasts now have the largest concentrations
of people on earth (Small and Cohen, 1999). The population in the “near-coastal zone”
(defined as areas both within 100 m elevation and 100 km distance of the coast) in 1990 is estimated
at 1.2 billion (thousand million) (Nicholls and Small, 2002; see also Cohen et al., 1997
and Gommes et al., 1998).
Nicholls and Small (2002) also showed that most of the near-coastal zone is sparsely
inhabited, with the human population being concentrated in a few specific areas along the
world’s coast. These areas correspond mainly to coastal plains in Europe and parts of Asia,
and to a lesser extent to densely populated urban areas. Hence, there are wide variations in
coastal populations amongst nations. In many small island nations, all land suitable for human
habitation is coastal and in some large countries, most or all major urban centres are located
near the coast (e.g., Australia). In other countries, such as Mexico, Colombia, Russia and Iran,
many larger cities are found further inland, in spite of the countries’ long coastlines.
The United Nations medium projection for population growth suggests that the world’s
population will reach 7.2 billion by the year 2015, 7.9 billion by 2025 and 9.3 billion by 2050
(2000: 6.1 billion; UNPD, 2001). Growth rates in individual countries will be largely determined
by the country’s current demographic patterns and fertility rate. Age structures in
most developing countries are such that during the coming decades greater numbers of people
will come into their prime reproductive years than in industrialised countries. Furthermore,
fertility rates are generally higher in developing countries, albeit declining. As a result,
all projected population growth until 2050 is expected to occur in the developing world
(UNPD, 2001).
Most of the population growth in developing countries will occur in urban settings and
much of this will be concentrated in coastal zones, as has been the case in most industrialised
countries. It is projected that by 2015 there will be 33 cities with a population of more than
eight million (UNPD, 2001). As shown in Table 2, 21 of these megacities are located in coastal
zones. This table, which is an update of the overviews provided by WCC’93 (1994) and
Nicholls (1995a), also shows that seventeen of the 21 largest megacities are coastal and that
with the exception of Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Osaka, Paris and Moscow all projected
megacities are situated in developing countries. Continued growth of urban areas can be expected
after 2015, especially in Africa and Asia (UNEP, 2002), resulting in the development of
additional coastal megacities to those shown in Table 2.
Some care should be taken in interpreting the data presented in Table 2. A certain degree
of subjectivity is inevitable in labelling a megacity as coastal, especially because there
are no straightforward definitions of a coastal zone. São Paolo, for example, is not considered
coastal because it is situated at an elevation of 800 metres above sea level. However, its
proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and the port of Santos has yielded benefits that would not
have been available in places further inland (e.g., as a coffee trading capital). On the other
hand, cities like Dhaka, Calcutta and Cairo are situated at some distance from the sea, yet in
Table 2 they are considered coastal because of their deltaic setting. Other cities, such as Los
Angeles, Seoul and Istanbul, have developed on coasts with steeper gradients and hence parts
of their agglomerations extend outside the coastal plain. The predominant criterion to classify
a city as coastal in Table 2 is whether it has economic and geomorphic characteristics
that are typically or exclusively coastal (e.g., sea port, deltaic or estuarine setting).
Some coastal agglomerations with populations exceeding 8 million may have been omitted
because of the dataset used for Table 2. These include Greater London in the United
Kingdom and the Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou conurbation in China (Nicholls, 1995a).
More dispersed agglomerations are not considered either, such as the Amsterdam-Brussels
axis in The Netherlands and Belgium, the Osaka-Nagoya-Tokyo axis in Japan and ‘Megalopolis’
in the United States, which stretches over 600 km from Boston, MA to Washington, DC and has
a collective population approaching 50 million. Such dispersed coastal agglomerations may
also emerge in the developing world, such as from Accra, Ghana to Lagos, Nigeria, embracing
parts of four countries.
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Rank Agglomeration Country Population size (million) Expected
growth (%)
1975 2000 2015 2000–2015
1 Tokyo
Japan
19.771 26.444 26.444 0.00
2 Bombay
India
6.856 18.066 26.138 44.68
3 Lagos
Nigeria
3.300 13.427 23.173 72.59
4 Dhaka
Bangladesh
2.172 12.317 21.119 71.46
5 São Paolo
Brazil
10.047 17.755 20.397 14.88
6 Karachi
Pakistan
3.983 11.794 19.211 62.89
7 Mexico City Mexico
11.236 18.131 19.180 5.79
8 New York
United States of America 15.880 16.640 17.432 4.76
9 Jakarta
Indonesia
4.814 11.018 17.256 56.62
10 Calcutta
India
7.888 12.918 17.252 33.55
11 Delhi
India
4.426 11.695 16.808 43.72
12 Metro Manila Philippines
5.000 10.870 14.825 36.38
13 Shanghai
China
11.443 12.887 14.575 13.10
14 Los Angeles United States of America 8.926 13.140 14.080 7.15
15 Buenos Aires Argentina
9.144 12.560 14.076 12.07
16 Cairo
Egypt
6.079 10.552 13.751 30.32
17 Istanbul
Turkey
3.601 9.451 12.492 32.18
18 Beijing
China
8.545 10.839 12.299 13.47
19 Rio de Janeiro Brazil
7.854 10.582 11.905 12.50
20 Osaka
Japan
9.844 11.013 11.013 0.00
21 Tianjin
China
6.160 9.156 10.713 17.01
22 Hyderabad India
2.086 6.842 10.457 52.84
23 Bangkok
Thailand
3.842 7.281 10.143 39.31
24 Lahore
Pakistan
2.399 6.040 9.961 64.92
25 Seoul
Republic of Korea
6.808 9.888 9.923 0.35
26 Paris
France
8.885 9.624 9.677 0.55
27 Lima
Peru
3.651 7.443 9.388 26.13
28 Kinshasa
Dem. Rep. of the Congo 1.735 5.064 9.366 84.95
29 Moscow
Russian Federation
7.623 9.321 9.353 0.34
30 Madras
India
3.609 6.648 9.145 37.56
31 Chongqing China
2.439 5.312 8.949 68.47
32 Teheran
Islamic Republic of Iran 4.274 7.225 8.709 20.54
33 Bogotá
Colombia
3.036 6.288 8.006 27.32
Total (coastal agglomerations) 150.6 254.1 324.1 27.53
Total (all agglomerations) 217.4 368.2 467.2 26.88
Rank in
1975
1
15
33
43
5
16
4
2
22
12
23
21
3
8
7
20
32
10
13
6
19
45
28
41
16
9
30
n/a
14
31
40
25
35
Rank in
2000
1
3
6
11
4
12
2
5
14
8
13
16
9
7
10
19
22
17
18
15
24
31
27
35
20
21
25
40
23
32
38
28
34
n/a: not available.
Table 2 — The world’s largest cities, with projected populations in 2015 exceeding eight
million. Arrows indicate coastal agglomerations (population data from UNPD, 2001).
Urban populations tend to have higher consumption levels than their rural counterparts,
as well as different consumption patterns. The increasing demand for food requires increasing
productivity in fisheries and agriculture. However, this is often impeded by the loss of agricultural
land to urban expansion and the reduction of fisheries potential due to habitat loss
and pollution of rivers and coastal waters from urban and industrial waste.
In addition, the large populations in many coastal areas around the world are, to a
greater or lesser extent, vulnerable to hazardous events associated with natural coastal dynamics
such as storm surges, floods and tsunamis. Human-induced climate change and sealevel
rise will further increase this vulnerability, as discussed in Section 3.
2.3. Economic values and competing demands
In addition to population growth and urbanisation, coastal areas are facing unprecedented
pressures on the economic development of their resources (Turner et al., 1996; Post and
Lundin, 1996). The diversity of functions performed by natural coastal systems supports a variety
of economic activities. As stated in Section 2.1, important economic activities in coastal
zones include tourism and recreation, exploitation of living and non-living resources, industry
and commerce, infrastructure development and nature conservation. Industry and commerce
and infrastructure development are closely related to demographic developments as discussed
in Section 2.2. This section focuses on tourism and recreation, fisheries and nature conservation.
2.3.1. Tourism and recreation
Tourism represents an important and growing economic activity in many parts of the world. In
1995, global international tourist receipts amounted to US$ 400 billion and most of this is
coastal (OECD, 1997). Including domestic travel, tourism is the world’s largest single industry
5

and the potential for growth is still substantial in many places. Estimates indicate that it accounts
for at least 5% of the combined Gross National Products (GNPs) of all countries, although
wide variations exist. For example, in the early 1990s tourism was estimated to contribute
about 43% of the Caribbean region’s combined GNP (Miller and Auyong, 1991).
Since the late 1970s, a range of textbooks and assessment reports have discussed the
close interrelationships between tourism and the environment (e.g., Edington and Edington,
1986; Briassoulis and Van der Straaten, 1992; Nelson et al., 1993). A common conclusion is
that the viability and sustainability of the tourism sector is often undermined by (i) a lack of
consideration of the external effects of sectoral activities on environmental and amenity values
that underpin tourism and (ii) the adverse effects of tourism and tourism development itself.
Thus, whilst coastal tourism can be threatened by other developments in the coastal
zone, tourist activities themselves may also give rise to conflicts.
Activities that could jeopardise tourism in coastal areas include aquaculture, agriculture,
industry and oil and gas exploitation. These activities often compete for the same space and
resources as those desired by tourists. Moreover, they may cause damage to coastal and marine
habitats and thereby degrade the basic resource upon which tourism depends to thrive
and grow (e.g., Dulvy et al., 1995). In addition, eutrophication and microbial pollution caused
by the disposal of untreated waste into coastal waters can affect the quality of seafood and
bathing water and thus pose risks to human health. Gastroenteritis is the most common of the
diseases that can be contracted (Andreadakis, 1997; Pruss, 1998), but cholera and typhoid
can also be developed after the consumption of contaminated seafood (Desenclos, 1996).
Environmental degradation caused by tourist development is perhaps most clearly observed
in coral settings. A case study by Hawkins and Roberts (1994) examined the impacts of
expanding coastal tourism on coral reefs along the Red Sea coast of Egypt. Activities are in
progress to support an almost twelvefold increase in the number of visitors to this area over
the period 1990–2005, 55% of which is likely to occur in the two popular resorts Hurghada and
Sharm-el-Sheikh. Present development in Hurghada has already damaged inshore reefs to the
extent that what remains is of little interest to divers and snorkellers, who are now directed
to offshore reefs. The massive expansion plans are likely to increase current problems of infilling,
sedimentation, eutrophication, overfishing and trampling in both Hurghada and Sharmel-Sheikh
unless current regulations are enforced and restrictions on tourism growth are imposed
(Hawkins and Roberts, 1994).
One example of tourism-related pollution is connected with the use of tributyltin as an
anti-fouling agent in paints that, in spite of increasingly strict legislation to control their usage,
are still applied to protect vessel hulls, including those of recreational craft. Tributyltin
is amongst the most toxic compounds introduced into the marine environment. It causes reproductive
disorders in many gastropod species such as whelks, of which the females develop
male characteristics—a mechanism referred to as imposex (Demora and Pelletier, 1997). Alternative
anti-fouling paints are currently under development and a total ban on the use of
tributyltin is expected before 2010 (Ten Hallers-Tjabbes, 1997). However, the problem of imposex
will not be solved overnight, since large concentrations of tributyltin have accumulated
in marine sediments, especially in port areas and near shipping routes. Meanwhile, key questions
about toxicological mechanisms, particularly in mammals, remain unanswered (Demora
and Pelletier, 1997).
In summary, tourism can be an important source of income for many coastal countries
but great care must be taken in tourism planning and management to avoid “killing the goose
that lays the golden eggs”. In most coastal nations there are increasing demands for coastal
sites for tourism development; policymakers are facing a major challenge in meeting demands
whilst protecting the quality of the environment (Knight et al., 1997; White et al., 1997). A
bitter lesson learnt by several Mediterranean and Asian coastal nations is that once the quality
of the environment declines, tourism revenues also drop. Once the reputation of an area
has been damaged, it is extremely difficult to convince people to return.
2.3.2. Fisheries
About 950 million people worldwide depend on fish as their primary source of protein, whilst
the fishing industry directly or indirectly employs some 200 million people (WRI, 1996).
Amongst the 40 countries that rank highest in per-capita consumption of marine sources of
protein, all but one are developing countries. In 1995, total global fish production reached a
6

level of 112.9 million metric tons, 75% of which were marine landings, 6.3% marine aquaculture,
6.4% inland catch and 12.2% inland aquaculture. Of total global fish production, 81.9
million tonnes were used for human consumption; the remainder was reduced to fishmeal and
oil (Grainger, 1997).
Three decades ago, Gulland (1971) estimated that the maximum sustainable yield for
traditionally exploited marine species would be about 100 million tonnes per year. Despite
fisheries also turning to non-traditional species, marine capture has been fairly stable between
78 and 86 million tonnes since 1986 (although an upward trend can be seen as of 1994),
whilst marine aquaculture has increased from 3 to more than 7 million tonnes over the same
period (Grainger, 1997). Caught but not included in the statistics are species of low commercial
value and juvenile species. This unwanted bycatch has been estimated at between 18 and
39 million tonnes per year (Alverson et al., 1994).
An important sign that marine fish are currently being overexploited is the increasing
catch of mature and senescent fish and the decreasing catch of undeveloped and developing
fish. This suggests that fewer fish are being born than are caught (Grainger and Garcia, 1996).
This trend reflects the intensification of fisheries since 1950 and the increase in the proportion
of marine fish subject to declines in productivity. It also underlines the fact that the
growing total tonnage of fish production over this period gives a misleading picture of the
state of world fisheries and a false sense of security (Grainger and Garcia, 1996). However,
projections by individual nations, especially China, suggest that marine fish landings will continue
to increase significantly. Continued overexploitation and declining productivity could
result in demands for marine fish exceeding annual production, with the consequent effect of
increased prices and reduced availability of marine protein to many people in developing
countries.
In addition to overexploitation, part of the explanation for the stress on marine fish
stocks lies in the loss of coastal fisheries habitats as a result of marine pollution and their
conversion to aquaculture or other productive land. These habitats form the breeding, nursery
and feeding grounds for many fish and crustaceans that are currently exploited. In countries
such as Thailand and the Philippines, it is estimated that more than 70% of the mangrove
area has been cleared and replaced by shrimp ponds (WRI, 1996). The socio-economic impacts
of coastal aquaculture developments that require major alteration of coastal ecosystems can
be far-reaching.
Apart from the direct loss of mangrove and other valuable coastal systems, coastal aquaculture
can have a number of other adverse consequences on coastal systems. Reported impacts
include land subsidence, acidification of soils and estuarine waters, salinisation of
groundwater and agricultural lands and the subsequent loss of economic and environmental
goods and services upon which coastal communities rely (WRI, 1996). Coastal aquaculture has
led to drops in agricultural productivity and farm incomes, reduced water supplies, loss of income
from fishing and forestry and increasing hazard of coastal flooding. One of the more recent
socio-economic problems resulting from large-scale aquaculture development is the
growing frequency of disease outbreaks, including algae blooms known as red tides, which can
cause mass fish kills, resulting in major losses of income and threats to public health (WRI,
1996).
2.3.3. Nature conservation
As discussed in Section 2.1, coastal zones provide a range of environmental goods and services
that are essential to human social and economic well-being. Although each ecosystem function
provides different goods and services, its performance is often strongly connected to that
of other functions. Development in coastal zones is traditionally triggered by the many economic
opportunities provided by the user and production functions. However, often there has
been little awareness that regulation functions provide the essential conditions for the full
performance of these user and production functions. It is often not recognised that there are
limits to the extent to which natural coastal systems allow for the exploitation of resources
produced in coastal zones or that radical changes to these systems may adversely affect the
availability or regeneration of these resources.
One of the main reasons for the ongoing loss of natural habitat due to human activities is
the fact that the importance of nature and a healthy environment to human well-being is not
fully reflected in economic planning and decision-making. It is difficult to attach a monetary
7

value to the performance of regulation functions, unlike to that of many user and production
functions. As a result, potential consequences of the loss of regulation functions are often not
taken into account when assessing the costs and benefits of coastal development, although
such losses could reduce future opportunities for resource development. According to De
Groot (1992b), Turner and Adger (1996), Costanza et al. (1997) and others, the total economic
value of ecosystems should be better represented in land-use planning and decisionmaking
in order to achieve the conservation and sustainable utilisation of nature and its resources.
Turner and Adger (1996) distinguish between a number of different types of values of
ecosystems, which together make up their total economic value (Figure 1) 1 . An important research
challenge in environmental and ecological economics has been to express the different
types of values shown in Figure 1 in monetary terms so as to compare them with the direct
costs and benefits of investment, for example in cost-benefit analysis. Various methods have
been developed to assess the monetary value of ecosystems. In principle it is possible to express
each type of value in monetary terms, although more robust methods exist for the
valuation of most direct-use values and—to some extent—indirect-use values. In practice,
however, some important methodological caveats and potential biases can affect the results
of valuation studies. It goes beyond the scope of this section to elaborate on these caveats
and biases. The theory of monetary valuation of ecosystems is discussed in detail in Pearce
and Turner (1990), Hanley and Spash (1993), Dixon et al. (1994) and Carson et al. (1996).
Total Economic Value
Use Values
Non-Use Values
Direct Use Values Indirect Use Values Option Value Existence Values
Outputs Benefits Benefits Benefits
fish;
fuelwood;
recreation;
transport/navigation.
flood control;
storm protection;
nutrient cycling;
waste assimilation;
sedimentation;
habitat loss reduction;
groundwater protection.
insurance value of
preserving options for
future use.
value derived merely
from knowing a species
or system is conserved;
value of passing on
natural assets intact to
future generations;
moral resource value
motivations.
Figure 1 — Different types of ecosystem values, including examples for coastal zones (based
on Turner and Adger, 1996).
In general, methods to express ecosystem functions in monetary terms are based on human
preferences, as these should reflect the value that people attach to these functions. A
basic distinction can be made between expressed-preference methods and revealed-preference
methods. A later paper in this thesis reports on the application of the contingent valuation
method, which is based on expressed preferences, and the travel-cost method (TCM),
which is a revealed-preference method, to assess the value of nature-based recreation in a
coastal wetland in England (Klein and Bateman, 1998).
An increasing number of studies provide monetary estimates of the value of natural
coastal systems, showing that this value is often considerable and usually far exceeds the
(short-term) returns from non-sustainable coastal resource use. Published estimates vary from
US$ 1.5 million to 13 million per square kilometre, with an average of between US$ 2–5 million/km
2 for OECD countries and US$ 1.25 million/km 2 for developing countries (Fankhauser,
1995). Such numbers increase the awareness of the importance of conserving coastal ecosys-
1
Gren et al. (1994) argue that, strictly speaking, the aggregate of all values is less than the total economic
value, as ecosystems are considered to have primary value that is conditional on the existence and maintenance
of the healthy system rather than on any one individual human-use component. In other words, the sum
of the total system value is greater than the sum of the component parts.
8

tems, especially in the light of anticipated global changes. Coastal ecosystems that can perform
their regulation functions, such as protection against erosion and waste assimilation, to
their full potential are more robust and resilient to sea-level rise and pollution. In addition,
De Groot (1992b) argues that the costs involved in conserving nature and managing protected
areas could be seen as productive capital, providing employment and safeguarding opportunities
for other uses and benefits.
3. Climate change and coastal zones
Human-induced global climate change and associated sea-level rise can have major adverse
consequences for coastal ecosystems and societies. Human-induced climate change is caused
by the emission of so-called “greenhouse” gases, which trap long-wave radiation in the upper
atmosphere and thus raise atmospheric temperatures. Carbon dioxide is the most important
of these gases and its atmospheric concentration has exponentially increased since the beginning
of the industrial revolution as a result of fossil fuel combustion and land-use change. In
1800, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was about 280 parts per million
(ppm); today it is about 350 ppm and rising. Similar increases have been observed for other
greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide (Houghton et al., 2001).
Projections of future climate change are based on global scenarios of future emissions of
greenhouse gases. These emission scenarios are subject to great uncertainty, as they reflect
patterns of economic development, population growth, consumption and so on that are not
easy to foresee over a 100-year period. A large number of emission scenarios are used to account
for this high degree of uncertainty. The most recent emission scenarios, which formed
the basis of the climate projections of the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), were published
in the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES; Nakićenović et al., 2000) and
are known as the SRES scenarios.
By 2100, carbon cycle models project atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 540
to 970 ppm for the illustrative SRES scenarios, with a range of uncertainty of 490 to 1260 ppm
(Houghton et al., 2001). Based on these projections and those of other greenhouse gases, the
IPCC TAR projects an increase in globally averaged surface temperature by 1.4 to 5.8°C over
the period 1990 to 2100. These results are for the full range of 35 SRES scenarios, based on a
number of climate models. The IPCC TAR further states that it is very likely that nearly all
land areas will warm more rapidly than the global average, particularly those at northern high
latitudes in the cold season (Houghton et al., 2001).
3.1. Mechanisms and projections of sea-level rise
Based on these projections of future climate, global mean sea level is projected to rise by 9
to 88 cm between 1990 and 2100, with a central value of 48 cm, for the full range of SRES
scenarios. The projected sea-level rise is due primarily to the thermal expansion of ocean water
(11 to 43 cm), followed by contributions from mountain glaciers (1 to 23 cm) and ice caps
(–2 to 9 cm for Greenland and –17 to 2 cm for Antarctica) (Church et al., 2001). The projected
central value of 48 cm gives an average rate of sea-level rise of 2.2 to 4.4 times the observed
rate over the 20th century. Even with drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, sea
level will continue to rise for centuries beyond 2100 because of the long response time of the
global ocean system. An ultimate sea-level rise of 2 to 4 metres is possible for atmospheric
carbon dioxide concentrations that are twice and four times pre-industrial levels, respectively
(Church et al., 2001).
A major uncertainty is how the global mean sea-level rise will manifest itself on a regional
scale. All models analysed by the IPCC show a strongly non-uniform spatial distribution
of sea-level rise. Some regions show a sea-level rise substantially higher than the global average
(in many cases more than twice the average) and others a sea-level fall (Church et al.,
2001). However, the patterns produced by the different models are not similar in detail. This
lack of similarity means that confidence in projections of regional sea-level changes is low,
although it is clear that they are important with respect to impacts of sea-level rise on
coastal zones.
9

Many coastal areas experience vertical land movements, which change the level of the
sea in relation to that of the land, irrespective of absolute sea-level changes. These movements
are often associated with geological processes, but can also result from the extraction
of water and hydrocarbons and from the oxidation of peat. Excessive groundwater withdrawal
is a particular problem in many coastal cities, exacerbated by the cities’ rapid growth. As the
water table beneath a city drops, formerly saturated sediments can consolidate irreversibly,
causing the ground surface to subside rapidly. This subsidence leads to an additional rise in
sea level relative to the land.
Subsidence rates can be rapid, locally reaching one metre per decade (Nicholls, 1995a).
For instance, land subsidence around Tianjin was around 5 cm/yr in the late 1980s and locally
up to 11 cm/yr. In Japan, on the other hand, subsidence has been largely controlled by means
of better groundwater management, although large areas in the Osaka-Tokyo conurbation,
home to 2 million people, are now beneath high-water levels and would be submerged but for
the extensive flood defence systems (Mimura et al., 1994).
In addition to sea-level rise resulting from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and
land subsidence, human activities can also influence sea level directly by changing the
amount of water stored in the ground, in lakes and in reservoirs and by modifying surface
characteristics affecting runoff and evapotranspiration rates. These changes are likely to have
led to a net change in sea level over the past century, although the direction of this change is
disputed. Based on studies by Sahagian et al. (1994), Gornitz et al. (1997), Sahagian (2000),
Gornitz (2000) and Vörösmarty and Sahagian (2000), Church et al. (2001) estimated that the
average rate with which these changes contributed to global sea-level rise between 1910 and
1990 was –1.1 to 0.4 mm/yr.
Sea-level rise is not the only climate-related effect relevant to coastal zones. However,
confidence in model projections of other manifestations of climate change is generally still
low. An important issue is the extent to which the frequency, intensity and spatial patterns of
extreme events will change. A rise in mean sea level will lead to a decrease in the return period
of storm surges, but it is unclear if the variability of storm surges itself will change.
Changes that are considered likely over some areas are increases in peak wind intensities and
mean and peak precipitation intensities of tropical cyclones. However, changes in tropical cyclone
location and frequency are still uncertain (Houghton et al., 2001).
Changes in wind patterns and precipitation at higher latitudes also remain uncertain on
local and regional scales. To date, no reliable projections exist of coastal storm characteristics
and tidal range on scales useful for coastal impact analysis. The effect of storm surges
can be compounded by increased precipitation on land and associated increased river runoff.
Projections of runoff from selected rivers are becoming available, allowing their consideration
in future analyses.
The IPCC TAR states that recent trends for El Niño are projected to continue in many
models (Houghton et al., 2001). These trends include a stronger warming of the eastern
tropical Pacific relative to the western tropical Pacific, with a corresponding eastward shift of
precipitation. Changes in El Niño patterns are likely to be relevant in a number of coastal locations
but they are still too uncertain to be considered in coastal impact studies.
In summary, whilst it is recognised that impacts of climate change on coastal zones are
prompted by more than sea-level rise alone, consideration of other factors is constrained by
the uncertainties surrounding them, particularly on local and regional scales, with the
emerging exception of river runoff. For this reason, the remainder of this chapter and indeed
this thesis will concentrate on sea-level rise as the predominant focus in the analysis of vulnerability,
resilience and adaptation in coastal zones.
3.2. Potential impacts of sea-level rise on coastal zones
For coastal areas, it is not the global, absolute sea level that matters but the locally observed,
relative sea level, which takes into account regional sea-level variations and vertical
movements of the land. Some parts of the world, such as most of Scandinavia, experience
land uplift at such a high rate that projected absolute sea-level rise will be completely offset
and relative sea level will continue to fall, albeit at a lower rate. Other areas, such as often
densely populated deltas, are characterised by a strong downward movement of the land,
which will add to absolute sea-level rise (Emery and Aubrey, 1991; Gröger and Plag, 1993).
10

Irrespective of the primary cause of sea-level rise (climate change, natural or human-induced
subsidence, dynamic ocean effects), exposed natural coastal systems can be affected
in a variety of ways. From a societal perspective, the six most important biogeophysical effects
are (Klein and Nicholls, 1998):
Increasing flood frequency probabilities;
Erosion;
Inundation;
Rising water tables;
Saltwater intrusion;
Biological effects.
These biogeophysical effects will have consequent effects on ecosystems and eventually
affect socio-economic systems in the coastal zone. However, owing to the great diversity and
variation of natural coastal systems and to the local and regional differences in relative sealevel
rise, the occurrence of and response to these effects will not be uniform around the
globe. Coastal environments particularly at risk include tidal deltas and low-lying coastal
plains, sandy beaches and barrier islands, coastal wetlands, estuaries and lagoons and coral
reefs and atolls (Bijlsma et al., 1996). Increased coastal flooding is expected to be most severe
in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, the southern Mediterranean coasts, the Caribbean
and most islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans (Watson et al., 1998; Nicholls et al., 1999).
The effects of climate change and associated sea-level rise threaten economic sectors to
a varying extent. The potential socio-economic impacts of sea-level rise can be categorised as
follows (Klein and Nicholls, 1998):
Direct loss of economic, ecological, cultural and subsistence values through loss of land,
infrastructure and coastal habitats;
Increased flood risk to people, land and infrastructure and economic, ecological, cultural
and subsistence values;
Other impacts related to changes in water management, salinity and biological activity.
Table 3 lists the most important socio-economic sectors in coastal zones and indicates
from which of the aforementioned biogeophysical effects of climate change they are expected
to suffer direct impacts. Indirect impacts, for example impacts on human health resulting
from deteriorating water quality, are also likely to be important to many sectors, but
these are not shown in Table 3.
Sector
Biogeophysical effect
Flood
Water Saltwater Biological
Erosion Inundation
frequency
table rise intrusion effects
Water resources
Agriculture
Human health
Fisheries
Tourism
Human settlements
Table 3 — Qualitative overview of direct socio-economic impacts of climate change on a
number of sectors in coastal zones (Klein and Nicholls, 1998).
Changes in extreme events, whilst still uncertain, can have important consequences for
coastal zones. For example, cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and hurricanes in the Caribbean
have already caused serious economic disruption, damage to infrastructure and loss of human
life, independent of global climate change. As stated, however, the mechanisms that determine
the occurrence of such events, as well as their patterns, are poorly understood.
In the 1990s, a large and concerted effort was made to assess the implications of sealevel
rise on coastal countries. Studies have been carried out on local, national and regional
scales (e.g., Jeftić et al., 1992, 1996; Tooley and Jelgersma, 1992; Ehler, 1993; McLean and
11

Mimura, 1993; Maul, 1993; O’Callahan, 1994; Nicholls and Leatherman, 1995; Lenhart et al.,
1996; Leatherman, 1997; Watson et al., 1998; Nicholls and Mimura, 1998; De la Vega-Leinert
et al., 2000a, 2000b; Brochier and Ramieri, 2001; Mimura and Yokoki, 2001). In the IPCC Second
Assessment Report, Bijlsma et al. (1996) emphasised that most coastal areas are vulnerable
to the adverse consequences of sea-level rise to some degree and that some form of adaptation
will be necessary. However, the studies show considerable variation in possible impacts.
This is illustrated by Table 4, which provides an overview of quantitative results of national
coastal vulnerability studies.
Antigua
Argentina
Bangladesh
Belize
Benin
China
Egypt
Guyana
Japan
Kiribati
Malaysia
Marshall Isl.
Mauritius
Netherlands
Nigeria
Poland
Senegal
St. Kitts-Nevis
Tonga
Uruguay
United States
Venezuela
Without Measures
With Measures
People affected People
at risk
Capital value
at loss
Land at loss Wetland
at loss
People
at risk
Protection
costs (100 yr)
Protection
costs/year
# People
(1,000)
% Total # People US$
(million)
% GNP km 2 % Total km 2 # People US$ (million) % GNP
38 50 1,900
3 7,700
76 0.32
5,600 6
1,100
1,800/3,300 0.02/0.04
71,000 60
5,800
>1,000 >0.06
70 35
1,350 25
126 12
85
>430 >0.41
72,000 7
4,700 9 30,000 59,272 204
120,000 13,133 0.45
600 80 60,000 4,000 1115
500
200 0.26
15,400 15
807,000 72
>200,000 >0.15
9 100
2 8
3 0.10
40
6
10,000
3,200
235
>110
30
13
100
1
67
4
1
>1
47
380
12,286
1,400/1,800
1,500
1,000/2,200
53
1,000/3,800
>143,000
1,700/2,600
56 378,961/
385,761
>7.04
0.05
0.04/0.05
0.02
0.21/0.40
2.65
0.12/0.46
>0.03
0.03/0.04
Table 4 — Quantitative results of national coastal vulnerability studies (Nicholls, 1995b).
The global vulnerability assessments carried out by Hoozemans et al. (1993) and Baarse
(1995) suggest that some 189 million people presently live below the once-per-1000-years
storm-surge level (the “hazard zone”). They estimate that, under present conditions, an average
of 46 million people per year experience storm-surge flooding. This number would double
if sea level rises 50 cm (92 million people/year) and almost triple if it rises one metre
(118 million people/year). Between 86% and 92% of these people would experience flooding
even more than once a year (Baarse, 1995). These projections do not take into account any
further population growth, changes in storm frequencies and intensities or adaptive responses.
In a recent update, Nicholls (2002) estimates the current number of people living in the
hazard zone at 197 million and the average annual number of people flooded at 10 million.
When population growth is considered, the former figure would increase to 399–598 million in
2100 in the absence of sea-level rise and to 503–755 million in 2100 when a high sea-level rise
scenario is assumed (96 cm in 2100). Assuming no upgrade in protection levels and the same
high sea-level rise scenario, the average annual number of people flooded would be 326–510
million in 2100, of whom 309–484 million would be flooded more than once per year. Assuming
that protection levels increase with growing national income reduces the number to 211–
337 million in 2100, of whom 195–311 million would experience flooding more than once per
year.
3.3. Methodologies for assessing impacts of sea-level rise
Most studies that provided the source data for Table 4 applied the Common Methodology
for Assessing Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise, which was developed by the former Coastal Zone
Management Subgroup of the IPCC (IPCC CZMS, 1992). The Common Methodology was meant
to assist countries in making first-order assessments of potential coastal impacts of and adap-
12

tations to sea-level rise (for a more elaborate discussion see Klein and Nicholls, 1999). It was
used as the basis of assessments in at least 46 countries. The assessments aimed at identifying
populations and resources at risk and the costs and feasibility of possible responses to adverse
impacts. Quantitative results were produced in 22 country case studies (shown in Table
4) and eight subnational studies (Nicholls, 1995b).
It is important that the quantitative results in Table 4 are interpreted as being indicative
only. Studies using the Common Methodology were meant to serve as preparatory assessments,
identifying priority regions and priority sectors and providing an initial screening of
possible measures. Scientific uncertainties are compounded by uncertainties surrounding future
socio-economic developments and by the fact that the damage cost estimates are sensitive
to the use of discount rates. In addition, the impacts shown in Table 4 have been assessed
assuming a one-metre rise in sea level by 2100, whereas the latest scientific information,
as presented in Section 3.1, suggests a lower global mean sea-level rise. On the other
hand, one can argue that the results may well represent underestimates, because impacts on
non-market values have not been assessed and because the studies assume sea-level rise to
be a gradual process. As shown by West and Dowlatabadi (1999) and West et al. (2001), superimposing
current storm-surge variability on a gradual rise in sea level can lead to estimates
of damage costs that are an order of magnitude different from those based only on
gradual changes, where perfect foresight is assumed (cf. Yohe et al., 1996; Yohe and Neumann,
1997).
As noted by Klein and Nicholls (1999), many studies that used the Common Methodology
faced a lack of the accurate and complete data necessary for impact and adaptation assessment.
This has limited its applicability, which has led to the development of alternative assessment
methodologies (e.g., Kay and Hay, 1993; Gornitz et al., 1994). Nonetheless, no
other methodology has been applied as widely and evaluated as thoroughly as the Common
Methodology (e.g., Kay et al., 1996). Thus, it has contributed to understanding the consequences
of sea-level rise and encouraged long-term thinking about coastal zones. It also became
a model for assessing impacts and adaptation in non-coastal systems.
In 1994, the IPCC published its Technical Guidelines for Assessing Climate Change Impacts
and Adaptations (Carter et al., 1994), which provide generic guidance to countries that
wish to assess their vulnerability to climate change. For a range of socio-economic and physiographic
systems, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Handbook on Methods
for Climate Change Impact Assessments and Adaptation Strategies (Feenstra et al., 1998) then
offers a detailed elaboration of the IPCC Technical Guidelines, including for coastal zones
(Klein and Nicholls, 1998). The similarities and differences between the IPCC Common Methodology
and the IPCC Technical Guidelines are discussed in Klein and Nicholls (1999). Klein et
al. (1999) evaluate the guidance on adaptation assessment provided by the IPCC Technical
Guidelines.
Adaptation can play an important part in reducing the potential impacts of climate
change in coastal zones. In both the IPCC Common Methodology and the IPCC Technical
Guidelines, the guidance provided for adaptation assessment is limited. Rather than evaluating
a range of options using some formal decision-making framework (e.g., cost-benefit or
multi-criteria analysis), studies tended to consider only a protection versus a do-nothing scenario.
However, there are many different ways and options to respond to the impacts of sealevel
rise (see Section 4.3).
In fact, many of the early studies used a so-called “dumb farmer” scenario 2 : they assumed
that present-day behaviour and activities would continue unchanged in the future, irrespective
of how they might be affected by climate change. By ignoring any adaptation,
these studies did not distinguish between potential and residual impacts and thus their damage-cost
values represent serious overestimates. On the other hand, the studies, which are
not unique to agriculture, served to generate awareness of the potential magnitude of impacts
and the need for anticipatory adaptation.
2
The dumb farmer is a metaphor for any impacted economic agent that does not anticipate climate change or
act upon its manifestation. Instead, it continues to act as if nothing has changed. By not responding to changing
circumstances, the agent reduces its profitability or fails to take advantage of emerging opportunities. It thus
incurs larger damages than would have been the case had some adaptation taken place. The clairvoyant
farmer, on the other hand, has perfect knowledge and foresight and is able to minimise damages or maximise
benefits. As always, reality will be somewhere in between.
13

Current methodological work focuses more strongly on the role of adaptation and adaptive
capacity in determining vulnerability to climate change. Methods for so-called secondgeneration
vulnerability assessment are being developed, building on the insights developed
in the past ten years. An introduction to second-generation vulnerability assessment is given
in the synthesis chapter of this thesis.
4. Vulnerability, resilience and adaptation: exploring the concepts
Vulnerability, resilience and adaptation are the three basic concepts around which the research
that forms the basis of this thesis has been organised. This thesis deals with the vulnerability,
resilience and adaptation of coastal zones to climate change. However, the three
terms are not used exclusively in this context. In fact, their usage in relation to climate
change is relatively new compared to that in disciplines such as natural hazard assessment,
ecology and economics. It is therefore useful for the analysis of coastal vulnerability, resilience
and adaptation to climate change to understand how the concepts have been defined
and used in other fields. This section presents an overview.
4.1. Vulnerability
Vulnerability is an important concept in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), which is the single most important document on climate change for both
scientists and policymakers. The UNFCCC was one of the products of the United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development (UNCED), which was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
in June 1992. However, in referring to countries that are “particularly vulnerable to the adverse
effects of climate change” (Article 4.4) it does not provide a definition of vulnerability
or any other indication as to how particularly vulnerable countries may be identified. The
IPCC, as the main international scientific body on climate change, took up the challenge to
develop a methodology for assessing vulnerability to climate change.
As mentioned in Section 3.3, the then Coastal Zone Management Subgroup of the IPCC
developed a Common Methodology for Assessing Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise (IPCC CZMS,
1992), which formed the inspiration for the generic IPCC Technical Guidelines for Assessing
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptations (Carter et al., 1994). The idea behind a common
methodology and technical guidelines was that if all countries were to conduct similar assessments,
their relative vulnerabilities to climate change could be compared and it would
become clear which of them are particularly vulnerable.
In addition, knowledge of vulnerability would enable coastal scientists and policymakers
to anticipate impacts that could result from climate change and sea-level rise. It could thus
help to prioritise management efforts that need to be undertaken to minimise risks or reduce
possible consequences. Vulnerability assessments were then seen as contributing to integrated
coastal zone management programmes, which are based on an awareness of the types
and magnitude of problems that different coastal areas may have to face, as well as of possible,
alternative solutions (WCC’93, 1994; Bijlsma et al., 1996; see Section 5).
IPCC CZMS (1992) defines the vulnerability of coastal zones as “the degree of incapability
to cope with the consequences of climate change and accelerated sea-level rise”. This definition
implies that vulnerability is a composite measure of anticipated impacts of climate
change and the extent to which systems can adapt to these impacts (see Section 4.3). It is
consistent with earlier conceptual work on vulnerability, which usually presents vulnerability
as a reverse function of a system’s ability to cope with stress and shock (e.g., Timmerman,
1981; Smith, 1992).
The chapter “Coastal Zones and Small Islands” of the IPCC Second Assessment Report
(Bijlsma et al., 1996) also emphasises that vulnerability is a multi-dimensional concept, encompassing
biogeophysical, socio-economic and political factors. It can then be argued that
the results presented in Table 4 only show part of the picture of vulnerability, as the “incapability
to cope” is measured only as the financial cost of coastal protection relative to a
country’s economy. Whether coastal protection is the most appropriate adaptation strategy in
all cases is not considered, nor are any other indicators of “incapability to cope” analysed.
Increasing recognition of this methodological flaw has led to a number of alternative ap-
14

proaches (e.g., Harvey et al., 1999), culminating in the emergence of the concept of “adaptive
capacity” (see Sections 4.3 and 6.2).
Before climate change emerged as an academic focus in coastal research, vulnerability
as such was not an important concept. Traditional research in coastal zones is conducted
mainly by geologists, ecologists and engineers, roughly as follows:
Geologists study coastal sedimentation patterns and the consequent dynamic processes
of erosion and accretion over different spatial and temporal scales;
Ecologists study the occurrence, diversity and functioning of coastal flora and fauna from
the species to the ecosystem level;
Engineers take a risk-based approach, assessing the probability of occurrence of storm
surges and other extreme events that could jeopardise the integrity of the coast and the
safety of coastal communities.
Thus, the coastal scientific community in general and the IPCC Coastal Zone Management
Subgroup in particular were not hindered by knowledge of existing conceptualisations of vulnerability
when defining coastal vulnerability to climate change and developing a methodology
for its assessment. The approach taken for coastal zones was seen as a model for other
systems within the IPCC and vulnerability to climate change is now generally interpreted and
assessed in this manner.
This approach to vulnerability assessment has been intuitively attractive to the climate
change community, which is strongly model-orientated. Based on scenarios and models of
greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, sectoral models (e.g., hydrological, ecological,
agricultural and disease vector models) can be applied to project potential biophysical impacts,
which can then be evaluated in terms of damage to a country’s or sector’s economy.
The role of adaptation in such assessments is briefly discussed in Section 4.3.
Many in the climate change community were unaware of the long history of vulnerability
assessment in other disciplines, particularly in the fields of food security and natural hazard
reduction. In these fields, vulnerability is also interpreted in terms of potential harm and capacity
to cope, but there is a crucial difference in that the geographical scale of climate
change vulnerability studies is considerably coarser than that of food security and natural
hazard studies. The latter type of studies tend to focus in more depth on particular groups
and communities within a society. In so doing, they take a radically different approach to vulnerability
assessment.
As stated, climate change vulnerability studies typically take model results as an input to
assess potential consequences of climate change on a country, sector or physiographic system.
The resolution of climate and sectoral models and the uncertainty surrounding their
output inhibit meaningful assessments of impacts and adaptation needs at a local level. In
contrast to this somewhat mechanistic top-down approach is the bottom-up approach of vulnerability
analysis in food security and natural hazard studies. This approach is typically
place-based and cognisant of the rich variety of social, cultural, economic, institutional and
other factors that define vulnerability to famine or natural hazards. It does not rely on global
or regional models to inform the analysis; instead the major source of information is the vulnerable
community itself.
It is clear that climate change, food security and natural hazards are related. In some areas
climate change could threaten food security, whilst in many areas the frequency and intensity
of weather-related natural hazards are likely to increase. There is growing recognition
of the fact that many climate change vulnerability studies, whilst useful in alerting policymakers
to the potential consequences of climate change, have limited usefulness in providing
guidance on adaptation at local scales. These studies do not consider the complex nature of
vulnerability reflected in the definition of Downing et al. (1996):
Vulnerability is a complex and multidimensional social space defined by the determinate political, economic
and institutional capabilities of people in specific places at specific times.
In other words, vulnerability is a prior condition, bound up with the social and economic
situation of households and communities, and although external physical factors (such as climate
change) play a role in raising vulnerability, they are not preconditions or sole causes
(Adger and Kelly, 1999).
15

In the climate change community, a process has started to complement the top-down
studies, which consider climate change as the sole driver of vulnerability, with more placebased
studies, which aim to analyse the non-climatic context influencing vulnerability, so as
to integrate the need for adaptation with other, more imminent priorities of vulnerable
communities. Some observations on the role of the international climate community in this
process are presented in the final chapter of this thesis.
4.2. Resilience
The extent to which a coastal system is affected by sea-level rise will strongly depend on its
resilience to changes. Non-climate stresses may already have adversely affected the coastal
system’s resilience and thereby its ability to cope with additional pressures (see Section 2). In
addition, at those places where the coast has been developed and protected by hard infrastructure,
landward migration of coastal ecosystems such as wetlands is obstructed (Bijlsma
et al., 1996).
Coastal resilience is the topic of a later paper in this thesis (Klein et al., 1998). This paper
distinguishes between morphological, ecological and socio-economic resilience and was
part of a special issue of the Geographical Journal devoted entirely to resilience in coastal
zones (Nicholls and Branson, 1998). The aim of this section is to provide a brief overview of
the literature on resilience in other disciplines, focusing in particular on ecosystem resilience
and social resilience. This section is based on Klein et al. (2002).
The Oxford English Dictionary defines resilience as (i) the act of rebounding or springing
back and (ii) elasticity. The origin of the word is in Latin, where resilio means to jump back.
In a purely mechanical sense, the resilience of a material is the quality of being able to store
strain energy and deflect elastically under a load without breaking or being deformed (Gordon,
1978). However, since the 1970s the concept has also been used in a more metaphorical
sense to describe systems that undergo stress and have the ability to recover.
Holling (1973) coins the term resilience for ecosystems as a measure of the ability of
these systems to absorb changes and still persist. As such, it determines the persistence of
relationships within an ecosystem. This is contrasted with stability, which is defined by Holling
(1973) as the ability of a system to return to a state of equilibrium after a temporary disturbance.
Thus, a very stable system would not fluctuate greatly but return to normal quickly,
whilst a highly resilient system may be quite unstable, in that it may undergo significant
fluctuation (Handmer and Dovers, 1996).
Since the seminal work by Holling (1973), resilience has become an issue of intense conceptual
debate amongst ecologists. The literature provides many perspectives and interpretations
of ecological resilience and, in spite of thirty years of debate, there appears to be no
consensus on how the concept can be made operational or even how it should be defined. Alternative
definitions have been provided, focusing on different system properties. For example,
Pimm (1984) defines resilience as the speed with which a system returns to its original
state following a perturbation.
Other ecologists question the core assumption that underpins the concept of resilience,
namely that ecosystems exist in an equilibrium state to which they can return after experiencing
a given level of disturbance. They argue that ecosystems are dynamic and evolve continuously
in response to external influences taking place on a range of different time scales.
Attempts by ecosystem managers at maintaining some equilibrium state will therefore be
bound to fail.
In spite of the relative lack of specificity with which resilience has been defined in ecology
(or perhaps as a result of it), the concept has also gained ground in social science, where
it is applied to describe the behavioural response of communities, institutions and economies.
Timmerman (1981) has been one of the first to discuss the resilience of society to climate
change. In so doing, he links resilience to vulnerability. He defines resilience as the measure
of a system’s or part of a system’s capacity to absorb and recover from the occurrence of a
hazardous event.
Dovers and Handmer (1992) distinguish between the reactive and proactive resilience of
society. A society relying on reactive resilience approaches the future by strengthening the
status quo and making the present system resistant to change, whereas one that develops
proactive resilience accepts the inevitability of change and tries to create a system that is
capable of adapting to new conditions and imperatives. This is an important broadening of
16

the traditional interpretation of resilience, which is based on the premise of resilience being
tested by an initial perturbation. The distinction made by Dovers and Handmer (1992) is
based on the major difference between ecosystems and societies: the human capacity for anticipation
and learning.
Dovers and Handmer (1992) thus link resilience to planning and adaptation to hazards. In
a later paper, they develop a typology of institutional resilience, which provides a framework
for considering the rigidity and inadequacy of present institutional responses to global environmental
change (Handmer and Dovers, 1996). They argue that current institutions and policy
processes appear to be locked in a type of resilience that is characterised by change at
the margins. Responses to environmental change are shaped by what is perceived to be politically
and economically palatable in the near term rather than by the nature and scale of the
threat itself.
This type of resilience, as well as a type that is characterised by resistance to change,
provides some level of stability in society, although there is a potentially large risk that this
apparent stability is not sustainable and could lead to collapse if society cannot make the social,
economic and political changes necessary for survival. The third type of resilience described
by Handmer and Dovers (1996), one that is characterised by openness and adaptation,
is more likely to deal directly with the underlying causes of environmental problems and reduces
vulnerability by providing a high degree of flexibility. Its key feature is a readiness to
adopt new basic operating assumptions and institutional structures. However, there is also a
potentially large risk involved in moving towards this type of resilience. Change deemed as
necessary could turn out to be maladaptive, rendering a large cost to society.
Adger (2000) investigates the links between social resilience and ecological resilience. He
follows Timmerman (1981) in his definition of social resilience: the ability of human communities
to withstand external shocks or perturbations to their infrastructure, such as environmental
variability or social, economic or political upheaval, and to recover from such perturbations.
Social resilience is measured through proxies of institutional change and economic
structure, property rights, access to resources and demographic change (Adger, 1997).
It is argued by many ecologists that resilience is the key to sustainable ecosystem management
and that diversity enhances resilience, stability and ecosystem functioning (e.g.,
Schulze and Mooney, 1993; Peterson et al., 1998; Chapin et al., 2000). Ecological economists
also argue that resilience is the key to sustainability in the wider sense (e.g., Common, 1995).
However, Adger (2000) observes that whilst resilience is certainly related to stability, it is not
clear whether this characteristic is always desirable (cf. Handmer and Dovers, 1996).
This overview of conceptual development of resilience shows that what was once a
straightforward concept used only in mechanics is now a complex multi-interpretable concept
with contested definitions and even relevance. Nonetheless, the concept of resilience is now
used in a great variety of interdisciplinary work concerned with the interactions between
people and nature, including vulnerability and disaster reduction (ISDR, 2002). The most important
development over the past thirty years is the increasing recognition across the disciplines
that human and ecological systems are interlinked and that their resilience relates to
the functioning and interaction of the systems rather than to the stability of their components
or the ability to maintain or return to some equilibrium state.
This recognition has led to the establishment of the Resilience Alliance, a network of
scientists with roots mainly in ecology and ecological economics, which aims to stimulate
academic research on resilience and inform the global policy process on sustainable development
(Folke et al., 2002). The Resilience Alliance consistently refers to social-ecological systems
and defines their resilience by considering three distinct dimensions (Carpenter et al.,
2001):
The amount of disturbance a system can absorb and still remain within the same state or
domain of attraction;
The degree to which the system is capable of self-organisation;
The degree to which the system can build and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation.
This definition is an amalgamation of the aforementioned definitions of ecological, social
and institutional resilience. However, resilience remains at the conceptual level, creating the
17

danger that there is a “motherhood and apple-pie” view on resilience that leaves limited
scope for measurement, testing and formalisation. The challenge remains to transform the
concept of resilience into an operational tool for policy and management purposes (Klein et
al., 2002).
4.3. Adaptation
Like vulnerability, adaptation is a term that was given prominence in the UNFCCC as one of
the two response strategies to climate change, along with mitigation. Mitigation comprises all
human activities aimed at reducing the emissions or enhancing the sinks of greenhouse gases
such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Adaptation in the context of climate
change refers to any adjustment that takes place in natural or human systems in response to
actual or expected impacts of climate change, aimed at moderating harm or exploiting beneficial
opportunities.
Despite the fact that the UNFCCC refers to both mitigation and adaptation, national and
international climate policies to date have mainly focused on mitigation. In part this reflects
the uncertainty about whether climate change is caused by human activity, which existed until
the publication of the IPCC Second Assessment Report in 1996. It also reflects the lack of
theoretical and practical knowledge about adaptation to climate change, which in turn resulted
from the limited attention given to adaptation by the scientific community. In his review
of the IPCC Second Assessment Report, Kates (1997) suggests the reason for this limited
attention lies in the existence of two distinct schools of thought about climate change, both
of which have chosen not to engage in adaptation research.
On the one extreme Kates identifies the “preventionist” school, which argues that the
ongoing increase of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations could be catastrophic and
that drastic action is required to reduce emissions. Preventionists fear that increased emphasis
on adaptation will weaken society’s willingness to reduce emissions and thus delay or diminish
mitigation efforts. On the other extreme one finds what Kates refers to as the “adaptationist”
school, which sees no need to focus on either adaptation or mitigation. Adaptationists
argue that natural and human systems have a long history of adapting naturally to changing
circumstances and that active adaptation would constitute interference with these systems,
bringing with it high social costs.
Following the publication of the IPCC Second Assessment Report, a distinct third school
of thought has emerged, which has been labelled the “realist” school by Klein and MacIver
(1999). The realist school positions itself in between the two extreme views of the preventionists
and adaptationists. Realists regard climate change as a fact but acknowledge that impacts
are still uncertain. Furthermore, realists appreciate that the planning and implementation
of effective adaptation options takes time. Therefore, they understand that a process
must be set in motion to consider adaptation as a crucial and realistic response option along
with mitigation (e.g., Parry et al., 1998; Pielke, 1998).
There are various ways to classify or distinguish between adaptation options. First, depending
on the timing, goal and motive of its implementation, adaptation can be either reactive
or anticipatory. Reactive adaptation occurs after the initial impacts of climate change
have become manifest, whilst anticipatory (or proactive) adaptation takes place before impacts
are apparent. A second distinction can be based on the system in which the adaptation
takes place: the natural system (in which adaptation is by definition reactive) or the human
system (in which both reactive and anticipatory adaptation are observed). Within the human
system, a third distinction can be based on whether the adaptation decision is motivated by
private or public interests. Private decision-makers include both individual households and
commercial companies, whilst public interests are served by governments at all levels. Figure
2 shows examples of adaptation activities for each of the five types of adaptation that have
thus been defined.
In addition to the ones made above, other adaptation distinctions are discussed in a paper
by Smit et al. (2000), which is presented later in this thesis. A useful distinction that is
often made is the one between planned and autonomous adaptation (Carter et al., 1994).
Planned adaptation is the result of a deliberate policy decision that is based on an awareness
that conditions have changed or are about to change and that action is required to return to,
maintain or achieve a desired state. Autonomous adaptation involves the changes that natural
and most human systems will undergo in response to changing conditions, irrespective of any
18

policy plan or decision. Instead, autonomous adaptation will be triggered by market or welfare
changes induced by climate change. Autonomous adaptation in human systems would
therefore be in the actor’s rational self-interest, whilst the focus of planned adaptation is on
collective needs (Leary, 1999). Thus defined, autonomous and planned adaptation largely correspond
with private and public adaptation, respectively (see Figure 2).
Anticipatory
Reactive
Natural
Systems
· Changes in length of growing season
· Changes in ecosystem composition
·Wetland migration
Human
Systems
Private
Public
· Purchase of insurance
· Construction of houses on stilts
·Redesign of oil-rigs
· Early-warning systems
· New building codes, design standards
· Incentives for relocation
·Changes in farm practices
· Changes in insurance premiums
· Purchase of air-conditioning
·Compensatory payments, subsidies
· Enforcement of building codes
· Beach nourishment
Figure 2 — Matrix showing the five prevalent types of adaptation to climate change, including
examples (based on Klein, 1998).
Article 3.3 of the UNFCCC suggests that anticipatory planned adaptation (as well as
mitigation) deserves particular attention from the international climate change community:
“The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimise the causes of climate
change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack
of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account
that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure
global benefits at the lowest possible cost. (...).”
Anticipatory adaptation is aimed at reducing a system’s vulnerability by either minimising
risk or maximising adaptive capacity. Five generic objectives of anticipatory adaptation
can be identified (Klein and Tol, 1997; Klein, 2001):
Increasing robustness of infrastructural designs and long-term investments—for example
by extending the range of temperature or precipitation a system can withstand without
failure and/or changing a system’s tolerance of loss or failure (e.g., by increasing economic
reserves or insurance);
Increasing flexibility of vulnerable managed systems—for example by allowing mid-term
adjustments (including change of activities or location) and/or reducing economic lifetimes
(including increasing depreciation);
Enhancing adaptability of vulnerable natural systems—for example by reducing other
(non-climatic) stresses and/or removing barriers to migration (such as establishing ecocorridors);
Reversing trends that increase vulnerability (“maladaptation”)—for example by introducing
zoning regulation in vulnerable areas such as floodplains and coastal zones;
Improving societal awareness and preparedness—for example by informing the public of
the risks and possible consequences of climate change and/or setting up early-warning
systems.
Each of these five objectives of adaptation is relevant for coastal zones. However, for
coastal zones another classification of adaptation options is often used. This classification, introduced
by IPCC CZMS (1990) and still the basis of many coastal adaptation analyses, distinguishes
between the following three basic strategies:
19

Protect—to reduce the risk of the event by decreasing the probability of its occurrence;
Accommodate—to increase society’s ability to cope with the effects of the event;
Retreat—to reduce the risk of the event by limiting its potential effects.
For each of these strategies Bijlsma et al. (1996) provides a list of different options,
ranging from hard structural options and strict regulation of hazard zones to emergency planning
and managed realignment. Klein and Nicholls (1998) then analyse the process and timing
of their implementation, whilst Klein et al. (2000, 2001) discuss the three strategies in detail
and provide examples of technologies for implementing each of them.
The three coastal adaptation strategies roughly coincide with the first three of the five
adaptation objectives listed above. Protecting coastal zones against sea-level rise and other
climatic changes would involve increasing the robustness of infrastructural designs and longterm
investments such as seawalls and other coastal infrastructure. A strategy to accommodate
sea-level rise could include increasing the flexibility of managed systems such as agriculture,
tourism and human settlements in coastal zones. A retreat strategy would serve to enhance
the adaptability (or resilience) of coastal wetlands, by allowing them space to migrate
to higher land as sea level rises.
Policies and practices that are unrelated to climate but which do increase a system’s vulnerability
to climate change are termed maladaptation (Burton, 1996, 1997). Examples of
maladaptation in coastal zones include investments in hazardous zones, inappropriate
coastal-defence schemes, sand or coral mining and coastal-habitat conversions. A common
cause of maladaptation is a lack of information on the potential external effects of proposed
developments on other sectors, or a lack of consideration thereof. More proactive and integrated
planning and management of coastal zones is widely suggested as an effective mechanism
for strengthening sustainable development (e.g., Cicin-Sain, 1993; Ehler et al., 1997;
Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1998; see Section 5).
Empirical information on coastal adaptation to climate change is still scarce, so uncertainty
remains considerable. Continued impact and adaptation assessment, combined with
fundamental research on coastal system response and economic, institutional, legal and
socio-cultural aspects of adaptation, are required to understand which adaptation options
might be most appropriate and most effectively implemented. The synthesis chapter of this
thesis will propose ways to improve adaptation assessment in coastal zones, based on the
concept of adaptive capacity.
5. Coastal vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to climate change: the
policy and management context
Although the primary goal of the aforementioned vulnerability assessments has been to identify
a country’s coastal vulnerability to climate change and associated sea-level rise, many of
the assessments have shown that climate change is often not the most crucial issue for a
coastal region. This is particularly true in areas where pressures from population growth and
economic development are already creating problems and hazards. Nonetheless, as stated before,
these current pressures may have adversely affected the coastal ecosystem’s resilience
and thereby its ability to cope with additional pressures such as climate change and sea-level
rise. For example, the conversion of coastal wetlands to agricultural land can be at the expense
of the coast’s ability to provide a buffering capacity and thus protect the land against
the dynamics of the sea. As climate changes and sea level rises, this capacity will become
even more important than it is today, preventing coastal areas from being eroded and inundated.
This illustrates that when current coastal pressures are not adequately dealt with in
the short term, coastal zones will become increasingly more vulnerable to the consequences
of climate change and sea-level rise (WCC’93, 1994).
In spite of many local and national efforts, traditional approaches to the management
and use of coastal resources have often proved to be insufficient to achieve sustainable development
(Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1998). As a result, coastal resources are being degraded
and lost in many parts of the world. Some policy process is needed that can address the resource-use
conflicts discussed in Section 2, as well as find the balance between short-term
economic and longer-term environmental interests. In other words, a process is needed to
20

implement decisions on the mix of uses that best serves the needs of society now and in the
future.
Integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) has been widely recognised and promoted as
the most appropriate process to deal with these current and long-term coastal challenges. According
to WCC’93 (1994), Ehler et al. (1997) and Cicin-Sain and Knecht (1998), ICZM provides
coastal societies with an opportunity to move towards sustainable development. Integrated
management of conflicting uses and activities is essential for this goal. Moreover, ICZM allows
current and future interests in coastal areas and resources to be taken into account. By considering
short, medium and long-term interests, ICZM stimulates economic development of
coastal areas and resources, whilst reducing the degradation of their natural systems. Third,
ICZM provides a framework within which flexible responses can be developed to deal with the
inherent uncertainty about the future, including rates and magnitude of climate change. In
short, ICZM can provide coastal states with a process to enhance economic development and
improve the quality of life (WCC’93, 1994).
At the World Coast Conference, ICZM was defined as follows:
Integrated coastal zone management involves the comprehensive assessment, setting of objectives, planning
and management of coastal systems and resources, taking into account traditional, cultural and historical
perspectives and conflicting interests and uses; it is a continuous and evolutionary process for
achieving sustainable development.
The purpose of ICZM is to provide the conditions that will facilitate development, stimulate
progress and encourage (changes in) human and institutional behaviour in order to
achieve shared goals. In general, these goals are specified targets related to the desired mix
of goods, services and values to be produced, consumed or conserved. ICZM must anticipate
and respond to the needs of coastal communities; public participation and stakeholder involvement
in the planning and implementation of ICZM are therefore essential.
To be successful, ICZM should include the following (Bijlsma et al., 1996):
Integration of programmes and plans for economic development, environmental management
and land use;
Integration of programmes for economic sectors, such as agriculture, fisheries, energy,
transportation, water resources, waste disposal and tourism;
Integration of responsibilities for various tasks of management amongst levels of government
(local, state/provincial, national and regional), as well as between the public and
private sector;
Integration of available resources for management (personnel, funds, materials and
equipment);
Integration amongst scientific disciplines, such as ecology, geomorphology, hydrology,
economics, engineering, political science, behavioural science and law.
Although integration in management requires more extensive analysis, preparation and
planning than is common in sectoral management, the overall costs of ICZM can ultimately be
lower than the cumulative costs of separate sectoral approaches. In addition, taking a proactive,
or precautionary, approach to ICZM (i.e., acting before irreversible damage is realised)
can provide not only environmental but also economic benefits (Vellinga and Leatherman,
1989; Tol et al., 1995).
This chapter has shown that adaptation to climate change cannot be separated from the
planning and management efforts to address present-day problems in coastal areas. Carefully
harmonising the different sectoral development options and needs is a first step in an evolutionary
process towards sustainable development in coastal zones. Sustainable development
has, by definition, an extended time horizon. Long-term thinking, as encouraged by the consideration
of climate change, is therefore a key component of ICZM and can be economically
feasible (Tol et al., 1995).
However, it is important to note that there is no single recipe for successful ICZM. Every
coastal zone faces different challenges, which require unique approaches to management.
Whereas one can identify basic steps in ICZM (problem recognition, analysis and planning, implementation
of measures, operation and maintenance and monitoring and evaluation of the
effectiveness of the measures), the most appropriate management approach will depend to a
21

large extent on cultural, political, economic and historical conditions, and will therefore vary
between and within countries.
An important difference between sectoral and integrated coastal zone management is
the interaction and collaboration between different stakeholders so as to ensure the careful
consideration of both public and private interests. The next two sections provide a brief overview
of public and private sector responsibilities in ICZM, with a particular focus on adaptation
to climate change.
5.1. Public initiatives and responsibilities
The public sector represents governments from the local to the national level, as well as international
institutional organisations. The public sector is typically concerned with meeting
collective needs and safeguarding collective interests (such as health, safety and biodiversity),
as well as facilitating private sector activities within a regulatory, fiscal and planning
framework designed to prevent or minimise social costs. In addition, the public sector can initiate
activities aimed at awareness raising, capacity building and technology transfer (Klein et
al., 2001).
Many ecosystem goods and services listed in Table 1 are so-called commons: they are
available at no cost to anyone who wants to use them. The fact that they do not have a market
price does not mean they do not have a value (see Section 2.3.3). However, this value is
often only appreciated once the ecosystem good or service has been overexploited and lost.
The increasing concentration of people and activities in coastal zones has increased the potential
for multiple-use conflicts, as the activities of one stakeholder impinge on the interests
or activities of another stakeholder.
As stated in Section 2.1, coastal zone management is traditionally considered as a process
to handle conflicts between the various (potential) users of increasingly scarce coastal resources
and to address current problems that result from stakeholders pursuing their own sectoral
interests. As such, coastal zone management has focused strongly on conflicts stemming
from the multiple uses of resources provided by user and production functions. The United
States Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 was one of the first public sector initiatives
worldwide to co-ordinate sectoral activities in coastal zones. An important component of the
act is an agreement between federal and state governments, whereby the federal government
offers financial and technical assistance to states. States can choose to develop and implement
coastal zone management programmes, but they must adhere to minimum federal
standards on protecting coastal resources, ensuring public access to the coast, managing development
along the coast and managing coastal hazards (Kay and Alder, 1999).
As pressures on coasts continued to increase, the need for ICZM was recognised more
widely, not only at a national level but internationally as well. In the 1980s and 1990s, a
range of international organisations promoted the development of ICZM, including UNEP, the
World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). At the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, the management of coastal zones featured
prominently in the conference’s main product, Agenda 21. Chapter 17 of Agenda 21 stresses
both the importance of oceans and coasts for life on earth and the positive opportunity for
sustainable development represented by oceans and coastal zones. It states that new approaches
to marine and coastal management are needed; approaches that are integrated in
content and precautionary and anticipatory in ambit. Implementation of the recommendations
in Chapter 17 involves a multitude of actors, ranging from local grassroots organisations
to global institutions and everything in between (Cicin-Sain et al., 1995).
Another major product of UNCED was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (see Section 4.1). In Article 4.1(e), Parties to the UNFCCC commit themselves to
develop and elaborate appropriate and integrated plans for coastal zone management in a
process of preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change. This commitment has
added a new dimension to ICZM. Whereas traditional ICZM focused on coastal development
pressures, multiple-use conflicts and resource degradation, ICZM now includes a long-term
sustainability component.
The World Coast Conference, held in November 1993 in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, was
held in response to Chapter 17 of Agenda 21 and Article 4.1(e) of the UNFCCC. The conference
brought together experts, decision-makers and representatives of non-governmental or-
22

ganisations to consider the relevance of coastal vulnerability to climate change to coastal
zone management. Two of its objectives were to provide an opportunity for coastal countries
to exchange information and experiences in assessing vulnerability to climate change and in
developing coastal zone management plans and to contribute to the development of common
concepts, techniques and tools for these two activities. The conference succeeded in building
awareness of the importance of ICZM in reducing coastal vulnerability to climate change and
the opportunities it presents (e.g., Bijlsma et al., 1996). One remaining challenge, however,
is to translate the words of global initiatives into local action (see also the synthesis chapter
of this thesis).
5.2. Private initiatives and responsibilities
Private-sector interests in coastal zones are very diverse and include agriculture, fisheries,
transportation, mining, manufacturing and tourism. In addition, space is required for human
habitation and nature conservation. Private decision-makers include both individual households
and commercial companies. Their actions are triggered by market or welfare changes
and are aimed at maximising their profit or utility (an economic concept referring to the degree
of personal satisfaction an individual derives from consuming some quantity of a good or
service at a particular point in time). Different companies and individuals have different objectives
and attitudes to the use of coastal resources, which may lead to conflicts.
As stated before, ICZM is primarily a mechanism to avoid such multiple-use conflicts between
sectoral stakeholders. Whilst the responsibility for initiating an ICZM programme lies
with the public sector, success depends largely on the will and motivation of the private sector
to adopt the objectives and principles of the programme. Therefore, from the moment
the initiative towards developing an ICZM programme is taken, a continuous dialogue with
private sector stakeholders is essential as part of an iterative process aimed at incorporating
stakeholders’ concerns and developing broad understanding and support for the needs, means
and ends of the programme.
The private sector tends to have a relatively short planning horizon, which is not conducive
to considering potential effects of climate change on its activities. Therefore, the public
sector has the strongest and most direct incentives to adapt to climate change, although sealevel
rise and its impacts can be a direct threat to the profitability of particularly the tourist
sector and ports and harbours. Nonetheless, the private sector typically does not take the initiative
for coastal adaptation to climate change, because benefits are small or uncertain, and
action is expected from the government to protect private sector interests (Klein et al.,
2001). In developing countries, the private sector is generally a less significant economic
force; so again, governments are expected to lead the way in coastal adaptation. However, in
government-initiated coastal adaptation, the private sector is often involved in the planning,
design and implementation of adaptation measures.
Potentially successful public-private partnerships for ICZM are being developed particularly
at a local level. For example, in the KERN region in Schleswig-Holstein in Germany (Kiel,
Eckernförde, Rendsburg and Neumünster), local and district government, the chamber of
commerce and academic institutes are working together to implement an ICZM programme
that aims to strike a balance between economic and ecological interests. The programme
does not yet have statutory powers, but the progress made so far is evidence that the process
of consensus building does not require a formal institutional framework. A challenge for the
next few years will be to translate the consensus into action.
6. Scope, methodology and structure of the thesis
As explained in the introduction to this chapter, the work presented in this PhD thesis has not
been carried out within a single, well-defined project. It combines and integrates results of a
number of different studies commissioned and funded by a range of organisations. Using a
consistent and academically sound analytical framework to design these different studies and
present their results was usually not the clients’ most important objective. Nonetheless, the
thesis presents a consistent approach to increasing the understanding of the three key concepts
of vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to climate change. This section introduces
23

the central question underpinning the work presented in this thesis and discusses the methodology
pursued towards answering this question. It then introduces the six papers and the
synthesis chapter that constitute the remainder of the thesis. Finally, this section indicates
the parts of the multi-authored papers for which the PhD candidate is responsible.
6.1. Problem definition and methodology
The earlier parts of this chapter showed that coastal zones provide many goods and services
crucial to human well-being. The economic opportunities offered by these goods and services
have attracted many people and investments to the coast, leading to the unsustainable use
and unrestricted development of coastal resources. Many coastal areas have been so heavily
modified and intensively developed that their natural resilience to the effects of climate
change has been significantly reduced.
The importance of coastal resources to human society and the risk to which they may be
exposed from climate change have triggered studies to assess the vulnerability of coastal
zones to climate change. One of the aims of these studies has been to advise coastal planners
and managers on the need and opportunity to implement adaptation options to reduce potential
impacts. Results of these studies were presented in Section 3.2.
It can be argued that whilst these studies have raised awareness of the potential impacts
of climate change on coastal zones and thus contributed to the international climate policy
process, their usefulness for adaptation has been limited, especially in developing countries.
Reasons for this limited usefulness include:
Limited availability of relevant natural and socio-economic data;
A bias of study teams towards the natural sciences;
A lack of methodological guidance on adaptation assessment;
A mismatch between the scale of the vulnerability assessment and the scale at which adaptation
options are implemented;
A mismatch between the institutions involved in vulnerability assessment and those responsible
for facilitating and implementing adaptation options.
At the root of these five reasons lies a general lack of understanding of what adaptation is
and how it could help to reduce vulnerability to climate change. Until recently, opportunities
to learn from experience gained in natural hazard reduction and natural resource management,
which have a tradition of adapting to climate variability, were not recognised.
The work that is the basis for this PhD thesis has aimed at contributing to improved
assessments of coastal vulnerability to climate change by developing a stronger conceptual
and methodological basis for understanding the process of adaptation. It is a first step in an
effort to ensure greater policy relevance of vulnerability assessments, as well as to improve
the academic rigour and validity of assessments.
Most of the work presented in this thesis is of a conceptual nature, using literature and
case studies to develop new insights and ideas. Rather than applying a particular existing
methodology based on data collection and empirical analysis, this PhD thesis provides the
building blocks of a new methodology, which is yet to be applied and tested (see also the final
chapter of this thesis).
6.2. Structure of the thesis
In hindsight, the coastal chapter of the UNEP Handbook on Methods for Climate Change Impact
Assessment and Adaptation Strategies (Klein and Nicholls, 1998) was the starting point
for the conceptual and analytical thinking on coastal vulnerability to climate change. The paper
by Klein and Nicholls (1999) provides the theoretical underpinning of this UNEP chapter,
along with a framework for vulnerability assessment. This paper is the first of six peer-reviewed
academic papers that form the core of this thesis and can be seen as setting out the
conceptual challenges explored in subsequent work.
The second paper in this thesis (Klein et al., 1998) focuses on coastal resilience. It was a
by-product of a study aimed at defining and making operational the concept of resilience for
Dutch coastal management in the light of climate change and sea-level rise. This study was
24

conducted with Delft Hydraulics for the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water
Management. In distinguishing between morphological, ecological and socio-economic resilience,
the paper shows the importance of taking an interdisciplinary approach to assessing
coastal vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to climate change.
The third paper (Klein and Bateman, 1998) presents the only empirical work in this thesis.
It is an environmental economic analysis of the value of recreation in a coastal freshwater
nature reserve in North Norfolk, United Kingdom. The Norfolk Wildlife Trust used the results
to argue against a recommendation in the Shoreline Management Plan for North Norfolk,
which was to adapt to sea-level rise by implementing a policy of managed retreat. Such a
policy would most likely lead to the disappearance of the nature reserve. The Norfolk Wildlife
Trust encouraged the inclusion of the results of the environmental economic analysis in the
cost-benefit analysis on which the recommendation for managed retreat was based.
The fourth paper (Smit et al., 2000) is the only paper in this thesis that does not have a
coastal focus. This paper was prepared to provide structure to the then emerging academic
and policy debate on the desirability, feasibility and “assessability” of adaptation to climate
change. Many of the concepts introduced in this paper, including the need to consider natural
climate variability as well as human-induced climate change when defining needs and opportunities
for adaptation, have been adopted in the IPCC Third Assessment Report.
The process of adaptation and an approach to its assessment are analysed more closely in
the fifth paper in this thesis (Klein et al., 1999). This paper presents coastal management experiences
from The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Japan, which show that adaptation
to natural variability and anticipated change is an iterative, cyclical process. Elements in this
cycle are information collection and awareness raising, planning and design, implementation,
and monitoring and evaluation. The paper argues that the failure to consider all four steps in
adaptation assessments has constrained the development of adaptation strategies that are
supported by the relevant actors and integrated into existing management. It introduces the
term “adaptive capacity”, which has become a central focus for linking adaptation with development
priorities.
The final paper (Klein et al., 2001) uses the framework developed by Klein et al. (1999)
to provide a detailed overview of the types of technologies that are available to plan, facilitate
and implement adaptation in coastal zones. It is based on the coastal adaptation chapter
of the IPCC Special Report on Methodological and Technological Issues in Technology Transfer
(Klein et al., 2000). This paper again links climate change with climate variability and emphasises
the importance of building capacity for technology transfer in developing countries.
The concluding chapter of this thesis presents a synthesis of the six papers in the light of
recent initiatives that build on the conceptual work on vulnerability, resilience and adaptation.
It discusses in more detail than the preceding papers the need for adaptation in developing
countries and the subsequent importance of integrating adaptation policy with development
activities. The chapter outlines a number of possible next steps than can be taken to
advance the academic understanding of vulnerability, resilience and adaptation whilst increasing
the adaptive capacity of developing countries.
6.3. Contribution to the papers
The times when great minds could work in isolation on challenging research questions and
produce meaningful results are long gone. No academic work of quality is possible without extensive
collaboration with other scientists. This is particularly the case for interdisciplinary
research, which explains why all the following six papers are multi-authored. To enable the
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel to verify whether this PhD thesis contains sufficient
material of quality by the PhD candidate himself, Table 5 gives an overview of his contributions
to each of the papers.
25

Paper
Klein and Nicholls (1999)
Klein et al. (1998)
Klein and Bateman (1998)
Smit et al. (2000)
Klein et al. (1999)
Klein et al. (2001)
Contributions by R.J.T. Klein
This paper was written by Klein, based on the UNEP chapter by Klein and Nicholls
(1998). For the UNEP chapter Klein developed the conceptual idea and did most of the
writing. Nicholls contributed sections on coastal morphodynamic processes, wetlands
and aerial videography-assisted vulnerability assessment.
This paper was written by Klein, based partly on contributions from Smit, Goosen and
Hulsbergen during a workshop.
This award-winning paper was written by Klein, based on his own survey and statistical
analyses. Bateman helped to develop the survey methodology and interpret the results
of the statistical analyses.
This paper was written mainly by Smit, based partly on text inputs from Burton and
Klein and a literature survey by Wandel. Klein contributed to various parts of the paper,
particularly to the typology of adaptation.
This paper was written mainly by Klein. Nicholls and Mimura contributed the UK and
Japanese case studies.
This paper was written by Klein, based on the IPCC chapter by Klein et al. (2000). Klein
was the co-ordinating lead author of the IPCC chapter, which benefited from text inputs
from the other authors.
Table 5 — Respective contributions by the PhD candidate to the six published papers in this
thesis.
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