Coastal vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to ... - OceanDocs

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
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