About the project
Coastal flooding hazard will be increasing over the next century driven by unavoidable sea level rise and other climate change impacts. Since we cannot eliminate the risk of all marine hazards on coastal communities, many coastal management strategies are shifting towards adaptive solutions.
Understanding the relationships between people and nature is a key component of sustainable management and climate adaptation. However, lack of knowledge about the diversity of risk perceptions within and across communities, and limited understanding of climate-related coastal flooding risk, coastal change, and the need for adaptation, are limiting the effectiveness of coastal management strategies.
This project will gain new insight into the relationship between coastal communities and coastal adaptation by addressing the following questions:
- How and why do local perceptions of coastal hazards and risks vary within and between communities?
- How do community perceptions of risk compare with evidence from state-of-the-art coastal numerical modelling?
- What are the implications for adaptive capacity and engagement with local communities at various scales?
Outcomes from the project will include new evidence to support more effective communication between coastal managers and local communities and to help foster a widespread culture of engagement within coastal management.
The project will draw upon national scale modelling, the UK national survey on ocean literacy, and focus on communities from England’s south coast.
You will liaise with project partners and practitioners to choose appropriate cases. Case studies may include analysis on local practitioner engagement approaches to understand communication pathways with communities, and household surveys to assess risk perceptions, their drivers, and impacts on adaptive capacities.
You will adopt mixed methods to develop assessments of community perceptions of coastal change and risks, including drawing on the UK’s ocean literacy survey questions. There may be scope for workshops nationally to compare local results to the wider UK context and explore opportunities for co-developing adaptive pathways for the case study communities.
Please contact the lead supervisor if you require further information about the project.
