Abstract
The state of progress towards climate adaptation is currently unclear. Here we apply a structured expert judgement to assess multiple dimensions shaping adaptation (equally weighted): risk knowledge, planning, action, capacities, evidence on risk reduction, long-term pathway strategies. We apply this approach to 61 local coastal case studies clustered into four urban and rural archetypes to develop a locally informed perspective on the state of global coastal adaptation. We show with medium confidence that today’s global coastal adaptation is halfway to the full adaptation potential. Urban archetypes generally score higher than rural ones (with a wide spread of local situations), adaptation efforts are unbalanced across the assessment dimensions and strategizing for long-term pathways remains limited. The results provide a multi-dimensional and locally grounded assessment of global coastal adaptation and lay new foundations for international climate negotiations by showing that there is room to refine global adaptation targets and identify priorities transcending development levels.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
All data and calculations are presented in Supplementary Data 1.
References
Adaptation Committee Approaches to Reviewing the Overall Progress Made in Achieving the Global Goal on Adaptation. Technical paper of the UNFCCC Adaptation Committee, AC20/TP/5A (UNFCC, 2021); https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/ac20_5a_gga_tp.pdf
IPCC Summary for Policymakers. In Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (eds Pörtner, H.-O. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022).
Adaptation Gap Report 2022. Too Little, Too Slow: Climate Adaptation Failure Puts World at Risk. (UNEP, 2022); https://www.unep.org/resources/adaptation-gap-report-2022
Gao, J. & Christiansen, L. (eds) Perspectives: Adequacy and Effectiveness of Adaptation in the Global Stocktake (UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre, 2023); https://unepccc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/perspectives-adequacy-and-effectiveness-of-adaptation-in-the-global-stocktake-web.pdf
Magnan, A. K. et al. Estimating the global risk of anthropogenic climate change? Nat. Clim. Change 10, 879–885 (2021).
Magnan, A. K. et al. Frontiers in climate change adaptation science: advancing guidelines to design adaptation pathways. Curr. Clim. Change Rep. 6, 166–177 (2020).
Owen, G. What makes climate change adaptation effective? A systematic review of the literature. Glob. Environ. Change 62, 102071 (2020).
Singh, C. et al. Interrogating ‘effectiveness’ in climate change adaptation: 11 guiding principles for adaptation research and practice. Clim. Dev. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.1964937 (2021).
New, M. et al. in Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (eds Pörtner, H.-O. et al.) Ch. 17 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022); https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter17.pdf
Thomas, A. et al. Global evidence of constraints and limits to human adaptation. Reg. Environ. Change 21, 85 (2021).
O’Neill, B. C. et al. in Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (eds Pörtner, H.-O. et al.) Ch. 16 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022); https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter16.pdf
Haasnoot, M. et al. Pathways to coastal retreat. Science 372, 1287–1290 (2021).
Eriksen, S. et al. Adaptation interventions and their effect on vulnerability in developing countries: help, hindrance or irrelevance. World Dev. 141, 105383 (2021).
Schipper, E. L. F. Maladaptation: when adaptation to climate change goes very wrong. One Earth 3, 409–414 (2020).
Reckien, D. et al. Navigating the continuum between adaptation and maladaptation. Nat. Clim. Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01774-6 (2023).
Berrang-Ford, L., the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative. A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change. Nat. Clim. Change 11, 989–1000 (2021).
Lesnikowski, A. C. et al. How are we adapting to climate change? A global assessment. Mitigation Adapt. Strategies Glob. Change 20, 277–293 (2015).
Jenkins, K. et al. Identifying adaptation ‘on the ground’: development of a UK adaptation Inventory. Clim. Risk Manage. 36, 100430 (2022).
Ford, J. D. et al. How to track adaptation to climate change: a typology of approaches for national-level application. Ecol. Soc. 18, 40 (2013).
Olazabal, M. et al. A cross-scale worldwide analysis of coastal adaptation planning. Environ. Res. Lett. 14, 124056 (2019).
Tilleard, S. & Ford, J. Adaptation readiness and adaptive capacity of transboundary river basins. Climatic Change 137, 575–591 (2016).
Berrang-Ford, L. et al. Tracking global climate change adaptation among governments. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 440–449 (2019).
Progress in Preparing for Climate Change: 2019 Report to Parliament (UK CCC, 2019); https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/progress-in-preparing-for-climate-change-2019-progress-report-to-parliament/
Hallegatte, S. et al. Adaptation Principles: A Guide for Designing Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience (World Bank, 2020); https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34780
Rozenberg, J. et al. 360° Resilience: A Guide to Prepare the Caribbean for a New Generation of Shocks (World Bank, 2021); https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/36405
The City Resilience Index (Arup, 2023); https://www.arup.com/perspectives/publications/research/section/city-resilience-index
Neumann, B. et al. Future coastal population growth and exposure to sea level rise and coastal flooding—a global assessment. PLoS ONE 10, e0118571 (2015).
Kummu, M. et al. The world’s road to water scarcity: shortage and stress in the 20th century and pathways towards sustainability. Sci. Rep. 6, 38495 (2016).
Haasnoot, M. et al. Long-term sea-level rise necessitates a commitment to adaptation: a first order assessment. Clim. Risk Manage. 34, 100355 (2021).
Hinkel, J. et al. Coastal flood damage and adaptation costs under 21st century sea-level rise. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 3292–3297 (2014).
Tiggeloven, T. et al. Global-scale benefit–cost analysis of coastal flood adaptation to different flood risk drivers using structural measures. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 20, 1025–1044 (2020).
Morgan, G. Use (and abuse) of expert elicitation in support of decision making for public policy. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 7176–7184 (2014).
Mach, K. J. et al. Unleashing expert judgment in assessment. Glob. Environ. Change 44, 1–14 (2017).
Majszak, M. & Jebeile, J. Expert judgment in climate science: how it is used and how it can be justified. Stud. Hist. Philos. Sci. 100, 32–38 (2023).
Beauchamp, E. & del Pilar Bueno, M. Global Stocktake: Three Priorities to Drive Adaptation Action (IIED, 2021); https://pubs.iied.org/20601iied
Reckien, D. et al. Quality of urban climate adaptation plans over time. npj Urban Sustain. 3, 13 (2023).
Kareem, B. et al. Pathways for resilience to climate change in African cities. Environ. Res. Lett. 15, 073002 (2020).
Nicholls, R. J. et al. Integrating new sea-level scenarios into coastal risk and adaptation assessments: an ongoing process. WIREs Clim. Change 12, 3 (2021).
Oppenheimer, M. et al. in IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (eds Pörtner, H.-O. et al.) 321–445 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2019); https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/5D756335C9C3A6DDFAE0219073349E8D/9781009157971c4_321-446.pdf/sea_level_rise_and_implications_for_lowlying_islands_coasts_and_communities.pdf
Magnan, A. K. et al. Sea-level rise risks and societal adaptation benefits in low-lying coastal areas. Sci. Rep. 12, 10677 (2022).
Duvat, V. K. E. et al. Risk to future atoll habitability from climate-driven environmental changes. WIREs Clim. Change 12, e700 (2021).
Araos, M. et al. Climate change adaptation planning in large cities: a systematic global assessment. Environ. Sci. Policy 66, 375–382 (2016).
Olazabal, M. et al. Are local climate adaptation policies credible? A conceptual and operational assessment framework. Int. J. Urban Sustain. Dev. 11, 277–296 (2019).
March, J. G. & Simon, H. A. Organizations 2nd edn (Wiley–Blackwell, 1993).
Budescu, D. V., Por, H.-H. & Broomell, S. B. Effective communication of uncertainty in the IPCC reports. Climatic Change 113, 181–200 (2012).
Garschagen, M. et al. Global patterns of disaster and climate risk—an analysis of the consistency of leading index-based assessments and their results. Climatic Change 169, 11 (2021).
Lam, V. & Majszak, M. M. Climate tipping points and expert judgment. WIREs Clim. Change https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.805 (2022).
Zommers, Z. et al. Burning embers: towards more transparent and robust climate change risk assessments. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 1, 516–529 (2020).
Magnan, A. K. & Ribera, T. Global adaptation after Paris. Science 352, 1280–1282 (2016).
Pulkkinen, K. et al. The value of values in climate science. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 4–6 (2022).
Haasnoot, M. et al. Generic adaptation pathways for coastal archetypes under uncertain sea-level rise. Environ. Res. Commun. 1, 071006 (2019).
Glavovic, B. C. et al. Cross-chapter paper 2: Cities and Settlements by the Sea. In Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (eds Pörtner, H.-O. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022); https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_CCP2.pdf
Acknowledgements
We thank the French Development Agency (AFD) and the French Energy Agency (Ademe) for its support to the GAP-Track project. A.K.M. received funding from the ‘Investissements d’avenir’ programme supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR; grant ANR-10-LABX-14-01). V.K.E.D. and A.K.M. received funding from the French National Research Agency (STORISK projects, grant ANR- 15-CE03-0003, and FUTURISKS project, grant ANR-22-POCE-0002). I.J.L. acknowledges financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (COASTALfutures project, grant PID2021-126506OB-100, funding from MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER UE). R.B. acknowledges additional support from the NZ Future Coast Aotearoa Programme (C01X2107). We also thank the local and national public authorities of most of the case studies for logistical support and information provision.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
A.K.M. conceptualized the study. All authors contributed to data collection, writing and editing. A.K.M. developed all the figures.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Climate Change thanks Bruce Glavovic, Tracy Rouleau and Timothy Tiggeloven for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Section 1: general scoping material (what is considered in terms of adaptation, coastal hazards and so on); section 7: the full methodological protocol (can be used as a guidance document); section 8: a description of the case-study sample; section 9: some complementary results; section 10: the case-study-level score justifications and section 11: the references used in the Supplementary Information.
Supplementary Data 1
Sheet 2: the assessment grid; sheet 3: the number of case studies per archetype and region; sheets 4a–e: synthesis tables (median scores) for archetypes, regions, the global scale and case studies; sheets 5a–d: the assessment datasets (original data) for each of the four coastal archetypes; sheets 6a–d: the aggregated scores at the case-study level (general categorization, ordering per archetype and per region) and the assessment of the adaptation gap.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Magnan, A.K., Bell, R., Duvat, V.K.E. et al. Status of global coastal adaptation. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 1213–1221 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01834-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01834-x
