NESP MaC Project 1.10 - A national inventory of implemented nature-based solutions to mitigate coastal hazards

Research Project

Researchers: Swearer, Stephen (Principal investigator) ,  Swearer, Stephen (Principal investigator) ,  Emma Flukes (Point of contact) ,  Emma Flukes (Point of contact)

Brief description This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub small-scale study - "A national inventory of implemented nature-based solutions to mitigate coastal hazards". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata. -------------------- Climate change and continued population growth are accelerating the need for diverse solutions to coastal protection. Traditionally shorelines are armoured with conventional “hard” or “grey” engineering structures, which are non-adaptive and come with significant economic, environmental and social costs. While hard structures will continue to have a place in coastal protection, alternative methods that are more sustainable and climate-resilient should be more broadly adopted into the future where appropriate. Nature-based methods (through “soft” or “hybrid” techniques) have the potential to play important roles in climate adaptation and mitigation because of their ability to reduce the threats of coastal erosion and flooding and provide co-benefits such as carbon sequestration. One reason that nature-based methods have been underutilised in Australia is that decision-makers need clearer guidelines for when a soft, hybrid or hard coastal defence approach is most appropriate. This resulted in the recently published foundational guide (led by Morris and Swearer and delivered under ESCC Hub Project 5.9: Natural habitats for coastal protection and carbon sequestration) to inform the national use of nature-based methods for coastal hazard risk reduction. In the process of producing these guidelines, the lack of a national inventory of coastal protection projects already using nature-based methods was identified by end-users as a priority to enable their wider adoption as an adaptation strategy in Australia. This project generates an online inventory of all current and planned on-ground actions by coastal land managers that have implemented a nature-based solution (NBS) to mitigate coastal hazards. The resulting inventory is the first step in identifying best practice, which will inform the future development of detailed technical design guidelines for implementing different nature-based methods in Australia. Planned Outputs • A national inventory of existing implemented nature-based solutions to mitigate coastal hazards [spatial dataset] • Final technical report with analysed data, including a short summary of recommendations for policy makers of key findings [written]

Lineage Maintenance and Update Frequency: asNeeded

Notes Credit
Stephen Swearer (University of Melbourne), Rebecca Morris (University of Melbourne), Nathan Waltham (James Cook University), Catherine Lovelock (University of Queensland), Megan Saunders (CSIRO), Mel Bishop (Macquarie University)

Notes Credit
National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub

Notes Credit
Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE), Australian Government

Notes Credit
In addition to NESP (DAWE) funding, this project is matched by an equivalent amount of in-kind support and co-investment from project partners and collaborators.

Notes Purpose
To contribute to the development of innovative solutions to the protection and reinstatement of natural coastal defences.

Data time period: 2021-09-01 to 2022-03-31

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