Re-Building Coastal Cities: Urban Systematics of 20 Tactics for Sea-Level Rise

Abstract

Current urban adaptation methods to Sea-level rise (SLR) derive mostly from technical- and economic-driven risk-management. It does not consider opportunities created by the complexity of cities which include social, productive, cultural, and ecological components. This chapter explores this research gap by reflecting known adaptation methods onto individual urban components. It focuses on the creation of opportunities resulting in a systematics that provides 20 urban adaptation tactics. These different tactics can be either applied individually or combined to strategies to achieve made-to-measure solutions. Compared to current adaptation methods, the tactics are expected to enable solutions which are more adaptable to specific challenges and locations. Thereby the tactics provide the additional potential to offset expenditures of SLR and to be more city, citizen, and environmentally friendly.