Opening up the coast

Abstract

Coastal zones attract human settlement, business and industry, and are instrumental to the functioning of societies both in coastal states and the wider global community. However, the oceans and coasts are under growing pressure as human practices change, populations rise and climate change impacts increase. In managing coastal regions, high quality data forms the basis of rational decision-making. Large volumes of 'triple bottom line' data exists representing a wide variety of environmental, social, and economic themes in coastal regions. Such data is especially crucial to development of environmental risk evaluations for the coast. The momentum driving the Open Source data movement across the world is accelerating and consequently, huge quantities of data are becoming freely available to the public. This presents a valuable opportunity for coastal managers, policy makers and land planners, who need to evaluate the full implications of their choices. Decision-makers frequently need to draw on many disparate datasets. However, this can be complicated by many factors, including a lack of awareness of the full range of datasets available. This paper seeks to explore this area, taking the UK as an example, to reveal how currently available open data sources relate to coastal management decision-making. Environmental risk management is a cross-cutting theme, relevant to all areas of coastal management. As such, this topic is discussed and addressed within a case study focusing on the vulnerable coastal region of East Anglia. In collation and analysis of coastal data Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can play an important role, in line with this GIS approaches were utilised within the case study. The case study led to development of a conceptual framework which can be applied to future coastal risk assessments, using Open Source data. The UK is currently at the forefront of the Open Source data movement and as such it is used as an example within this paper, however the issues addressed have international relevance, and the UK perspective is used to illustrate wider opportunities, resulting from freely available data sources, extending to management of coastal regions globally.

Implementation of Blockchain Technology in Insurance Contracts Against Natural Hazards: A Methodological Multi-Disciplinary Approach

“…Insurance dynamics have a focal role in human progress and efforts to predict, mitigate, and adapt to natural disasters [19]. Effective insurance can be a tool to spread the communication of risk related to a certain geographical location.…”

“…One example is flood insurance, which can be related to land planning, investments in adaptation, and coverage for some of the most vulnerable assets. [17] [18] in relation to weather/climate change (most evident for non-insured losses) [19], [20] more accurate risk evaluations need an enormous amount of data to be processed from different types of dimensions (e.g. environmental, geological, weather, insurance-specific, engineering, legal, socio-economic).…”

The application of data innovations to geomorphological impact analyses in coastal areas: An East Anglia, UK, case study

“…Lidar : 2008, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 Thorpness Defences crumbling, public hazard. Lidar: 2008, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 As with other similar contemporary studies, this study is made possible due to the extensive quantities of available open source 5 coastal datasets (Rumson and Hallett, 2018): bathymetric data was obtained from the UKHO 6 ; Lidar, TLS and limited bathymetry was obtained from the EA 7 ; and, TLS data was provided by BGS. From the large quantity of seabed data for the region obtained from the UKHO, only two locations had repeat bathymetry data available for multiple epochs in areas sufficiently close to the coastline to warrant inclusion in the subsequent analysis.…”

Tools and Methods for Supporting Regional Decision-Making in Relation to Climate Risks

“…Eight of the articles dealt with flooding and coastal risks (e.g. flooding, storms and erosion) and their effect on infrastructure and land use [24,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Two of the articles also considered other events such as heat wave, drought, wildfire and windstorm.…”

“…All of the methods supported strategic, infrastructure or land use decision-making. However, three of the articles were also intended for operational decision-making support (0-5 years) [38,39,43].…”