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GM8.2 | Long-term effectiveness of nature-based coastal solutions: successes, failures, and future uncertainties
Long-term effectiveness of nature-based coastal solutions: successes, failures, and future uncertainties
Convener: Avidesh SeenathECSECS | Co-conveners: Deborah Villarroel-Lamb, Scott Mark Romeo Mahadeo
Nature-based coastal solutions (NBCS) are gaining increasing traction by coastal scientists, managers and engineers as the way forward for managing vulnerable coastal environments. While there is evidence of NBCS – living shorelines, mangrove, saltmarsh and dune restoration, and artificial reefs – being successful in stabilising shorelines and coastal zones, enhancing habitat structures and biodiversity, facilitating carbon sequestration, improving water quality, and reducing flooding and erosion risk, there is limited to no evidence of the effectiveness of NBCS over the long-term. Herein, the long-term is defined as multi-decadal timescales, the timescales of concern for decision-making policies and strategies aimed at sustainable coastal zone management. The uncertainty regarding the long-term effectiveness of NBCS is further fuelled by the uncertainty on the spatial and temporal scales over which coastal systems respond to natural and human forcings. With NBCS being actively pushed for coastal management globally, we need to understand its long-term effectiveness and implications for coastal environments and the cultures, societies and economies that are explicitly linked to these environments. This requires evidence of NBCS successes and failures across spatio-temporal scales, with critical insights on potential uncertainties regarding its long-term impacts on coastal landscapes and socioeconomics in a future local, regional, and global environment.

We, therefore, welcome contributions that provide: (a) case study examples on the successes and failures of NBCS over various spatio-temporal scales across variations in coastal geomorphology, (b) critical insights on the future long-term implications of NBCS for coastal geomorphology and associated socioeconomics, and (c) methodological innovations (e.g., numerical modelling, systems dynamics mapping, smart technology, etc.) for assessing the long-term efficacy of NBCS.