RECLAIM: Resilience and wellbeing through adaptation to place loss

Coastal erosion and sea-level rise are accelerating the loss of valued places across the Irish and British Isles, with significant implications for communities living on the frontline of climate change. Coastal adaptation, however, continues to prioritise technical and engineering-based solutions, often overlooking the social, emotional, and wellbeing impacts of both environmental change and adaptation interventions. The RECLAIM: Resilience and wellbeing through adaptation to place loss project addresses this gap by examining how ongoing place loss influences health, wellbeing, identity, and adaptive capacity in coastal communities. Focusing on erosion-prone communities in County Wexford, Ireland, the project adopts a mixed-methods, community-centred research design. Quantitative surveys use validated wellbeing measures to assess the impact that environmental change has on these communities. The project also opens space to consider whether, with adequate institutional support, communities might be enabled to co-create new forms of place and belonging in contexts where loss is unavoidable. These are complemented by qualitative and participatory approaches, including walking interviews, photo elicitation, community-led erosion monitoring, and interactive story maps that link shoreline change with lived experience.

By foregrounding dimensions of place, RECLAIM examines how adaptation actions shape wellbeing outcomes and risk maladaptation. The project aims to identify strategies that strengthen resilience, mitigate impacts, and inform coastal adaptation through collaboration with communities.