Before implementing DRR measures, coastal stakeholder should be informed about the different possible measures and their characteristics. There are several of existing website that provides such information. For the RISC-KIT Costal Management Guide expertise was drawn from such platforms. A selection of these will be presented below.
General description
RISC-KIT Costal Management Guide expertise was drawn from different information platforms. Information came from website, brochures, or handbooks. All of them provide valuable insights when dealing with DRR measures.
Scottish Natural Heritage: A guide to managing coastal erosion in beach/dune systems
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) developed a website in already in 2000 to manage coastal erosion on Scottish coasts. With this website, the SNH “seeks to encourage coastal authorities and managers to implement approaches to erosion management which maintain the important and varied conservation interests of Scotland’s unique beach and dune systems.”
The website reviews the options available for managing erosion, from non-intervention through to construction of revetments and seawalls, and offers guidance on how to select or design the most appropriate response to a particular situation. Critically, it describes and illustrates how each technique might best be designed so as to minimise damage to the natural heritage and reduce the prospects of altering shoreline evolution elsewhere.
The website can be found here.
Flanders Marine Institute: Coastal Wiki
The Coastal Wiki was developed by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) and is based on the Wikipedia concept. It is an information tool combined with a search function. Articles about different coastal topics are typically 2-3 pages long and are structured according to different layers of specialization. Authors focus in their articles on a single topic at a certain level of detail, but are capable to provide a wider context and to provide more detailed information by introducing links to related articles. An important difference to the traditional Wikipedia concept is that it is not possible to edit anonymous at the Coastal Wiki.
The primary users of the Coastal and Marine Wikipedia are coastal professionals, who are either generalists who need to update their knowledge about a broad range of subjects or specialists who need to gain an understanding of other sectors or disciplines in order to work in an integrated manner. Target user groups are for example policy makers, practitioners, scientists, or the wider public.
The website can be found here
The Associated Programme on Flood Management (APFM): Tools for Integrated Flood Management
The Associated Programme on Flood Management (APFM) is a joint initiative of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP). It promotes the concept of Integrated Flood Management (IFM) as a new approach to flood management. Within the IFM, the APFM published a series of tools for integrated flood management. These tools provide guidance for flood managers and various other specialists working in flood management.
These tools address aspects like management of flash floods, conservation and restoration of rivers and floodplains, flood emergency planning, or flood proofing.
The list of tools can be found here.
World Bank: Cities and Flooding - A Guide to Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management for the 21st Century.
A guidebook about Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management was written in 2012 by Jha, Bloch, and Lamond. The guide, published by the World Bank, serves as a primer for decision and policy makers, technical specialists, central, regional and local government officials, and concerned stakeholders in the community sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations, and the private sector.
The Guide embodies the state-of-the art on integrated urban flood risk management. The Guide starts with a summary for policy makers which outlines and describes the key areas which policy makers need to be knowledgeable about to create policy directions and an integrated strategic approach for urban flood risk management. The core of the Guide consists of seven chapters, organized as: understanding flood hazard; understanding flood impacts; integrated flood risk management (structural measures and non-structural measures); evaluating alternative flood risk management options: tools for decision makers; implementing integrated flood risk management; and conclusion.
The pdf version of the guide can be viewed here.
Scottish Environment Protection Agency: Natural Flood Management Handbook’
In 2015 the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) published a handbook to provide practical guidance to the delivery of natural flood management. It is informed by a number of demonstration projects and studies commissioned by SEPA and partners in recent years that have highlighted some of the requirements for the effective delivery of natural flood management. It is primarily aimed at local authorities tasked with delivery of actions set out in the Flood Risk Management Strategies, but it is also intended to be of use to all those seeking to deliver natural flood management.
The ‘Natural Flood Management Handbook’ can be downloaded here.
United Nations Environment Programme: Green Infrastructure Guide for Water Management. Ecosystem-based management approaches for water-related infrastructure projects
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), together with UNEP-DHI, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) published a guide in 2014 to raise awareness of the benefits of Green Infrastructure (GI) solutions for water resources management.
The guide takes a pragmatic approach to water management, and shows that GI can provide significant water management benefits and co-benefits, and also can support benefits from existing grey water infrastructure through a mutually complimentary mix of green and grey solutions. In addition to providing an overview of GI solutions for water management, this guide includes an outline methodology for water management options assessment, as well as a risk and uncertainty analysis. The guide concludes with a brief overview of practical tools to support the evaluation of appropriate solutions.
The pdf version of the book can be seen here.
The European Climate Adaptation Platform (CLIMATE-ADAPT)
The European Climate Adaptation Platform (CLIMATE-ADAPT) is a partnership between the European Commission (DG CLIMA, DG Joint Research Centre and other DGs) and the European Environment Agency.
CLIMATE-ADAPT aims to support Europe in adapting to climate change and helps users to access and share data and information on:
- Expected climate change in Europe
- Current and future vulnerability of regions and sectors
- EU, national and transnational adaptation strategies and actions
- Adaptation case studies and potential adaptation options
- Tools that support adaptation planning
CLIMATE-ADAPT provides a database where information addressing coastal DRR measures can be found. These include description of DRR measures as well as information about case studies.
The platform can be found here.
UK Environment Agency: Fluvial Design Guide
The Fluvial Design Guide is aimed at professional staff engaged in the design process from the early stages of looking at alternative solutions through to the delivery of the outputs of design for the construction, maintenance, refurbishment or alteration of flood defence or land drainage assets. The guide is thus intended to be used by both designers and asset managers.
The Fluvial Design Guide comprises eleven chapters, which are accessed via the table of contents. In addition, individual chapters are available as pdf downloads.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Apart from the sources used for this web-guide, there are also other information sources available. A few of them are listed below:
OURCOAST - the European portal for ICZM: OURCOAST is an exhaustive European web-portal about Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). It shares detailed information on Best Practices on ICZM in a Context of Adaptation to Climate Change in Coastal Areas. The web-portal can be found here.
EUROSION: The EU project EUROSION (2002-2004) emphasized on pilot projects which focused on erosion management. The project website offers a GIS database and a Shoreline Management Guide that is based in pilot projects across Europe. The project can be found here:
CONSCIENCE: The EU project CONSCIENCE was launched in 2007 with the aim of enhancing the implementation of a scientifically based sustainable coastal erosion management in Europe. It has been testing scientific concepts and tools in six pilot sites around Europe, building on the recommendations on coastal erosion management as issued by the EUROSION project.
FLOODsite: The EU project covers the physical, environmental, ecological and socio-economic aspects of floods from rivers, estuaries and the sea. It provides decision support technologies, uncertainty estimation and pilot applications for river, estuary and coastal sites. The website can be found here.
RISES-AM: The core of EU project RISES-AM (2013-2016) was assessing the cross-sectoral and economy-wide impacts and vulnerability of coastal systems at local, regional and global scales. The project made use of the concepts of representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs). The website can be found here.