Supported Projects

This project aims to discover innovative coastal governance approaches  that embrace vulnerability and change. This is critical because current  coastal management approaches are failing as existing threats intensify  and novel threats emerge. New knowledge is expected to be generated on  diverse vulnerabilities, with insights furthering the theory and  practice of coastal management.

This is significant to advancing the  disciplines of human geography and public policy through improved  understanding of the relationships between people, place and change.  Governance innovations are expected to support ongoing economic,  environmental, social and cultural benefits that are derived from the  coast.

The project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects Funding Scheme (Project FT180100652). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council.

The Coastal Pollution Toolbox is a digital working environment and tool set to study contaminant, nutrient and carbon dynamics in temperate and polar coastal zones. It allows to structure investigations and to provide scientifically sound assessments and products to elucidate origin, effects, and mitigation options. Thereby, it targets to support management of chemical entities for a cleaner ocean.

The toolbox seeks to support the SDG implementation process. The UN-Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development aims at improving the environmental status of the oceans. As SDG #14 specifically addresses the conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources, and as it targets to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds by 2025, the Coastal Pollution Toolbox guides management of land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution, towards coastal sustainability.

In order to solve the contradiction that exists between some areas of the SDG implementation process, the development of the toolbox emphasizes the interactions between goals, such as SDG #14 and SDG #13 (“climate action”), and SDG #7 (“ubiquitous, affordable, reliable clean and modern energy”). In addition, pollution research in the area of urban air quality and the role of shipping emissions considers health effects and human’s exposure, and therefore supports to achieve SDG #11 („sustainable cities and communities”). Research is carried out based on studying multiple stressors and cumulative effects of marine activities, causing pollution, at the coast and in the sea.

To provide solution-oriented research in support of meeting the grand challenges of societal concern, an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers will contribute to the development of the toolbox by using user-centred and participatory co-design processes over the upcoming seven years.

Permafrost coasts in the Arctic make up 34% of the world’s coasts and represent a key interface for human-environmental interactions. These coasts provide essential ecosystem services, exhibit high biodiversity and productivity, and support indigenous lifestyles. At the same time, this coastal zone is a dynamic and vulnerable zone of expanding infrastructure investment and growing health concerns. Climate warming is affecting this fragile environment by triggering coastal landscape instability and increased hazard exposure.

A high proportion of Arctic residents live near permafrost coasts and many derive their livelihood from marine resources. They will be directly impacted by rapidly changing conditions at the Arctic coast. Permafrost thaw will lead to destabilisation of infrastructure and natural resource extraction facilities , directly impacting the economy. Greater fluxes of sediment and organic matter from coastal erosion could impact the nearshore ecosystem, including aquatic resources . Permafrost thaw has also been shown to play a role in the health of Arctic coastal communities through changes in water quality and through the potential release of contaminants, frozen bacteria and anthrax. Yet, all of these issues have so far been considered in isolation because of the lack of data for Arctic coastal regions.

The pressing challenge is therefore to quantify and project organic matter, sediment and contaminant fluxes from thawing coastal and subsea permafrost and to accurately assess the implications of permafrost thaw for the indigenous populations, the local communities and the local environment in the Arctic coastal areas. The main goal of Nunataryuk is thus to determine the impacts of thawing land, coast and subsea permafrost on the global climate and on humans in the Arctic and to develop targeted and co-designed adaptation and mitigation strategies.

The overall strategy of the Nunataryuk project is to transdisciplinarily bring together high-ranking European and international specialists of the Arctic coast, including natural scientists and the major European socio-economic science groups in order to address these pressing challenges. The project will be a user-driven directly addressing the concerns of local and global stakeholders with regards to permafrost thaw in coastal areas of the Arctic. Nunataryuk will use a conceptual framework inspired by the IPCC report on risks and by the experience gained from interaction with local stakeholders over the past decades. Permafrost thaw is the core focus of Nunataryuk and will be used as the common thread for early consultations with community representatives and other stakeholders.

In this working group we aim to think about and outline positive futures for tropical coasts. We argue that there is need for a radical new recognition of a diversity of scientific disciplines, combined with a broader range of knowledges, authentic and fit-for purpose engagement with, and embedding of science within, society, and an entire new ontology of anticipating the future state of the coast, or coastal futures. We need a new science agenda for achieving a desirable and sustainable future of the coast.

The working group draws on the diversity of its members for a systematic dialogue on learning from different inter- and transdisciplinary examples in practice across institutional boundaries. It critically reflects on how transdisciplinary sustainability science focused on the coastal and marine environment is approached within the German research community and examines the conditions for epistemological and ontological pluralism and effective transdisciplinary coastal research in a global context. It will make recommendations for approaches and methods, stakeholder engagement at the science-policy-interface, actionable outcomes, and human capacity development.

Research questions considered by the DKN Working Group include:

• What is the current state of transdisciplinary approaches in coastal research and how is transdisciplinary research hindered or enabled by research funding?
• How can we integrate scientific effort and knowledge production in the seamless landscape from land to ocean with the coast as an interface, between diverse disciplines and sectors, and between science and society?
• What are gaps and priorities in actionable coastal research, its uptake by society and within policy? What is the science agenda for a sustainable future coast that also acknowledges multiple, overlapping and often conflicting demands and values in coastal communities?
• What are the research practices required to pursue the proposed research agenda in a way that demonstrates authentic, just and agile transdisciplinary engagement with various stakeholders?

Novara One Planet is the brainchild of Veronica and Nigel (http://novara.world/) – an ocean sailing adventure that connects remote coastal communities and helps to mobilise and fund climate action through community-based research, education and training, and by sharing stories of community action through art, film, and social and news media. Nigel and Veronica will be at the heart of all activities, including research. Novara advisors and crew will make important contributions. A synopsis of the research project is below.

Brief Project Summary

Climate change is disrupting coastal livelihoods and ecosystems. Our goal is to learn from and support remote coastal community efforts to reduce natural hazard risk, adapt to climate change, and build resilience. Novara’s sailing voyage of ocean exploration engages with communities from the UK to Nova Scotia, along the north Atlantic Viking route, to the Caribbean, then through the Northwest Passage into the Pacific to New Zealand. We document climate change impacts and the risk facing isolated communities and the ecosystems they depend upon. We tailor UNESCO guidance for communities to become climate-safe (https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000375768). By co-designing adaptation plans, with supporting education and training, we enable learning and joint problem-solving. We strengthen local capabilities and integrate science, local knowledge, and Indigenous Knowledge for climate action. We advance adaptation science through novel applied research, PhD theses, and comparative analysis of community experiences and human ingenuity along the Novara sailing route. We promote ocean literacy – deepening understanding about humanity’s relationship with the ocean. We connect remote communities and share their experiences and solutions through storytelling (via social, visual and news media); policy and practice briefs for implementation partners; and popular and scientific publications. We involve youth in climate change-focused sailing adventures so that they learn sailing skills, participate in community-based research, and share their stories with support from Novara crew, researchers, and local schools and communities.

The Resilient Lagoon Network (RLN) was developed to link researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to lagoon communities, providing a platform to share experiences and understand key challenges. We bring together cross-disciplinary expertise and practice to build the multiple perspectives and broad understanding needed to respond to the problems of lagoon communities. We aim to provide a framework to develop, test, and share solutions that will address the development challenges of these rapidly growing and increasingly vulnerable coastal environments and communities. This participatory approach provides the connections and shared understanding required to build long-term resilience in these communities. The network started with a focus on West Africa. However, lagoons are common in tropical and sub-tropical coastlines and our goal is to grow the network across the Global South.

This year-long project, ‘Turning the Tide: Systems thinking for a sustainable ocean‘, will champion a systems thinking approach to issues affecting the marine and coastal environment. We aim to bring together the marine and coastal science community in the UK through a series of collaborative events and activities including online webinars and forums, article publication and workshop delivery. Working with our members, other individuals and organisations from across the sector, we aim to shape the discussions over the next year towards finding a unified voice for the UK’s Marine and Coastal Science community on achieving a sustainable ocean. The year will culminate in the publication of a report on the key findings of the discussions.

PACPATH (PACific PATHways in support of sustainable development) is a research initiative that aims to develop sustainable ocean sciences and stewardship strategies through a multi-disciplinary and multi-actor consortium. As a Belmont Forum Collaborative Research Action (CRA), PACPATH engages local actors, civil society organizations, customary authorities, policy makers, and academics in co-construction workshops to reinforce a common understanding of the ocean, establish sustainability networks, and develop effective ocean research projects and services. The project also supports governance and policy-making for the ocean-climate nexus, and promotes ocean literacy by combining traditional and local knowledge with scientific knowledge.

Land subsidence, as a global geohazard, not only reduces the flood control capacity in urban areas, but also brings security risk and damage to buildings, roads, bridges, rail transits, flood control walls, underground lines, etc. The impact of land subsidence is especially obvious in coastal cities and proximity to shorelines, such as Shanghai and Jakarta, etc., for their low elevation. It’s important and urgent to carry out measures for the prevention and control of land subsidence.

In this project, we propose a scientific cooperative program between institutions and researchers to develop better understanding of land subsidence at international level, especially the less developed countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. IM2LSC plans to research the impacts of human activities and sea-level rise, hydro-mechanism and monitoring methods of land subsidence in coastal cities. The project results will be transferred to sites in other developing countries, and recommendations will be released to play an effective role in the planning, construction, management and security assurance for different coastal cities.

The ESA-supported Primary-productivity in Upwelling Systems (PRIMUS) project aims to characterise net primary productivity (NPP) and its relationship to upwelling in Atlantic Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS), including the Iberian/Canary and Benguela systems. It will create a 25-year time series of 1-km satellite-derived NPP over the Atlantic, and, experimentally, at higher-resolution (300m) using the unique capabilities of the MERIS and OLCI satellite sensors.

PRIMUS will use these data to advance analyses of Atlantic EBUS including temporal and spatial variability in NPP and its statistical relationship to upwelling and climate indices (such as the North Atlantic Oscillation). PRIMUS will also conduct eight further science cases in specific science areas / regional settings: aquaculture in Galicia; fisheries and eutrophication in the Portuguese upwelling region; potential EBUS impacts on ocean carbon pools; Lagrangian estimates of NPP; and air-sea interaction and acidification impacts. Science cases will make use of EO and in situ data, as well as numerical model outputs (freely available through the EU’s Copernicus and elsewhere) to investigate the 4D character of EBUS, for example linking Lagrangian NPP with sediment traps samples at depth.

PRIMUS will also conduct demonstrations that transfer science into solutions for society, working together with scientific, agency, policy and commercial “early-adopters”, building on three science case studies (EBUS and aquaculture; fisheries; and eutrophication monitoring). Furthermore, evaluating transition of data production to operational initiatives such as Copernicus and GMES and Africa and the potential for data exploitation by the European and international ecosystem modelling community.

The Scubaverse unites a wide range of specialists that focus on education on mitigation and adaptation to the climate change. It provides consulting services and technical assistance. It is building a gamified experience with a citizen science network. Additionally, it is cloning marine areas to propose playful digital experiences.

The Scubaverse is based on real marine scientific data sets along with satellite and GPS live data. Events of the games will be produced by real ecosystem threats and the gamers will have the opportunity to have a real impact on the world.

The project intends to explore the relationship between media and climate change with a focus on the information needs of the coastal communities. The project activities in the form of small sensitization workshops and community outreach campaigns will help the coastal community to understand the impact of climate change on coastal ecologies. The communication and outreach activities will help the state and private development agencies and the opinion leaders of the coastal communities to expand their understanding and awareness of macro and micro ecological interventions in terms of economic stability, climate resilience and maintaining the coastal biodiversity. The activities can play a significant role by acting as a source of awareness, advocacy and policy change.

Purpose

The purpose of the project is to ensure an active and engaged citizenry at local level. The discourse will be on exploring the expanded role of communication outreach in increasing the ability of local people of coastal communities to connect with one another, and to engage directly on advocacy and policy issues.

The planned communication and outreach activities will be centered on coastal communities and awareness and sensitization messages will be used to encourage citizen action through outreach campaigns on coastal climate issues.

• The project will help the climate experts and policy makers to understand how community outreach situates itself in the large realm of public and civic communications at local level.
• It will deepen the understating of the coastal community about the relationship between communication and civic engagement in local governance.
• The project activities will help the coastal community people to explore their information needs about climate change and will help them to develop a clear perception about climate change by using their considerable public trust to build local acceptance of climate change through small narratives.

The social, economic, and environmental costs of natural disasters is rapidly rising; and while everyone has a role in responding to hazards, local citizens are provided with limited practical support to truly build their resilience. This project will redress the current lack of pragmatic strategies to help coastal communities prepare for, and respond to, climate hazards. By exploring how at-risk Australian coastal communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from coastal climate hazards within the context of broader socio-ecological change, this project will address critical knowledge gaps to better understand what enables or constrains civil society action, and provide policy direction for interventions to build community resilience effectively and efficiently.

The aim is to build civil society’s climate resilience by investigating how individuals, families and neighbourhoods respond to coastal climate hazards with the goal of harnessing and building their adaptive capacity. The proposed research builds on well-cited and policy-adopted scholarship linking local scale action with innovative strategies to build capacity in coastal communities (e.g., Elrick-Barr et al 2016, 2017, 2022). The project will:

1. Explore how local scale connection in neighbourhoods vulnerable to coastal climate hazards facilitates access to, and mobilisation of, capacity.
2. Critically analyse and demonstrate how connection and capacity change in response to socio-ecological change, and the impacts of these factors on local scale preparation, response and recovery.
3. Identify leverage points to build community resilience to coastal climate hazards that optimise and guide government interventions.

Key benefits of the study include: (i) achieving Australia’s national resilience goal of empowering communities, and reducing the significant social, economic, and environmental impacts of climate hazards; and (ii) generating new knowledge to address UN Sustainable Development Goal 13, target 13.1 Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters; and Goal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

The project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects Funding Scheme (Project DE240100611).

Rewilding our Floodplains (RoF) is one of three key global programs by Positive Change for Marine Life (PCFML), a global organization collaborating with land managers and communities to improve marine inputs and foster community stewardship within healthy landscapes.

RoF aims to restore the blue lungs of our planet by bringing together farmers and fishers, businesses and scientists, first nations and communities. Together. They championing the restoration and protection of our waterways before it’s too late, building landscape-scale corridors from the mountains to the sea.

RoF takes an integrated, ecosystem approach to determine waterway health based on key environmental factors. Working closely with the community, the program develops solutions that will create real change and long-lasting rejuvenation of catchments and the ocean. By exploring multi-stakeholder strategic corridors, the initiative bridges catchments from source to sea, fostering long-term climate resilience.

MANCOGA is a collaborative research project between the Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences, the Institute of Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS) at the University of Ghana, and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, Germany.

MANCOGA will build a sustainable knowledge base for mangroves as a Nature-based Solution to lay the foundation for secure and sustainable livelihoods for communities living along the coast of Eastern Ghana. A dedicated Co-design phase demonstrated that stakeholders at all levels possess broad conceptual knowledge of the ecosystem services provided by mangroves, but also revealed large gaps in detailed local scientific knowledge and a wide chasm between research and implementation. This activity focuses on two major local concerns: 1) The need for sustainable livelihoods will be addressed by quantifying mangrove ecosystem services of carbon storage and eutrophication control and linking them to downstream economic opportunities like carbon crediting and improved local fisheries; 2) To assess the protective role of mangroves against the coastal erosion that threatens local living spaces, What-If scenarios will be created using an early version of a Digital Twin. A partnership-of-equals is ensured by continuous stakeholder engagement and a Digital Toolbox will enable all parties to access and understand the scientific outputs and contribute to their translation into societal outcomes. The new knowledge of practical mangrove ecosystem services will inform recommendations for policy leading to their protection and sustainable use. We expect this project to lay the groundwork for sustained future collaboration, knowledge transfer, and capacity building.

Coastal wetlands, often referred to as “forest bridges” between land and ocean, serve as the first line of defense for coastal ecological protection. They effectively buffer the negative impacts of environmental changes on coastal zones and enhance the overall self-recovery ability and resilience of coastal ecosystems. Over the past 30 years, global coastal wetlands have lost approximately 16% of their area, facing significant environmental and ecological challenges due to wetland degradation. The evolution of coastal wetlands in response to changing environmental conditions is highly complex and requires multidisciplinary collaboration.

The BUFFERS project is part of the China-New Zealand intergovernmental scientific research collaboration, jointly funded by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). The project is being jointly conducted by Hohai University, East China Normal University, and the University of Auckland. BUFFERS focuses on typical coastal wetlands in China and New Zealand, conducting interdisciplinary research in coastal dynamic geomorphology, ecology, and related fields.

The Sino-New Zealand project team will concentrate on the salt marshes and mangrove wetlands in both countries, carrying out the following tasks: comprehensively using drones, water-sediment, and biological observation equipment to develop high-precision tidal flat key parameter inversion technology; integrating field and flume experiments to analyze the coupling mechanisms of sediment physical processes and biological processes under varying wave-flow dynamics, biological compositions, and sediment gradations; applying machine learning algorithms to quantify the mathematical relationships between parameters, optimize biomorphodynamic models, and predict the evolution trends of different coastal wetlands; and developing point-line-surface restoration models to improve the ecological structure of coastal wetlands, enhance self-recovery capacity, and establish a coastal ecological soft protection system. The ultimate goal of the project is to enhance the resilience of coastal zones in both countries and support wetland management decision-making in China and New Zealand.

Coastal wetlands are among the most important human-sea composite systems for achieving sustainable development in coastal zones. They are also ecologically fragile areas of global concern under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the context of global change. However, coastal wetland degradation is severe in China and several other developing countries in Asia. The future trajectory of coordinated development between the coastal ecological environment and socio-economic progress remains unclear, highlighting an urgent need for interdisciplinary international cooperation and joint research.

The ECOSYNC project is a collaborative project jointly conducted by several research institutions, including Hohai University (China), the University of Auckland (New Zealand), Beijing Forestry University, the University of Southampton (UK), Macquarie University (Australia), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (UK), and the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force. This project is co-funded by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and aims to contribute to the achievement of several SDGs related to coastal wetlands.

ECOSYNC focuses on four typical coastal wetlands along the East Asia–Australasia Flyway, with two observation sites in China and Myanmar and two comparison sites in Australia and New Zealand. This study will integrate interdisciplinary research across Environmental Earth Science, Marine Science, Ecology, Economics, and Management Science.

By combing multiple techniques, e.g., field observation, remote sensing and numerical modeling, this study aims to analyze the coupling relationship between the biogeochemical processes of coastal wetlands and socio-economic development, identify the main driving forces behind coastal wetland environmental change, establish a coastal wetland evolution model and digital twin system framework based on the coupling model of human-sea composite system, and predict future trends of coastal environmental and ecosystem changes under global change stress. Additionally, the project will propose policy recommendations to support the coordinated development of regional economies, societies, and ecosystems in coastal areas. ECOSYNC is expected to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and international cooperation in coastal wetland research while providing scientific decision-making support for the sustainable development of coastal areas in China and other developing countries in Asia.