Future proofing Scotland's remote coastal areas: evaluation of the potential for nature-based coastal adaptation

Restoring natural coastal systems is increasingly viewed as an effective strategy to
adapt and enhance resilience to the adverse effects of climate change in coastal
areas, which are projected to experience severe impacts due to increased exposure
to coastal flooding and erosion hazards under rising sea levels (IPCC, 2019).
Growing numbers of approaches to restore coastal dynamics by working with
natural processes to manage vulnerable coastal areas, including beach
nourishment, dune rebuilding, wetland restoration and managed retreat, have
emerged as key nature-based solutions (NBS) in the past decade (e.g. Temmerman
et al., 2013). In many cases, these approaches have been implemented as
demonstration projects in protected areas, in estuaries or fronting urban, highdensity
settlements (Bridges et al., 2018). However, often remote and sparsely
populated rural areas can still have surprisingly relevant levels of coastal
occupation, from buildings, infrastructure, cultural heritage and resources that
connect these communities and sustain rural livelihoods. As such, robust
adaptation approaches that are specifically suited to the challenges of rural coastal
areas need to be urgently considered, embedding interrelated aspects such as the
evidence-base on coastal environmental change, now and in the future, and
associated risks to communities, coupled with the legal and policy frameworks,
sustainable financing, government and community support necessary to identify
and implement rural coastal adaptation options.

In Scotland the vast majority of the coast is characterized as rural, but with
important distinctions between accessible and remote rural and, notably, with
present and future erosion and flooding placing relevant assets at risk across all
coastal cells in Scotland (Hansom et al., 2017). Since 2016 the Scottish
Government's Dynamic Coast project [www.dynamiccoast.com] has transformed
the evidence base of past, recent and anticipated coastal change across Scotland
and further enhancements expect in winter 2020/1. Whilst this is rekindling interest
in targeted coastal planning instruments such as Shoreline Management Plans, an
urban-rural divide remains, leaving non-urban shores disproportionately underresourced
in monitoring, detailed planning policies and dedicated funding
mechanisms to increase resilience and implement coastal adaptation actions.
Research in this area is thus urgently needed, to identify the rural areas requiring
adaptation, the suite of NBS that can be used and the policy, financing and social
enablers that can better support NBS implementation. The recently announced and
unprecedented provision of ~£12m of Scottish Government funding for coastal
adaptation, means that this research project is extremely timely and would directly
support proactive adaptation to rural coastal climate change (Brown et al., 2017).