Keeping our feet dry in the North Sea lowlands
Sharing knowledge on climate change & coastal flood and erosion management

http://www.safecoast.org/editor/databank/File/Safecoast%20geheel-lres.pdf

In 2008, Project Safecoast released its final synthesis report in which all project results are reflected. Click image on the right to download the report (pdf, 8mb). Find specific results and outcomes in the downloads section.

What is Safecoast?
Project Safecoast is about gaining and sharing knowledge and information on coastal flood and erosion risk management between coastal management authorities in five North Sea countries: Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and United Kingdom. What have we learned looking at each others approaches? And: how do we manage our coast in 2050? More...

Rising hazard?
In recent years, the prospect of climate change, in particular sea level rise and its effects on low-lying coastal areas have generated renewed attention. Although to some extent uncertain in terms of magnitude and frequency, there is the prospect of more intense storms and extreme events in the future. This rising hazard means increased coastal erosion and increased probability of flooding. More...

       Click countries for national files, for a more detailed elevation map click here (pdf)

Growing vulnerability?
Since the storm surge disasters of 1953 (Netherlands, Flanders and England) and 1962 (Germany) the North Sea countries have developed (built) more in flood prone areas. Until 2050, our population is still expected to grow. Even though depending on national planning policies it is commonly not foreseen that further developments in flood prone and coastal areas will be avoided. Increasing vulnerability also means increasing consequences of flooding. Therefore, Safecoast has gathered and compared scenarios for climate change and spatial planning towards the year 2050. More...

Assessing risks!
The concept of risk and risk management is fundamental to the focus of project Safecoast. Here: Risk = probability x consequence.
No one can predict the future with certainty, however: Future Risk = probability under changed scenarios x consequence under changed scenarios. In Safecoast we have pursued a better understanding of the trend and magnitude of future flood and erosion risk at various geographic levels (click map below). More... and More...



Managing risks!
Coastal risk management has been undertaken in the North Sea countries for many hundreds of years. From a historical perspective, the development of policies and practices often followed as a result of severe floods or erosion. The coastal risk management timeline () gives a brief overview of specific events and responses. In our view, one of the key conditions for social fulfilment and economic development in these areas, is a safe coast.

Currently, there is a broadening of the scope of possible management options considered (confirmed by the poll on the left). These developments have also strongly reinforced the need and attention for integrated coastal risk management approaches, also urged by the EU Recommendation on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in 2001, The Eurosion recommendations (2005) and the EU Directive on Floods (2007). See the Safecoast synthesis report for an analysis of strategies and concepts for future coastal flood risk management.

To translate concepts to practice, part of the integrated master plan for Flanders coastal safety has been developed in the framework of Safecoast. More...

Communicating risks!
In Safecoast special attention was given to the question how to inform our societies about coastal flood risk. For this reason a risk communication campaign was held in Schleswig Holstein (Germany). 200,000 leaflets were distributed door-to-door and a travelling exhibition gave insight in the threats and solutions to the increased risk of flooding. More...

The EU Directive on Floods (2007) specifically requires flood risk maps to be produced on river basin level. Safecoast has taken a jump start by making transnational flood risk maps ánd drawing the attention to coastal flooding in this somewhat river-oriented Directive. More...

Learning from each other's approaches!
The results and studies from project Safecoast can be found behind the blue buttons on the top left of this page: cohesion, focused and synthesis action(s). We hope to have enabled coastal managers, professionals and practitioners to keep sharing their knowledge and ideas to broaden our common scope on coastal flood risk management in the future.

Knowledge exchange starts with information sharing. Many initiatives with respect to climate change, flooding, coastal management, research and policy have been or are carried out at the moment. See the links, downloads or national files page for an extensive overview of relevant web resources and documents, or click the logos below for other key projects.

Now that guidance and information are available, those intangibles co-operation and imagination will be needed in abundance!