page_title: Climate change adaptation strategies on the German coast
section_title: Coastal Protection Policy
hierarchical_section_title: Climate change adaptation strategies on the German coast / Adaptation Strategies in Coastal Protection / Coastal Protection Policy
caption_attribution_description: Küstenschutz in Hohwacht
context_page_description: Climate change adaptation strategies on the German coast include European, national, and regional politics, different economic and civilian sectors as well as coastal protection. In general, climate change refers to statistically identifiable changes in climate properties that persist over a longer period of time. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defines it as a change in climate caused by human activity that can be observed in addition to natural climate variability. This can be described as anthropogenic climate change. Climate change poses local level impacts on the German coast and for the present and future, suitable adaptation strategies are necessary. In 2008, the Federal Cabinet of Germany decided on a German Climate Change Adaptation Strategy with the objective of creating a national action framework for reducing the risks for the population, habitats as well as the economy.
  Adaptation is a contested, widely discussed term with no general definition.
context_section_description: Coastal protection in Germany is organised and structured by legal regulations. Climate change adaptation in Germany has to be integrated in coastal protection plans on all spatial levels in order to achieve effective adaptation of the coastal protection sector. German administration distinguishes between active and passive coastal protection. Active coastal protection refers to measures that support floodplain reclamation and approaches to relocate acting forces (current, breaking wave) seawards (e.g. by beach nourishment) whereas passive coastal protestion solidifies the shoreline (so-called hold the line approaches) and supports the absorption of incoming forces to avoid harmful consequences. Passive coastal protection can include seawalls, groynes, detached breakwaters, and revetments. Important actors in coastal risk management are political authorities, inhabitants of the respective region (households) as well as investors.
  Traditionally, coastal protection in Germany is focussed on technical protection measures (i.a. levees, artificial flood barriers). This approach has already been followed in the Generalplan Deichverstärkung, Deichverkürzung und Küstenschutz des Landes Schleswig-Holstein of 1963, a specific coastal protection plan for Schleswig-Holstein. Today (2017-2020), technical measures are still most probable to be funded by the state. According to the German Federal agency for the environment (UBA), coastal protection currently focusses on the fortification and heightening of levees and other protective structures, including retaining structures. It is a matter of discussion if and how these types of linear “hard” protection measures can in the face of climate change be extended to planar “soft” protection measures (e.g. (re-)instalment of shallow water areas to simultaneously reach nature conservation and climate protection goals).
  Facing future climate risks, coastal protection increasingly integrates landscape-based prevention measures. The German government aims to enhance synergies between “hard” and “soft” coastal protection measures by means of the Integriertes Küstenzonenmanagement approach (Integrated Coastal Zone Management, IKZM). Its former general principle of “defending at all cost” is currently converting towards “living with water” and is putting stronger emphasis on changing climatic conditions. This means for example that in spaces where neither individuals nor material values are at risk, it is an option to partially open up dykes and thereby enable self-acting adaptation. Connected to that is the expressed ambition to coordinate adaptation measures, to fit coastal areas in an overall spatial context and to involve a wide range of relevant actors (e.g. authorities, interest groups, science). Essential weight is put on harmonising economic and social beneficiary claims with protection interests in the coastal zone by elaborating on development trajectories, conflict potentials and solutions at an early stage of planning. Another aspect of coordinated adaptation in coastal protection refers to connections between urban and rural areas. Coastal protection in rural areas in northern Germany should be seen in connection with protection measures in big cities such as Hamburg or Bremen where discussed “soft” measures are less easily to implement. In the cities, linear protection measures like levees and flood walls will probably be further enhanced/fostered but it would be interesting for cities to participate in solutions of laminar coastal protection.
caption: Groynes in Howacht (Schleswig-Holstein) at the Baltic Sea coast
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