water

Review
Defining Coastal Resilience
Gerd Masselink 1, * and Eli D Lazarus 2, *
1 Coastal Processes Research Group, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth,
Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
2 Environmental Dynamics Lab, School of Geography & Environmental Science, University of Southampton,
Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
* Correspondence: [email protected] (G.M.); [email protected] (E.D.L.)




Received: 17 October 2019; Accepted: 3 December 2019; Published: 8 December 2019


Abstract: The concept of resilience has taken root in the discourse of environmental management,
especially regarding Building with Nature strategies for embedding natural physical and ecological
dynamics into engineered interventions in developed coastal zones. Resilience is seen as a desirable
quality, and coastal management policy and practice are increasingly aimed at maximising it. Despite
its ubiquity, resilience remains ambiguous and poorly defined in management contexts. What is
coastal resilience? And what does it mean in settings where natural environmental dynamics have
been supplanted by human-dominated systems? Here, we revisit the complexities of coastal resilience
as a concept, a term, and a prospective goal for environmental management. We consider examples
of resilience in natural and built coastal environments, and offer a revised, formal definition of
coastal resilience with a holistic scope and emphasis on systemic functionality: “Coastal resilience
is the capacity of the socioeconomic and natural systems in the coastal environment to cope with
disturbances, induced by factors such as sea level rise, extreme events and human impacts, by adapting
whilst maintaining their essential functions.” Against a backdrop of climate change impacts, achieving
both socioeconomic and natural resilience in coastal environments in the long-term (>50 years)
is very costly. Cost trade-offs among management aims and objectives mean that enhancement
of socioeconomic resilience typically comes at the expense of natural resilience, and vice versa.
We suggest that for practical purposes, optimising resilience might be a more realistic goal of coastal
zone management.

Keywords: coastal management; adaptation; coastal impact of climate change; coastal engineering;
nature-based solutions

1. Introduction
Coastal environments are among the most intensively used regions of the Earth for supporting
human population, activity, and industry [1]. Because this intensive use tends to come at the expense
of natural coastal environmental systems, driving ecological and landscape degradation or destruction,
the challenge for coastal management is to sustainably balance the fundamental functional needs
of human and natural coastal systems for the present and future. In management contexts, coastal
resilience is now a keystone concept [2,3] and fundamental to Building with Nature strategies [4]
to reduce coastal risk and environmental degradation. The prominence of the resilience concept is
pressed to the fore by rapid rates of growth in coastal megacities around the world [5]; by record-setting
damage from disaster events such as Hurricanes Katrina (2005), Sandy (2012), and Harvey (2017) in
the United States [6] and the winter storms of 2013–2014 and 2015–2016 in the United Kingdom [7,8];
and by the untenable costs of supporting conventional grey infrastructure to protect against coastal
hazards [9–14].

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Water 2019, 11, 2587 2 of 21

However, ambiguity pervades the rapidly growing academic literature that invokes resilience.
Scholars who have tracked the term in environmental literature suggest that resilience is trending toward
becoming a buzzword devoid of meaning, both amorphous and overused [15–17]. Contributions to
the literature are not always specific about what they intend resilience to convey, whether a conceptual
reference to patterns of change within a system, a specific property of a system that can be observed or
estimated, or a goal to achieve through managed decision-making [18,19]. Some argue that coastal
resilience means little without a clearly defined spatial and temporal framework [20].
The ambiguity that freights coastal resilience is a consequence of the many definitions, applications,
and adaptations that have proliferated across and within disciplines since the origin of resilience
as a theory in ecology [15,21,22]. Resilience thinking [23,24] is now firmly embedded in natural
hazards research [18,25], in the study of environmental and social impacts of climate change [26,27],
and in discourses of economic and political systems more broadly [28,29]. Resilience now connotes a
variety of physical, social, and socioeconomic dimensions, as well as links to explicitly or implicitly
related concepts such as vulnerability, sensitivity, susceptibility, persistence, equilibrium, stability,
thresholds, tipping points, regime shifts, recovery, adaptive capacity and sustainability [17,30]—many
of which contend with their own multiple working definitions and diffuse associations [31]. When
adjectives like ecological and engineering—or others, like morphological and socioeconomic—appear
beside resilience, they typically refer to the system under consideration, not the type of resilience [32]
being invoked.
Here, in an effort to disentangle the various strands of coastal resilience, we revisit the complexities
of coastal resilience as a concept, a term, and a prospective goal for environmental management.
We consider examples of resilience in natural and built coastal environments, and offer a revised,
formal definition of coastal resilience with a holistic scope and emphasis on systemic functionality.

2. Origins of Resilience Theory

Resilience theory arose from the study of population fluctuations in ecological systems. Holling [21]
proposed that the dynamical behaviour of ecological systems could well be defined by two distinct
properties: resilience and stability. Resilience originally referred to the persistence of relationships
within a system, a measure of the system’s ability to absorb environmental changes with its internal
dynamics intact. Stability represented the ability of a system to return to an equilibrium state after a
temporary disturbance; the more rapid the return, the more stable the system is. (Consider the stability
of a tightly coiled spring—stretch it out and release it, and the spring will snap back to its resting
coiled state.) Testament to the convolutions of resilience theory in the decades since its appearance,
the original definition of stability is typical of the way resilience is now formalised; that is, the ability
to recover or bounce back from a disturbance is now all but synonymous with resilience.
Holling [32] further divided resilience into two types: ecological and engineering resilience,
which map onto the original definitions of resilience and stability, respectively [21]. Ecological
resilience focuses on persistence, change, and unpredictability, emphasising conditions that drive
system dynamics away from any equilibrium steady state, including dynamical instabilities that can
flip a system into another regime of behaviour. In the language of dynamical systems, a condition
to which a system tends to evolve, for a wide variety of initial conditions, is called an attractor [33].
Ecological resilience acknowledges the existence of multiple potential equilibria—multiple dynamical
attractors—and so is defined as the amount of disturbance that a system can sustain before undergoing
a fundamental change in controls and structural organisation. By comparison, engineering resilience
focuses on efficiency, consistency, and predictability, emphasising conditions that facilitate system
stability around a single, global equilibrium steady state (a single, dominant dynamical attractor).
Resistance to disturbance and the rate of return to the equilibrium condition—both derived from
classical considerations of stability in engineering and economics—are used as measures of engineering
resilience. Ecological and engineering resilience are less mutually exclusive than they are end-members
of a resilience continuum. An ecological system might exhibit degrees of resistance to disturbance—a
Water 2019, 11, 2587 3 of 21

property of engineering resilience—while also possessing the capacity to reorganize into another state
if disturbance exceeds a critical threshold—a property of ecological resilience [34].

3. Resilience in Natural Coastal Environments

Understanding controls on landscape resilience, and how ecosystems and landscapes coevolve,
are two closely related grand challenges in geomorphology [35]. Shaped by feedbacks between fluid
flow, sediment transport, ecology, and changeable morphology, coastal environments showcase a
remarkable variety of settings in which to explore both of these open questions. Steady-state and
dynamic equilibrium behaviours in geomorphic systems require resilience to dampen out fluctuations
and retain what manifests as long-term stability. Geomorphologists tend to invoke the engineering
definition of resilience, emphasising consistency and predictability, perhaps because the concept of
long-term steady-state conditions is so close to the core of the traditional discipline [16]. However,
when a geomorphic system does not recover from a perturbation—when a driver is cut off or an internal
threshold has been exceeded—and enters a different, perhaps equally persistent state, this transition
represents a form of ecological resilience, characterised by the presence of multi-stable states. Indeed,
where geomorphology is considered a physical determinant of ecosystem resilience, the definition
of ecological resilience is most widely used [14]. Alternative stable states, and dynamical transitions
between them, have been more extensively explored for ecology and ecosystems [36–38] than for
geomorphology [39], but multiple or alternative stable states are a common characteristic of coastal
landscapes [40,41].

3.1. Barrier Islands And Beaches

Barrier islands are considered exemplars of coastal resilience [42] (Figure 1). Coastal barriers are
landforms that tend to maintain their height and cross-shore width even as they transgress landward
over time [43–46]. Their response to short-term storm impacts, in which overwash flow transfers
sediment from the foreshore to the back barrier, is what ultimately sustains their morphology over
extended timescales [47]. According to Long et al. [20], large barrier systems are inherently resilient
landforms as long as they are able to internally recycle sediment to maintain overall landform integrity.
Stéphan et al. [48] contend that, as long as the rate of sea level rise is not excessive and there is no
sediment deficit, barrier systems are surprisingly resilient, even to the most extreme storm events.
Beach dynamics appear to describe an oscillating attractor in response to seasonal storm events, with at
least two morphological regimes (narrow and wide, or reflective and dissipative) over multiannual
to decadal timescales [49–53], likely driven by large-scale ocean–atmospheric patterns [54]. Beaches
erode during storms and recover under calmer wave conditions and the ability of a beach to recover
from storm erosion is clearly an expression of resilience [55]. The more rapid recovery of beaches
compared to that of coastal dunes, suggests perhaps that beaches are more resilient to storm impacts
than dunes [56]. Resiliency of a barrier beach may be dependent on the rate of post-storm dune
recovery; for locations with a relatively long recovery period (>10 years), a change in storm magnitude
and/or frequency is a potential threat to barrier island resilience [57].
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Figure 1. Gravel barriers are natural forms of coastal defence that protect the hinterland from flooding,
Figure 1. Gravel barriers are natural forms of coastal defence that protect the hinterland from
whilst at the same time being able to respond to sea level rise and extreme storms by rolling back
flooding, whilst at the same time being able to respond to sea level rise and extreme storms by rolling
through overtopping and washover processes (photo: Gerd Masselink). They are thus exemplars of a
back through overtopping and washover processes (photo: Gerd Masselink). They are thus exemplars
coastal landform resilient to both pulse and ramp disturbances.
of a coastal landform resilient to both pulse and ramp disturbances.
3.2. Coastal Dunes
3.2. Coastal Dunes
Coastal dunes grow as a result of coupled interactions between marine and aeolian forcing [58,59],
Coastala dunes
and through feedback grow as a result
between of coupled
vegetation interactions
and sediment transport,between
in whichmarine andburial
shallow aeolian forcing
promotes
[58,59], and through a feedback between vegetation and sediment transport,
plant growth that enhances further sediment deposition [60–63]. Barrier dunes express two end-member in which shallow burial
promotes plant growth that enhances further sediment deposition [60–63].
states—low and high—that are sensitive to vegetation as a control on sediment-transport pathways and Barrier dunes express two
end-member
storage [64–67].states—low
As storm impacts and high—that
erode dunes areandsensitive
aeolian to vegetation
processes as a them,
construct control bothonalternative
sediment-
transport pathways and storage [64–67]. As storm impacts erode dunes
states of high and low dunes can exist in space immediately adjacent to each other, with dune vegetation and aeolian processes
construct
serving to them, both alternative
both resist storm-driven states of high and
flattening andlow dunes dune
augment can exist in space
growth immediately
by trapping adjacent
windblown
to each other, with dune vegetation serving to both resist storm-driven
sediment [68,69]. A low, overwash-reinforcing state [64] exhibits a weakly positive sediment budget,flattening and augment dune
burial-tolerant grasses, flat topography, and frequent overwash. A high, overwash-resisting statea
growth by trapping windblown sediment [68,69]. A low, overwash-reinforcing state [64] exhibits
weakly apositive
exhibits strongly sediment
positivebudget,
sediment burial-tolerant grasses, flat topography,
budget, burial-intolerant grasses, ridge and frequent
and overwash. A
swale topography,
high, overwash-resisting state exhibits a strongly positive sediment budget,
and infrequent overwash. In each domain, plant adaptations exert an influence on external variability burial-intolerant grasses,
ridge and swale topography, and infrequent overwash. In each domain,
by shaping topographic recovery in a way that reinforces the conditions and overwash exposures for plant adaptations exert an
influence
which theyon areexternal variability
better adapted by shaping
[60–62]. topographic
These feedbacks recovery
and their domain in astates
way canthatvary
reinforces
within an the
conditions and overwash exposures
individual island and among adjacent islands [70]. for which they are better adapted [60–62]. These feedbacks and
their domain states can vary within an individual island and among adjacent islands [70].
3.3. Tidal Wetlands
3.3. Tidal Wetlands
Much like in dune systems, a similar feedback between vegetation and sedimentation sustains
Much likesuch
tidal wetlands, in dune
as saltsystems,
marshesaand similar feedback
mangroves, between
enabling vegetation
them to maintain and their
sedimentation sustains
elevations relative
tidal
to sea wetlands,
level [71–73]: such as salt deeper
a slightly marshestidalandprism
mangroves,
(forced byenabling
sea level themrise)tocarries
maintainmoretheir
fine elevations
sediment
relative
in to sea tidal–wetland
suspension; level [71–73]: avegetation
slightly deeper
slowstidal
flowprism (forced
velocity, by sea
causing level rise)
sediment carries more
deposition fine
that the
sedimentofinvegetation
presence suspension; helpstidal–wetland
trap in place;vegetation
and shallow slows flow
burial andvelocity,
nutrientcausing
delivery sediment
promotes deposition
biomass
that theabove
growth presence andofbelow
vegetation
ground, helps trap in
driving place;
a net and shallow
increase burialelevation.
in platform and nutrient delivery
Sediment promotes
supply is a
biomass
key factorgrowth aboveresilience
in salt marsh and below ground,
[74,75]. driving
Storms play a key
net role
increase
in theinresponse
platformofelevation.
salt marshes Sediment
to sea
supply
level rise,isbut
a keysaltfactor
marshesin salt
are marsh
generally resilience [74,75]. Storms
able to withstand violent play a keywithout
storms role in collapsing
the response andoftheysalt
marshes to sea level rise, but salt marshes
can therefore be considered resilient to extreme storms [76]. are generally able to withstand violent storms without
collapsing
Mangroves and they can therefore
likewise demonstrate be considered
considerable resilient to extreme
resilience storms [76].
over timescales of centuries to millennia
Mangroves
commensurate withlikewise
shoreline demonstrate considerable
evolution, including theirresilience
development over during
timescales of centuries
the Holocene [77,78].to
millennia rates
Accretion commensurate
in mangrove withforests
shorelineare evolution,
currently including
keeping pace theirwith
development
mean seaduring the Holocene
level rise [79] and
[77,78]. Accretion
mangroves rates inresilience
demonstrate mangroveinforeststheir are currently
patterns keeping pace
of recovery fromwith meandisturbances
natural sea level riselike[79]
and mangroves demonstrate resilience in their patterns of recovery from natural disturbances like
extreme storms and tsunamis [80]—traits that put them at the front line of nature-based solutions to
Water 2019, 11, 2587 5 of 21

extreme storms and tsunamis [80]—traits that put them at the front line of nature-based solutions
to mitigating coastal hazards. Indeed, the biggest threat to mangrove systems is not climate change,
but deforestation [81].
Tidal wetlands can transition from vegetated platforms to bare tidal flats, or vice versa, as a
function of complex feedbacks between water depth, sedimentation, and vegetation patterns [82–85].
These tidal systems tend to eschew intermediate elevations: higher elevations in the intertidal zone
tend to support more (and more robust) vegetation that is effective at trapping (and creating) sediment,
thus building elevation where elevations are already high. By contrast, lower intertidal elevations
experience greater bottom shear stress, which facilitates sediment resuspension and discourages
recruitment by colonising vegetation, thus tending to keep low elevations low.

3.4. Coral Systems

Biophysical feedbacks in coral island systems also accommodate perturbations from sea level rise
and storm events. On long (interglacial) timescales, reef dynamics describe a stable attractor in which
coral growth rates adjust as a function of water depth [86]. On shorter, multiannual timescales, island
morphology responds to storm impacts through the dynamic reorganisation of motu, the subaerial
gravel islands—typically vegetated—atop a reef platform [87], such that island area tends to be
conserved or expanded even under conditions of rapid sea level rise [88].

4. Resilience and Resistance

Closely associated with resilience—and, by extension, with transitions between alternative stable
states—is the concept of resistance. Some consider resistance an intrinsic component of resilience,
especially where resistance is a dynamical property derived from traditional engineering and economic
ideas about stability [32]. Many geomorphologists, however, consider resilience and resistance to
be distinct properties of geomorphic systems [89,90], where resistance is the ability of a geomorphic
system to withstand or absorb a change or disturbance with minimal alteration, and resilience is the
ability of the system to recover toward its pre-disturbance state [91]. By this definition, resistance is a
capacity exerted before the system is perturbed; resilience can be measured after the perturbation has
occurred. In geomorphic systems—especially sediment-transport systems—the impacts of physical
disturbances can be filtered and disproportionately attenuated (through negative feedbacks), rather
than amplified (through positive feedbacks) [92–94]. In some cases, such as in well-developed beach
cusps [95] or large-scale cuspate forelands [96] that inhibit the development of smaller-amplitude
wavelengths, a negative feedback underpins resilience by reinforcing equilibrium and/or pattern
stability [97]—and the presence of the negative feedback itself constitutes a kind of resistance.
When a positive feedback amplifies a perturbation into a change in stable state—for example,
when a major disturbance to a vegetated marsh initiates a transition to an unvegetated tidal flat,
or when a barrier is breached, converting a freshwater lagoon in an estuarine environment—then
the resistance of a system may be overcome, even if it remains ecologically resilient in Holling’s [32]
typology. Piégay et al. [16] point out a fundamental conflict in this aspect of ecological resilience.
Theoretically, a system that crosses a threshold and enters a new state remains resilient and has
adaptive capacity because it is composed of living components that can adapt to other environmental
conditions. That said, many intrinsic nonliving components may have significantly and/or irreversibly
changed. Returning to the example of an intertidal marsh, with a loss of vegetation, high-elevation
topography may transition to the low-elevation topography of an intertidal flat. Both conditions are
ecologically resilient, but they are fundamentally different environments. They are coupled by a critical
dynamical threshold, but nonetheless characterised by their own physical and ecological processes
and functions. Returning to the example of a barrier breach, both a freshwater lagoon and an estuary
are environments with ecological resilience and high conservation value, but they are vastly different
in terms of functioning and biodiversity; consequently, the switch from one environmental state to the
other may be unacceptable from some socioeconomic or even conservation point of view.
Water 2019, 11, 2587 6 of 21

5. Resilience in Coastal Human–Environmental Systems

Social scientists who view communities and societies as socioeconomic systems that can
self-organise and function in multiple or alternative equilibrium states describe a view of resilience that
is similar to that of ecologists [98,99]. For decades an interdisciplinary branch of resource economics
has advanced a theory for coupled social–ecological systems, in which socioeconomic dynamics,
among other components, are vital to how a common pool environmental resource system responds to
disturbances and shocks [100]. Some scholars consider resilience to have morphological, ecological,
and socioeconomic components [101]; others engineering, ecological, community, and social–ecological
components [15]; and still others engineering, ecological, and psychological components, where the
latter is defined as “the ability of human individuals and communities to withstand and/or recover
from disturbances” [22].
Flood and Schechtman [22] argue that recognising, reconciling, and integrating psychology
as a primary component of resilience is necessary to capture the complex interplay of human
and environmental systems in coastal zones. They propose that increased resilience requires
strengthening engineering, ecological, and psychological components in a reinforcing manner, rather
than championing one at the expense of others, but such balance is difficult to achieve. For example,
the ability of a community to recover psychologically from a devastating coastal storm—to build
psychological resilience—may be underpinned by engineering-driven strategies such as infrastructural
investment in hard defences, which may in turn weaken ecological resilience [102,103]. Consider the
rhetoric of the recovery plan for New York City after Superstorm Sandy in 2012, entitled A Stronger,
More Resilient New York, which aimed to increase resilience through the building and upgrading of
hard engineering defences: “By hardening our coastline . . . we are a coastal city—and we cannot and
will not, abandon our water front. Instead we must build a stronger, more resilient city—and this
plan puts us on a path to just do that” [104]. This adoption and interpretation of resilience enables
the reconstruction of existing communities in the same vulnerable places they existed before the
storm, potentially compromising long-term resilience. Similarly, investment in disaster recovery and
improved hazard defences might compromise both ecological and psychological resilience—at least for
some groups—by catalysing post-disaster gentrification and the displacement of the local pre-disaster
community [105,106].
In objective, dynamical terms, a system with more than one stable state may be resilient to
perturbations in whichever state it takes. What is not always explicit is a collective preference among
those who use and manage a given environmental system for the persistence of one state over any
others [1,107]. If coastal resilience is an intrinsic property that arises from the natural ability of coastal
systems to adapt to sudden or gradual changes to the drivers of coastal dynamics [101], then the
Building with Nature concept [3], for example, represents a deliberate effort to embed these dynamics
into management approaches that facilitate resilience in developed and populated coastal zones.
This inevitable blurring of natural and built environments—or the outright replacement of natural
environments with built ones [1,108]—thus complicates any unified definition of resilience.
Coupled human–environmental systems manifest dynamics that differ substantively from the
dynamics of their constituent systems in isolation [103]. The constituent socioeconomic system might
describe one attractor, the environmental system another attractor, and the dynamically coupled
system still another attractor, distinct from the other two. Consider a city on a delta, like New Orleans.
In the absence of any river and coastal flood hazard, the city likely would have evolved to have some
other urban structure—hypothetically, a uniform grid—unconstrained by levees. Likewise, in the
absence of a city, the Mississippi River, free to distribute sediment across its lowermost floodplains and
sustain its coastal marshes, likely would have maintained the elevation of its delta relative to sea level.
But combined—a city on a delta—the dynamics of each depend on the other, resulting in hazard-control
measures that shape the physical and sociopolitical–economic structure of the city, and changes to the
physical geography that amplify hazard [103]. In fact, although some settings are more tightly coupled
than others [109], such human–environmental coupling is likely characteristic of all developed coastal
Water 2019, 11, 2587 7 of 21

environments. A powerful concept in terrestrial ecology is that the biomes of the world—traditionally
defined as natural ecological systems with human systems embedded in them—have changed
so fundamentally with human domination of the world’s ecosystems [110,111] that they are now
anthromes, or human systems with ecological systems embedded in them [108,112]. Invoking global
analyses of human impacts on marine and coastal environments by Halpern et al. [113,114], Lazarus [1]
has argued that developed coastal environments are so impacted (directly and indirectly) by human
activities, from engineering and industry to climate-related change, that the world’s coasts now
constitute coastal anthromes.
To the extent that modern coupled human–environmental systems are understood, forays into
their dynamics tend to be theoretical or compiled from patchworks of case studies [103,115]. In coastal
settings, specifically, exploratory numerical modelling suggests that developed coastal barriers with
engineered protections against hazard impacts (i.e., chronic erosion, inundation during major storms)
exhibit complex dynamical behaviours with distinct attractors, including oscillatory boom–bust cycles
in which coastal development intensifies until the costs of protection become unsustainable and the
area is abandoned [116–119]. Quantitative empirical tests of this theoretical work, however, are only
just emerging [117,120–122].
The variety of possible dynamical attractors for coastal human–environmental systems remains
largely unknown. If a boom-and-bust oscillator is potentially one attractor, then a trajectory on
that attractor may be the tendency for coastal risk to intensify through a feedback between hazard
protection and investment in development [102,103,116,117,120,122–125]. Beyond its promise of
short-term financial gain in coastal real estate markets, this is not necessarily a preferred trajectory,
or attractor, to be locked into. Other patterns suggest the presence of alternative trajectories, if not
alternative attractors. Shoreline management policies such as hold-the-line and managed realignment
(typically the abandonment of coastal agricultural land for wetland creation) constitute different
dynamical trajectories [2,126], but both are manifestations of a boom-and-bust attractor, as hold-the-line
strategies are likely not indefinite and managed realignment may require the deliberate abandonment
of pre-existing infrastructure (Figure 2). There are also growing indications that sea level rise is
beginning to negatively affect coastal property values in some areas [127]. Economic arguments
contend that the preservation of coastal habitats and Building with Nature strategies could ultimately
reduce risk and damage costs to coastal infrastructure over timescales relevant to management
decision-making [9–12,14].
If management for coastal resilience is interested in the long-term maintenance of a single, stable
equilibrium state, then coastal management pursues a general model of engineering resilience. However,
imposing a subjective preference for single-state stability onto an inherently multi-state system—that
is, forcing the dynamics of ecological resilience to conform to those of engineering resilience—creates a
problem of conflicting desires, a case of having cake versus eating it. A preference for stability may be
implicit in the management of developed coastal zones, even as the socioeconomic component of the
coupled system grows at the expense of its environmental counterpart. Such growth inevitably forces
changes in the coupled system in ways that alter its structure, and, by extension, its stability. Given
capacity for ecological resilience, the system might adjust to a new stable state—one among perhaps
many possible states. By comparison, sustained efforts to maintain a single, preferred equilibrium
may ultimately fail. A coupled human–environmental system constrained by engineering resilience
and without limits to growth (e.g., [128,129]) is steered toward a state that is increasingly untenable
without continuous intervention, such as repeated beach nourishment, and at increasingly large
scales [102,103,109,130–132]. In coastal zones likely characterised by a feedback between protection
and development, the irony of further investment in coastal protection—an effort to maintain the
local steady state—is its indirect stimulus for further development, exacerbating the underlying
problem [120,123,133].
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Figure 2. The village of Torcross, south Devon, England, is situated at the end of a narrow gravel
Figure 2. The village of Torcross, south Devon, England, is situated at the end of a narrow gravel
barrier that separates a freshwater lagoon from the sea (photo: Peter Ganderton). An important
barrier that separates a freshwater lagoon from the sea (photo: Peter Ganderton). An important road
road runs along the crest of the barrier. The barrier is highly dynamic and erosion resulting from
runs along the crest of the barrier. The barrier is highly dynamic and erosion resulting from storms
storms and sea level rise threatens the village and the road. The management policy for the village
and sea level rise threatens the village and the road. The management policy for the village is hold-
is hold-the-line, and recent reinforcement of the seawall has undoubtedly contributed to enhanced
the-line, and recent reinforcement of the seawall has undoubtedly contributed to enhanced
socioeconomic resilience in the short to medium terms (up to 2050), whilst compromising the natural
socioeconomic resilience in the short to medium terms (up to 2050), whilst compromising the natural
behaviour of the beach in front to the seawall. The current policy for the road, however, is no active
behaviour of the beach in front to the seawall. The current policy for the road, however, is no active
intervention and in case of significant damage to the road it will not be repaired and will thus cease
intervention and in case of significant damage to the road it will not be repaired and will thus cease
to function. This is likely to have a negative impact on the socioeconomic resilience of the region,
to function. This is likely to have a negative impact on the socioeconomic resilience of the region, but
but it will allow the barrier–lagoon system to function more naturally, thus enhancing ecological and
it will allow the barrier–lagoon system to function more naturally, thus enhancing ecological and
geomorphological resilience.
geomorphological resilience.
Some work has suggested the potential for the incorporation of multiple stable states into
If management
restoration programmes for coastal resilienceecosystems
for degraded is interested[134],
in theand
long-term maintenance
an interesting change ofis
a single,
underwaystable in
equilibrium
the management state,ofthen coastal
coastal dunemanagement pursues acoastal
systems. Traditionally, generaldune
model of engineering
systems resilience.
have been restored to,
However, imposing
or maintained a subjective
in, a stabilized preference
state, for single-state
often through vegetation stability ontowith
planting, an inherently multi-state
the objective to arrest
system—that is, forcing the dynamics of ecological resilience to conform to those
natural geomorphic processes, such as erosion, sediment transport, and dune migration, to improve its of engineering
resilience—creates
role in coastal defence.a problem
However, of more
conflicting desires, has
recent research a case
shown of that
having
dunecake versus eating
stabilization it. A
can result in
preference for stability may be implicit in the management of developed coastal
the loss of landform dynamics, biodiversity, complexity, and resilience. Artificially stabilized dunezones, even as the
socioeconomic
systems are often component
resistant toof all the coupled
but the system disturbances
most extreme grows at the expense
and, of its
as a result, environmental
have dysfunctional
counterpart. Such growth inevitably forces changes in the coupled
geomorphic and ecological regimes that do not experience lower magnitude disturbance system in ways that alter its
cycles
structure, and, by extension, its stability. Given capacity for ecological resilience,
required for maintaining natural dune ecosystem structure and function [135]. Even well-intentioned the system might
adjust to a new
interventions canstable state—one
still result in theamong perhaps many possible
compartmentalisation states. By comparison,
of dune landforms and ecologiessustained
[136,137].
efforts to maintain a single, preferred equilibrium may ultimately fail.
A management effort that attempts to stabilise a coastline and enhance its resilience may find A coupled human–itself
environmental system constrained by engineering resilience and without limits to growth (e.g.,
[128,129]) is steered toward a state that is increasingly untenable without continuous intervention,
Water 2019, 11, 2587 9 of 21

trying to reconcile contradictory goals [20]. Reestablishment of natural disturbances and related
morphodynamics in dune landscapes are being incorporated increasingly into restoration projects that
seek to restore lost ecosystem dynamics and services [138–141]. A more dynamic landscape, wherein
natural geomorphic processes are stimulated, is argued to provide a more resilient ecosystem with
more favourable ecological conditions for native communities and endangered species [142].
Returning reclaimed tidal salt marshes to their natural state is another example of improving
degraded ecosystems by restoring their ecological resilience, whilst at the same time enhancing
resilience to flooding by increase floodwater storage. Unfortunately, historically impounded marshes
can be too low in the tidal frame for salt marsh vegetation to thrive [143]. If starting from an elevation
deficit, once-impounded marshes may be less resilient to sea level rise than natural marshes [144].
By contrast, at the mouth of the Yangtze River, abundant sediment load in the system appears to
produce resilient reclaimed wetland ecosystems, with wetland development landward and seaward of
impoundment structures [145].

6. Toward a Working Definition of Coastal Resilience

The generic, widely applied definition of coastal resilience refers to the ability of a coastal
system—whether geomorphic, ecological, socioeconomic or a combination [101]—to bounce back
from a major shock or disturbance, such as a storm event. Under climate change, however, a more
important aspect of coastal resilience is the capacity of a given system to withstand or adapt to a
chronic, continuous disturbance, such as sea level rise, a shift in prevailing wave conditions, or a
negative sediment budget. An inclusive definition of coastal resilience should therefore account for
both types of perturbation—sometimes referred to as pulse versus press/ramp disturbances [16,146].
In addition to recognising different disturbance types, a working definition of coastal resilience
should acknowledge the importance of viable function, such as intact sediment transport pathways
and physical space to accommodate morphological change and variability. For management purposes,
dynamic functionality should perhaps supersede system state: a salt marsh platform might look intact,
but in fact be nearing a critical threshold of becoming a tidal mudflat. A restored marsh can have the
appropriate vegetation, but if the marsh hydroperiod increases with sea level rise without sufficient
sediment input and vertical accretion rates, the marsh is not systemically functional and will likely
transition to an unvegetated tidal flat [73,83,84]. The spatial extent over which the intrinsic biophysical
feedbacks of tidal wetlands are able to function has a fundamental effect on the variety, integrity,
distribution of alternative stable states in the tidal wetland environment at macroscales [41]. A system
state is not necessarily a direct indicator of system function. Hence, the essential need for information
about both state and behaviour [147].
Over the past two decades, related definitions of coastal resilience have appeared and evolved
in the literature of coastal disciplines. The term resilience was first used prominently in relation to
coastal zone management and climate change adaptation in the second report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [148], and again in the major, international EUROSION project [149].
The latter project framed coastal resilience as: “the inherent ability of a coastline to cope with changes
induced by factors such as sea-level rise, extreme events, and human impacts, while maintaining the
functions fulfilled by the coastal system over the long-term”. The fifth IPCC report defines resilience as:
“the capacity of social, economic, and environmental systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend
or disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain their essential function, identity,
and structure, while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning, and transformation” [26].
Water 2019, 11, 2587 10 of 21

The 2013 EU strategy on climate adaptation, coastal, and marine issues discusses measures to
increase the resilience of European coastlines, maintaining a clear connection between resiliency
and integrated coastal zone management [150]. Coastal zone management in the Netherlands,
in particular, has embraced a holistic view of resilience [101,151], stating: “The resilience of the coast
is its self-organising capacity to preserve actual and potential functions of coastal systems under the
influence of changing hydraulic and morphological conditions. This capacity is based on the (potential)
dynamics of morphological, ecological and socio-economic processes in relation to the demands that
are made by the functions to be preserved.”
More sophisticated than traditional definitions derived from simplifications of ecological and
engineering resilience, the Dutch definition explicitly recognizes that coastal systems are dynamic
and continuously evolving, and that they represent fundamental natural capital for providing
and supporting flood protection, recreation, tourism, drinking water supply, housing, and nature
conservation. For human welfare, the ecological bases for these functions must be preserved—and that
preservation in turn relies on the stewardship of coastal environments. Note that the definition does
not prescribe a coastal state that should be aspired to and preserved, but rather the conditions that the
coastal system should meet, which provides planners and policymakers with more flexibility [101].
With an eye to these various and overlapping definitions of coastal resilience, we suggest the
following synthesis: “Coastal resilience is the capacity of the socioeconomic and natural systems in
the coastal environment to cope with disturbances, induced by factors such as sea level rise, extreme
events, and human impacts, by adapting whilst maintaining their essential functions.”

7. From Definitions to Frameworks and Metrics

Beyond definitions for terminology, conceptual frameworks, such as the one developed by [152]
for assessing coastal vulnerability, remain relevant for identifying how various systems properties
(e.g., susceptibility, resistance, resilience) may be related to disturbance, and for directly addressing
the natural and socioeconomic dimensions of modern coastal systems. Resilience and vulnerability
tend to be closely associated. Some researchers view the concepts as opposites, arguing that an
environment that is vulnerable to a certain stressor (e.g., sea level rise, extreme storms) is not resilient
to that stressor [153]; others present them as two sides of the same coin [154]. The framework by Klein
and Nicholls [152] exemplifies the latter perspective. In their rendering, susceptibility reflects the
potential for a coastal system to be affected by a disturbance (e.g., sea level rise); resistance describes
the ability of a susceptible system to avoid or withstand perturbation; and resilience is a measure of the
system’s capacity to respond to the consequences of perturbation. The natural responses of resistance
and resilience are termed autonomous adaptation, in contrast to planned adaptation through human
interventions, which can affect coastal resilience by either hampering or enhancing the effectiveness of
autonomous adaptation.
For resilience and vulnerability to be applicable concepts that help guide management and inform
policy decisions, they ultimately require quantification [155]. Understanding differences in resilience
across sites and environments is critical for informing coastal management and policy, but such analysis
is hindered by a lack of simple, effective tools. Numerical models can be applied, but these can be
complicated and tend to be site specific, making them highly sensitive to parameterisation [156].
The need for relative comparisons—between cases and in a given location over time—has prompted
the development of empirically driven indices, such as the Driver-Pressures-State-Impacts-Response
(DPSIR) framework [157], the Remote Sensed Resilience Index (RSRI) for coral reef islands [158],
and the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) to assess coastal vulnerability to coastal hazards [159–164].
Acknowledging that a single metric for both vulnerability and resilience assessment raises a number
of challenges, Lam et al. [165] delivered the Resilience Inference Measurement (RIM), a statistical
inferential method that uses real exposure, damage, and recovery data to derive a resilience ranking for
a community. As an example of a new approach to characterizing marsh resilience, Raposa et al. [166]
developed multi-metric indices for tidal marsh resilience to sea level rise (MARS), incorporating ten
Water 2019, 11, 2587 11 of 21

metrics for characteristics that contribute to overall marsh resilience to sea level rise (e.g., percent of
marsh below mean high water, accretion rate, tide range, turbidity, rate of sea level rise) and reflect
marsh sensitivity and exposure. MARS index scores can inform the choice of the most appropriate
coastal management strategy for a marsh—moderate scores call for actions to enhance resilience
while low scores suggest investment may be better directed to adaptation strategies such as creating
opportunities for marsh migration rather than attempting to save existing marshes.
In coral reef systems, resilience-based management is a rapidly expanding approach in which
resilience theory and tools are used to inform decision-making and help set realistic expectations for
attainable management goals [167–170]. Assessment of resilience in these coral reef systems is based
on the identification and quantification of resilience indicators—a select set of fundamental physical
and ecological characteristics that tend to make a reef system more likely to resist and/or recover from
disturbances, such as bleaching [171]. Researchers in coral ecosystems are also taking advantage of
high-resolution and open-source satellite imagery, and related advances in image analysis, to pioneer
new quantitative resilience indicators through remote sensing, such as the Remote Sensed Resilience
Index (RSRI) for coral reef islands [158].
Quantifying resilience remains challenging. Salt marshes, for example, have been found to
be extremely vulnerable, with large salt marsh losses documented worldwide, and particularly in
developed coastal zones [172,173]. At the same time, estimates of critical rates of sea level rise for
coastal salt marshes around the world indicate relatively high resilience at many salt marsh sites [174],
and all assessments highlight that the available sediment supply is a key factor for marsh resilience
to sea level rise [74,75]. Salt marshes in microtidal regimes are particularly sensitive to a reduction
in sediment supply under increasing rates of sea level rise, but salt marshes in macrotidal regimes
are more resilient to high rates of sea level rise and/or reduced sediment supply [175,176]. Resilience
may be an intrinsic property of system structure and interactions, but is nonetheless related to, if not
controlled by, site-specific geographical and historical circumstances [91,172,174], further complicating
any categorical statements about resilience in geomorphic systems.
Given the critical role that sediment supply plays in the complex dynamics of geomorphic systems,
coastal and otherwise, perhaps resilience is, fundamentally, a net-positive sediment budget. As far as
single metrics go, the concept is a powerful one. The aim of restoring coastal floodplain connectivity,
for example, is to counteract subsidence by allowing floods to rebuild land elevation [14]. Filling
out the world’s shrinking, sinking deltas will require many kinds of interventions, but none more
important than deliberate sediment diversions to build new, compensatory land area [177]. As part
of their comprehensive plan to manage their national coastline, the Dutch use a rigorous, systematic
programme of beach nourishment to maintain their shoreline at its position in 1990 [178]. A less
systematic—and therefore especially surprising—example comes from the eastern seaboard of the
United States, where evidence suggests that enough beach nourishment has occurred since the 1960s
to effectively reverse the predominant trend of shoreline change from erosion to accretion [122,179].
Even if a single metric for coastal resilience were to exist, it would likely be normalised (imagine a
dimensionless index between 0 and 1), and highly sensitive to its constituent components. Consider
the closely related concept of risk, defined as a product of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability—hazard
is a likelihood that a hazard event of a given magnitude will occur; exposure typically refers to people
or infrastructure in harm’s way, or to the economic consequences of a hazard impact on infrastructure
and livelihoods; and vulnerability is itself a compound metric intended to capture susceptibility to
harm from exposure [180–182]. Each component term must reflect the kind of risk being examined
and the timescale of consideration. Is the research concerned with punctuated extreme events or
chronic flooding and erosion? With numbers of people or numbers of buildings? With demographics
or residual economic losses or both, and their interrelationships? The resulting risk index might look
the same—a distribution of values between 0 and 1—but its formulation can vary widely. Similarly,
a coastal resilience index might hinge on a measure of recovery time to pre-disturbance conditions.
But rapid recovery might indicate strong resilience in a beach system—the natural restoration of beach
Water 2019, 11, 2587 12 of 21

volume following an erosive storm event [50,183]. But rapid recovery in coastal real estate might
have more complicated implications if house prices quickly rebound after a storm event [184]—and
serves as another reminder that resilience may convey a preference for one kind of system behaviour
over another. Resilience—and therefore any metric for resilience—is context-dependent, but a useful
definition of resilience should frame a rich variety of contexts.

8. Synthesis and Conclusions

Facilitating coastal resilience is increasingly seen as a desirable outcome for coastal
management [185] since a resilient coast is better able to accommodate disturbances driven by
natural and anthropogenic processes than one that has limited capacity for internal change [186].
The U.K. Environment Agency strategy for Flooding and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM)
uses “building resilient places” as their objective and vision [2]. Enhancing coastal resilience is
increasingly viewed as a cost-effective way to prepare for uncertain future changes while maintaining
opportunities for coastal development. Zonation and implementation of buffer zones—reserves,
set-back laws, coastal change management areas—should allow the coast to exercise its intrinsic
resilience. That said, landform and habitat resilience within coastal human–environmental systems
require levels of dynamism and geomorphic complexity not often tolerated by managed systems.
Although resilience is closely linked to dynamical stability, resilient coasts are not necessarily
stable coasts. Given that resilience in geomorphic systems is sensitive to local geography and historical
legacies [94], blanket conclusions about the relative resilience of particular types of landforms or
landscapes (e.g., barrier islands, tidal wetlands, coral atolls) become problematic. And nowhere is the
fallacy of stable coasts more important than on developed shorelines. The illusion of stability as resilience
enables build–destroy–rebuild cycles of construction and reconstruction of coastal development in
hazardous places. Because of the need for rigorous scientific assessments and associated policy
implications in vulnerable coastal zones, there is an essential need for clear, consistent definitions and
measures of resilience [17].
Coastal environments with an essential ecological component—salt marshes, mangroves, dunes,
and coral reefs—perhaps best lend themselves to applications of resilience principles for management.
But until the attractors—likely multiple stable states—of coastal human–environmental systems
are better understood, managing resilience in anthropogenically dominated contexts will remain a
moving target. Moreover, resilience in coastal human–environmental systems will always require a
trade-off between the natural environmental and social components, and it is the challenge of coastal
management to balance the needs of both the socioeconomic and natural coastal systems for the future,
and aim to increase the resilience of both (Figure 3). However, socioeconomic resilience tends to get
favoured at the expense of intrinsic natural environmental resilience, such as through the construction
of coastal protection structures. Reactive measures that increase resilience across all aspects of the
coastal human–environmental system are costly and rare, and perhaps only Building with Nature
approaches qualify. There is more scope for proactive measures to enhance resilience within coastal
human–environmental systems. A rigorous, science-informed coastal planning approach, implemented
at the appropriate temporal scale, remains a feasible tool for achieving proactive adaptation and
enhancement of both socioeconomic and natural resilience.
There is no unifying panacea for managing coupled coastal human–environmental systems [187],
and pathways to facilitating resilience may not scale easily across local, regional, and national
institutions of governance and implementation. What coastal resilience looks like in practice will be
diverse, informed not only by physical geography, but also cultural and societal norms.
Water 2019, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 22
Water 2019, 11, 2587 13 of 21

Figure 3. Coastal resilience matrix divided into four quadrants and considering the effect of coastal
Figure 3. Coastal resilience
zone management on bothmatrix divided into
socioeconomic andfour quadrants
natural and considering
resilience. the effect
A well-designed andof coastal
executed
zone management on
mega-nourishment both can
scheme socioeconomic
enhance bothand natural resilience.
socioeconomic A well-designed
and natural and executed
resilience (Building with
mega-nourishment scheme
Nature quadrant), while can enhancecoastal
inappropriate both socioeconomic
structures can andhavenatural
adverse resilience
effects on(Building with
both systems
Nature quadrant),
(Management while
Failure inappropriate
quadrant). Hardcoastal structures
engineering can have
structures adverse enhance
generally effects onsocioeconomic
both systems
(Management Failure quadrant). Hard engineering structures generally enhance
resilience, but almost always reduce natural resilience (Coastal Protection quadrant), whereas socioeconomic
resilience, but almost
pro-conservation always
measures reducenatural
enhance naturalresilience,
resiliencebut
(Coastal
this canProtection quadrant),
be at the expense whereas pro-
of socioeconomic
conservation measures
resilience (Nature enhance quadrant).
Conservation natural resilience, but this can be at the expense of socioeconomic
resilience (Nature Conservation quadrant).
Author Contributions: G.M. and E.D.L. contributed equally to all aspects of this paper.
There is no unifying panacea for managing coupled coastal human–environmental systems
Funding: This research was funded in part by the UK Environment Agency (to GM), NERC BLUEcoast project
[187], and pathways
(NE/N015665/1 to GM; to facilitating to
NE/N015665/2 resilience
EDL), andmay not scale
the NERC UK easily across
Climate local,programme
Resilience regional, and national
(NE/S016651/1
to EDL).
institutions of governance and implementation. What coastal resilience looks like in practice will be
diverse,
Conflictsinformed
of Interest:not
Theonly by physical
authors geography,
declare no conflict of but also cultural
interest. andhad
The funders societal norms.
no role in the design of the
study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to
Author
publish Contributions:
the results. GM and EDL contributed equally to all aspects of this paper.

Funding: This research was funded in part by the UK Environment Agency (to GM), NERC BLUEcoast project
(NE/N015665/1 to GM; NE/N015665/2 to EDL), and the NERC UK Climate Resilience programme (NE/S016651/1
to EDL).

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the
study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to
publish the results.
Water 2019, 11, 2587 14 of 21

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