How to make Integrated Coastal Erosion Management a reality

Highlights

• Coastal management is usually too responsive via defense works and not pro-active.
• Intervention Concerning the Erosion Causes (ICEC) is a suitable future strategy.
• Restoring sediment production and its flow to and through coastal systems is needed.
• Restoration of natural protective habitats in the river continuum is recommended.

Coastal-erosion management actions require a knowledge of sediment behaviour and interchange in all related offshore, shore and inland environments. Approaches to managing erosion include hard/soft protection measures (hold/advance the line), accommodation, managed retreat, use of ecosystems and sacrifice (do nothing). In reshaping these options, an essential addition is the most attractive but usually the least used strategy: Intervention Concerning the Erosion Causes (ICEC). Minimizing erosion via ICEC not only means specific local actions, but certainly also involves the restoration of natural protective habitats, and even the removal of anthropogenic structures that block sediment production and its flow to and through coastal systems. The spatial and temporal environmental, physical and social knowledge related to the area of interest forms the core of the ICEC approach to solve or at least minimize coastal erosion.