A framework for coastal and erosion risk management science

Recent initiatives, such as Foresight (and its associated Foresight Update), the Pitt Review and UKCP09, have all identified that coastal areas will be at increasing risk of sea flooding and coastal erosion into the future due to climate change and socio-economic changes. Although significant progress has been made over the past 10-15 years in our understanding of the coast and how best to manage it, major challenges persist. These challenges include gaps in our engineering and physical science understanding but also, and perhaps most importantly, in our ability to convert good science to good practice. It is these later stages of dissemination and training that have often not been given sufficient priority to make a real difference and break down the barriers between science and uptake in practice