Coast-R Webinar - Resilience Building Policies in Coastal Communities

Speaker: Professor Gina Yannitell Reinhardt, ARISE, University of Essex

UK coastal communities offer cultural, economic, and social diversity to the country, yet exhibit lower levels of health, wellbeing, and income compared to their inland counterparts. These communities are now at risk from climate-related hazards such flooding and sea-level rise, as well as threats to infrastructure, transportation, and economic and social wellbeing. Though multiple national initiatives to help build resilience in these communities exist, few coastal residents feel they have the opportunity to take a meaningful role in resilience building efforts.

This talk will:

• Highlight the challenges to resilience faced by coastal communities in the UK
• Present a new, transdisciplinary definition of resilience that focuses on relationships between people and nature
• Introduce three types of resilience-building projects being explored and tested in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent
• Consider a variety of methods to test impact on resilience from such projects moving forward