Impacts of climate change on coastal habitats, relevant to the coastal and marine environment around the UK

Burden, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7694-1638; Smeaton, C.; Angus, S.; Garbutt, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9145-9786; Jones, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4379-9006; Lewis, H.D.; Rees, S.M.. 2020 Impacts of climate change on coastal habitats, relevant to the coastal and marine environment around the UK. In: MCCIP science review 2020. Lowestoft, Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership, 228-255.

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Abstract/Summary

Coastal habitats are at risk from both direct (temperature, rainfall), and indirect (sea-level rise, coastal erosion) impacts due to a changing climate. Beyond the environmental impacts and ensuing habitat loss, the changing climate will have a significant societal impact to coastal communities ranging from health to livelihoods, as well as the loss of important ecosystem services such as coastal defence – particularly relevant with predicted increase in storminess. Vegetated coastal ecosystems sequester carbon – another ‘ecosystem service’ that could be disrupted due to climate change. There has been considerable recent attention to the potential role these habitats could play in climate mitigation, and also in transferring carbon across the land–sea interface. To understand the relative importance of these habitats within the global carbon cycle, coastal habitats need to be accounted for in national greenhouse gas inventories, and a true multidisciplinary catchment-to-coast approach to research is required. Management options exist that can reduce the immediate impacts of climate change, such as managed realignment and sediment recharge. Fixed landward coastal defences are becoming unsustainable and creating ‘coastal squeeze’, highlighting the need to work with natural processes to recreate more-natural shorelines where possible.

Item Type:	Publication - Book Section
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.14465/2020.arc11.chb
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Soils and Land Use (Science Area 2017-)
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Freely available via Official URL link.
Additional Keywords:	coastal habitats, saltmarsh, shingle, sand dunes, cliffs, climate change, sea level rise, oceanography
NORA Subject Terms:	Ecology and Environment
Date made live:	27 Feb 2020 11:53 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527052

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