CoastAdapt: Sustainable coastal protection for Lower Saxony

The effects of climate change require constant adaptation measures on the coasts. This in turn requires different perspectives, experiences and cooperation between different disciplines in order to develop new solutions. Against this background, the ‘CoastAdapt Science Space’ brings together experts from coastal engineering and coastal research to develop strategies for future coastal protection. The NIhK is contributing its expertise under the guiding principle of ‘learning from the past and gaining knowledge for the future’, in which knowledge about natural adaptation mechanisms of the coastal landscape from the time before the construction of dikes were built is to be incorporated into possible coastal protection strategies for adaptive and nature-based coastal protection.

CoastAdapt is funded by the state of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Foundation as part of the ‘Science Spaces’ funding programme. The aim of the funding programme is to promote cooperation between universities in Lower Saxony and non-university research institutions. Coast Adapt is one of 16 approved projects and will receive around three million euros over the next four years. Under the leadership of the Technical University of Braunschweig, an internationally visible coastal competence centre is to be created.  In addition to the TU Braunschweig, the Leibniz University of Hanover, the University of Oldenburg, the Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research, the Lower Saxony State Agency for Water Management, Coastal Defence and Nature Conservation and the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park Authority are also involved.

The project at the NIhK is led by Dr Friederike Bungenstock and Dr Martina Karle.