Nature-based Solutions (NbS) use natural processes to address social, economic, and environmental challenges, including climate change, and this study explores their application for coastal protection. Before the actual implementation of NbS structures, co-creation with stakeholders to identify and assess potential NbS solutions for the selected local site is essential. However, existing frameworks for selecting NbS measures in coastal protection remain limited in handling the complex interactions among multiple indicators and the inherent uncertainty in expert evaluations. To address this gap, we develop an integrated assessment framework specifically for NbS in coastal protection. We first identified 18 distinct coastal protection measures through literature reviews. The proposed framework combines the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) and entropy-based intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS (IF-TOPSIS) to facilitate expert-driven multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), both of which use fuzzy theory to address uncertainty and ambiguity in expert judgments. The 18 consensus indicators from an initial pool of 63 evaluation indicators are obtained in FDM analysis. Subsequently, IF-TOPSIS is applied to rank the 18 measures against these evaluation indicators based on membership, non-membership, and hesitancy degrees. The proposed framework is demonstrated through a case study at the Golden Coast, Tainan, Taiwan to illustrate its practical applicability.

EU Member States invest some €2.5 billion per year in flood protection, yet flood damages continue to increase. A new approach to the planning, design and management of flood protection assets is needed to ensure risks are better managed and asset management is aligned with broader socio-economic policies and supporting governance systems. This paper sets out a policy framework to enable this transition. The framework results from a collaboration of researchers and practitioners from around the North Sea. The findings highlight common challenges and identify four priority Policy Recommendations in response to these: ‘Break free of the silo’ by aligning planning processes; ‘Mind the gap’ between strategic and operational choices; ‘Prepare for change’ by developing multi-functional and flexible plans; and ‘Make space for innovation’ by seeking to manage risk rather than avoiding it.

Uncertainties about climate change consequences, changing societal requirements and system complexity require flood protection asset managers to continuously evaluate their asset management policies and practice to manage risk and improve the resilience of their assets. However, there are many challenges in doing this, with asset operators often facing conflicting interests and major uncertainties about the future needs for asset performance. In the EU Interreg IV FAIR project, flood protection asset owners and operators, with scientific partners from the North Sea Region of Europe collaborated to develop practical guidance for adaptive asset management of flood protection infrastructure. The central component of this guidance is the FAIR framework, presented here. The framework combines insights and principles from ISO 55000 on asset management and ISO 14090 on climate adaptation with asset operator experiences to provide a practical guide for integration of asset management considerations within both strategic and operational contexts via a tactical handshake. This is a means to avoid the common lack of connection between strategic plans and operational practice. The applicability of the framework is illustrated with examples from Pilot Cases within the FAIR project, in which its value in terms of improved asset management and reduced costs has been demonstrated.