Rising Seas, Changing Coastlines, Safety Threats and the Need for Ecosystem Planning on the Sea-Land Continuum

Abstract

Diverse actors have built port city regions at the edge of land and water, often over many centuries. Through their collaboration they have helped develop creative solutions to problems faced by port cities in the past. Their patterns of engagement have led to paradigms that can promote or hinder transitions. Identifying these paradigms and developing new ones for the ports of the future requires an understanding of culture.

Contemporary challenges of climate change and sea-level rise, but also of new technologies or new logistics demand new approaches, especially those that consider institutional, social and cultural factors.

As globalization has facilitated global flows of goods and people, it has bypassed the question of its impact on the territories and localities hosting these flows. An ecosystem approach is needed that recognizes the impact of people on and in space and the cultural mindsets that have evolved over time and that influence the present and the future.

The six articles in this special issue provide theoretical and methodological insights. They speak to the importance of collaboration along the sea-land continuum and the need for inclusive and design-based approaches that include a cultural dimension at all scales.