Editorial

Abstract

Coastal communities worldwide are facing accelerating pressures from rising sea levels, changing storm patterns, and shifting sediment dynamics. These trends demand reliable tools for predicting morphological evolution. Despite advances in this area, existing engineering tools still struggle to predict morphological evolution, especially in settings shaped by interventions such as nature-based solutions aimed at fostering climate-resilient coastal development. Modelling morphological change, which unfolds over much longer timescales than hydrodynamic processes, remains a challenge due to the complexity of sediment transport and related interactions, including flow–vegetation effects and human interventions. These challenges are further heightened by uncertainties in long-term climate projections. Therefore, developing and testing engineering tools capable of delivering reliable predictions is essential for planning effective short- and long-term responses to coastal erosion and flooding.

This Research Topic seeks to advance the existing coastal engineering toolbox, enabling reliable long-term predictions of coastal morphological evolution and flooding in the context of climate change and multi-biophysical phenomena, such as sediment transport and flow-vegetation interactions. Six studies contributed to this Research Topic, spanning riverine sediment supply, estuarine and dyke breach dynamics, vegetated coastal defences, and probabilistic methods for projecting flooding and erosion. These contributions, outlined below in no particular order, illustrate the scientific and methodological advancements that are reshaping our ability to anticipate coastal change and support informed, climate-resilient coastal planning.