The Cape coastline faces into a turbulent ocean. Climate change will make this naturally stormy sea all the more formidable. Increasingly stormy seas and higher sea levels are beginning to show up the existing fault lines in the engineered, social and institutional strata of this complex coastline. People working within the City of Cape Town (CoCT) today are making decisions about how to manage these vulnerable spaces – decisions that future generations will have to live and work with.
Short-term, piecemeal, opportunistic responses to the threat of stormier seas will only increase how vulnerable the built city, its inhabitants, economic activities, and the natural environment are. The City, led by its Environmental Resource Management Department, is developing a rigorous coastal policy and management framework that will enable politicians, managers and residents to respond consistently and appropriately as they are confronted with an uncertain, dynamic, climate-altered future.
Author Leonie Joubert presents research done by the University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities, the Stockholm Environment Institute and partner institutions, working closely with the City of Cape Town, to explore ways to manage changing coastal risks.
The Cape coast is in a natural state of flux: pounding storms; waves and wind perpetually sweeping sand back and forth; the steady melting a...
Managing a coastline, in the context of sea level rise, needs a flexible, holistic approach, beyond that offered by the usual cost-benefit a...
Sea behaviour will change, and our decision-making relating to coastal management needs to adjust accordingly. Society needs to be fleet of ...
The Cape Coast connects economically critical railways, roads and harbours with the region’s economic engine room in the city centre. Priv...
A better approach to coastal management, most global experts now agree, is one that involves solutions at a social and institutional level...
As human actions over the past 300 years have caused global air and sea temperatures to rise, and changed the world’s climate,...