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Safe Human Settlements, Coastal
Protection and Combating Climate
Change
SDG9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote
inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster
innovation
SDG11: Make cities and human settlements
inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
SDG13: Take urgent action to combat climate
change and its impacts
Coastal Protection
Coastal ecosystems can provide protection against storm
surges that threaten many low lying coastal cities (SDG9
build resilient infrastructure
); (SDG11
make cities and human
settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
) . Currently
around 1 billion people live within 20 metres of mean sea level
(WOR, 2010) and the populations of coastal megacities are
projected to continue to grow, particularly in Asia.
Globally, population density in flood-prone coastal zones and
megacities is expected to grow by 25 per cent by 2050 (Aerts
et al., 2014). Combined with projected sea level rise and
increasing frequency and severity of large-scale floods, this
means that a growing proportion of the world’s population will
be exposed to the impacts of flooding.
Coastal ecosystems protect shorelines from erosion (Gedan et
al., 2010), and can play an important and cost-effective role in