Strategies for governments to help close the coastal adaptation funding gap

Coastal protection refers to measures that seek to reduce damage to coastal land and assets from natural hazards such as erosion and inundation. Coastal population growth and projected climate change impacts will expose more people, land and assets to erosion and inundation increasing demand for coastal protection. Established coastal protection funding approaches, such as general taxation, intergovernmental transfers (grants with no obligation for repayment), and private investment to protect private property are constrained in meeting the funding required for future coastal protection needs in many areas. The coastal adaptation funding gap is the difference between current funding and future demand, a problem for governments that requires the identification of alternative approaches to funding coastal protection. This article presents four case studies of alternative funding approaches used to deliver coastal protection projects in Australia. These cases we analysed to identify strategies governments can adopt to reduce the coastal adaptation funding gap: i) use statutory powers to coerce funding from private beneficiaries thereby ensuring that public funds are focused on public goods, where opportunities for private funding is limited; ii) seek standardisation of design of coastal protection and adopt a coordinating role to reduce costs for coastal protection across the project lifecycle; iii) include opportunities for income generation within the design stage of coastal protection projects to extend public funds; and; iv) use debt finance to align the timing of project costs to local benefits and reduce the time to obtain the required capital. In each of the cases, the combination of political imperative to act and the absence of access to established funding approaches appear to have motivated the use of alternative approaches. The findings provide important lessons for climate adaptation finance and coastal protection governance where identification of alternative funding approaches is necessary.