Coastal Resilience Solutions for a Changing Climate: Engineering, Nature-Based, and Hybrid Innovations

Coastal managers and policymakers increasingly have access to monitoring networks, modelling platforms, and management frameworks for tracking and forecasting coastal change. The critical gap is not in observation or prediction, it is in the implementation evidence: which engineering structures, nature-based interventions, or hybrid combinations deliver durable resilience under specific climate, geomorphic, and socio-economic conditions, and how should they be designed, assessed, and scaled?The case for hybrid solutions is well-established in principle. In practice, the field lacks systematic documentation of how these systems perform across diverse geographies and climate exposures. Hard structures alone are costly, inflexible, and ecologically disruptive. Nature-based solutions — mangrove restoration, dune systems, living shorelines, wetland rehabilitation — deliver resilience alongside ecosystem services including carbon sequestration, biodiversity support, coastal livelihoods, and water quality improvement, but their structural performance under extreme or compound loading remains incompletely documented. Hybrid designs that integrate engineered and natural elements offer adaptive potential, yet field-validated design principles and performance benchmarks are fragmented across disciplines and geographies.This Research Topic brings that fragmented evidence together. We particularly encourage studies that centre socio-ecological system dynamics, include community and stakeholder co-design in the intervention process, and document long-term performance and ecosystem service delivery alongside structural outcomes. Resilience is not a feature of infrastructure alone; it is produced through the interaction of physical interventions, ecological processes, and the communities that depend on coastal systems. Digital and data-driven tools for decision support — including GIS-based suitability assessment, scenario planning, and performance dashboards — are welcome where they directly inform intervention selection, design, or evaluation.This Research Topic is focused on interventions and their implementation: what is built, how it is designed, how it performs in the field, and how it is evaluated over time. Contributions that ground monitoring, modelling, or analytical frameworks in the direct assessment of engineering, nature-based, or hybrid intervention outcomes are strongly encouraged. The collection is of interest to coastal engineers, marine scientists, restoration ecologists, climate adaptation practitioners, and the communities and policymakers who depend on resilient coastal systems.We welcome original research articles, reviews, case studies, field assessments, and policy-relevant analyses on:- Engineering interventions: design, performance, and failure analysis of hard coastal protection structures under present and projected climate loading.- Nature-based solutions implementation: design criteria, field performance, ecosystem service quantification, and long-term monitoring of coastal wetlands, reefs, dunes, and living shorelines.- Hybrid and green-grey design: co-design methodologies, structural integration of engineered and natural elements, performance benchmarks and failure modes.- Stakeholder and community co-design: participatory approaches to coastal intervention planning, local knowledge integration, and socio-ecological governance.- Ecosystem services from coastal interventions: carbon sequestration, biodiversity, coastal livelihoods, and water quality co-benefits of NbS and hybrid systems.- Long-term performance evaluation: field evidence on the durability and adaptation of interventions over time, including post-storm recovery and climate-driven performance shifts.- Decision-support for intervention selection: GIS-based or scenario-driven tools that guide the choice and sequencing of engineering, NbS, or hybrid approaches under uncertainty.- Equity and context-sensitivity: solution accessibility, transferability, and governance in low-lying developing regions, small island states, and urbanising deltas. Topic editors: Nitin Muttil, Komali Kantamaneni, Upaka Rathnayake Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78852/coastal-resilience-solutions-for-a-changing-climate-engineering-nature-based-and-hybrid-innovations