the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 07 Dec 2023
Sea Level Rise in Europe: Knowledge gaps identified through a participatory approach
Abstract. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) plays a pivotal role in delivering information and knowledge on sea level rise (SLR), a global threat impacting coastlines worldwide. However, considerable disparities still persist in Europe in understanding and applying sea level science, evaluating its repercussions, and devising effective adaptation strategies. These are influenced by local factors such as diverse environments, socioeconomic conditions, policy contexts, and diversity in stakeholder involvement, producing in turn varying knowledge gaps and information needs across European sea basins. In this context, this paper presents the findings of a comprehensive scoping process carried out by the European Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise (KH-SLR) to define the outline of the first KH-SLR Assessment Report. It consists of the analysis of stakeholder responses to an online survey and insights shared during four regional workshops, aiming to pinpoint critical gaps in available information on SLR and its potential consequences in European basins, both from a scientific and policy perspective. The analysis was divided into three categories: i) SLR science and information, ii) SLR impacts, and iii) SLR adaptation policies and decision-making. Regarding SLR science and information, many respondents found that significant gaps exist in regional SLR projections and uncertainties, particularly related to long-term SLR induced by potential melting of large icesheets. Interestingly, the perspective on information gaps is different for scientists (emphasizing the need to increase regional projection capabilities) and government users (stressing the availability of accurate projections for their regions). Regarding impacts and hazards, shoreline erosion stands out as a dominant concern in all basins except the Arctic, while emerging issues like saltwater intrusion and the role of SLR in compound risks associated with extreme water levels and river flow were also given significant regional relevance. With regards to policy and decision making, existing adaptation plans are perceived as ineffective and lacking adaptability, with gaps related to underestimated impacts and urban planning. Participants, especially end-users, emphasized the relevance of improved information dissemination and communication to support informed decision-making.
- Preprint
(1913 KB) - Metadata XML
-
Supplement
(977 KB) - BibTeX
- EndNote
Status: final response (author comments only)
-
RC1: 'Comment on sp-2023-34', Lisa Devignol, 08 Jan 2024
This work greatly complements existing sporadic knowledge of the state of Europe's adaptation to SLR. By combining both a basin-by-basin approach and a pan-European one, it provides an excellent assessment of trends in the application of existing knowledge, as well as gaps in actionable knowledge. This paper is also remarkably comprehensive and concise.
To further improve the rendering of these findings, it would be useful to report on the results obtained (if any) concerning the consideration given by stakeholders to the feasibility and effectiveness of the range of adaptation responses/solutions in the definition of strategies (not just the NBS typology, for which this analysis is already provided). Another point that deserves clarification: only the analysis of the Mediterranean region mentions social considerations. It would be interesting to elaborate on this point. Did respondents and participants from other regions not mention it? Are there underlying reasons for this Mediterranean specificity? These two clarifications would add to an already extremely useful analysis as a whole, to guide future work as well as the practical assistance to be provided to European decision-makers, particularly local decision-makers.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-2023-34-RC1 - AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Jose A. Jiménez, 27 Mar 2024
-
RC2: 'Comment on sp-2023-34', Saskia van Gool, 16 Jan 2024
The article gives very interesting and useful information on the different situations in the European countries on information availability and decission making in relation to sea level rise. Good and extensive overview of the gathered information.
The importance of exchange information on data, projections and plans could be worked out a bit more. If neighboring countries come to different conclusions of the rate of slr and the urgency this could lead to misunderstanding and confusion in society. If countries have plans to adapt to a rising sea level that effect and/or do not match with the plans of a neighbouring country, this could have severe adverse consequences.
The data suggest a comforting similar sense of urgency and prioritization of sea level rise issues on slr, specifically on uncertainty. Not mentioned is the difference in time horizon that there might be for planning and decision making in relation to the scientific scope. For policy makers there is a need for systems that helps Risk informed decision making. This could be a joint interest to work on.
The article is providing a good basis for further cooperation and is hopefully providing for next steps. On exchanging information on monitoring, methods for projections, instruments, approach, process of preparing adaption plans, decisions making, etc.. It would give the article more value if suggestions would be added for further steps or cooperation.
Some small details:
Fig 2b: Other (what is added after ‘other’ can be skipped; the explanations for other is not mentioned below)
Fig 6: result presentations are likely to give a reverse idea while no plans or no ineffective plans are figured green, while red stands for good, sufficient and effective plans.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-2023-34-RC2 - AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Jose A. Jiménez, 27 Mar 2024
-
RC3: 'Comment on sp-2023-34', Iryna Makarenko, 28 Feb 2024
To my opinion, this work contributes to a large extent to an important topic of identifying critical gaps in available information on regional SLR and its potential impacts across European basins and provides a comprehensive analysis of knowledge requirements and areas necessitating further research. Based on relevant survey and workshops, it emphasizes the role of participatory approach and turns attention to regional disparities and lack of data, cooperation and access to information on SLR at all levels.
This paper may be of interest to policy makers, coastal planners, and stakeholders at large, and it definitely contributes to the ongoing process of harmonization of efforts in terms of policy and data collection between European regional seas (under MSFD-related directives, under UNEP Regional Seas Program, bilateral arrangements between regional sea conventions etc.) and setting a scene for further steps to be implemented for improving local and regional SLR projections, as well as improvements in physical science and data, hazards and impacts, adaptation policies and decision-making. The information analyzed in the article shows increasing recognition of nature-based solutions (NBS) and role of ecosystem management in addressing the SLR, which can be further used by regional policy-makers.
İt could be still good to see a vision of potential instruments and approaches of regional cooperation on SLR in order to deal with challenges and gaps described in this article. Overall, this work is very comprehensive and eye-opening.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-2023-34-RC3 - AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Jose A. Jiménez, 27 Mar 2024
-
RC4: 'Comment on sp-2023-34', Anonymous Referee #4, 28 Feb 2024
The manuscript by Jiménez et al. presents an insightful and methodologically robust scoping initiative, exploring significant voids in knowledge from both government and academic viewpoints on available information on sea-level rise and its potential impacts. The analysis of stakeholder engagement processes is both valuable and compelling, highlighting the study's strengths. However, there are some areas where clarity and presentation could be improved to enhance the manuscript's overall impact and readability.
Specific Comments:
Abstract (Line 31): The term "information gap" is somewhat ambiguous. It would be beneficial to clarify the study's primary objective more distinctly. Is it to identify gaps in climate services for non-academic fields, to pinpoint areas needing further research from scientists, or both?
Link Functionality (Line 85): The provided link to the EU Survey platform is not operational.
Stakeholder Characteristics (Lines 101 to 106): Introducing specific characteristics of the stakeholders earlier in the section, preferably by Line 84, would greatly benefit the narrative flow and prevent the current belated introduction of this crucial information.
Stakeholder Bias in Survey Data: The manuscript exhibits a noticeable bias towards researcher, which skews the study's findings. Clarifying the study's main goal—whether it is identifying research gaps, improving climate services, or both—would help in understanding the significance of this bias.
Scoping Workshop (line 127): It is unclear whether the workshop participants include only government representatives or also scientists – as ‘stakeholders’ (in line 128) could be both. If both groups are included in the workshops, a primary concern arises in the analysis of workshop outcomes, specifically regarding the clarity in distinguishing between government and researcher perspectives, as it is crucial to understand these distinct viewpoints to address the identified knowledge gaps. Providing a more detailed account of the stakeholders involved, including selection criteria and their roles, would improve readers' comprehension of the study's foundation. Or a dedicated section comparing and contrasting government and researcher perspectives could offer nuanced insights into the stakeholder engagement process.
Improve Figures 2 and 3: For Figure 2, adding a legend and title would improve its interpretability. For Figure 3, replacing numerical labels with terms like 'agree' on the Likert-scale and adding a descriptive title (the question) and a legend could make the data more accessible.
Visual Representation of Knowledge Gaps (Section 3.2): Presenting the main knowledge gaps/needs through visual means, such as tables or graphs, would offer a clearer, more immediate comparison across different basins.
The manuscript provides an essential contribution to understanding stakeholder perspectives on information of sea-level rise and its impacts in Europe. By addressing the above suggestions, I believe the clarity and impact of your study can be enhanced. I look forward to seeing the revised manuscript and hope the feedback is useful.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-2023-34-RC4 - AC4: 'Reply on RC4', Jose A. Jiménez, 27 Mar 2024
-
EC1: 'Editor comment on sp-2023-34 with guidance for revision', Thorsten Kiefer, 11 Mar 2024
Dear authors,
Your manuscript has received four reviews, all from solicited referees, whom I herewith would like to thank warmly for contributing their time and expertise to this first Assessment Report of the European Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise.
The reviews are very appreciative of the manuscript and request only minor revisions to make the manuscript acceptable. All reviews list some specific points. I would ask you to address all of them in an author comment, in addition to revising the manuscript accordingly. In particular, please consider carefully the suggestions of Referee Comment 4 on increasing clarity of the figures and think of a way to illustrate the workshop outcomes.
In addition, I went through your manuscript with an editor's perspective and am requesting some additional revisions of different kinds. I ask you to consider those and also respond to the substantial ones (i.e. not the language or typo fixes) in an author comment:
This manuscript describes the overall approach as four successive steps: survey, workshops, conference, consultations. The manuscript describes the survey and workshops in detail, but not the remaining two steps. I am aware that the conference will be features in an introduction section to the report. A cross referencing (for now just with a placeholder) should be put in. Also, it would be good to describe, or at least indicate, how the other two components contributed to the co-design, and explain why these components are not described in this manuscript. Alternatively, add a small sub-chapter for this to have the entire co-design process described in one place.
Chapter 3.1 on the survey results provides percent numbers from aggregated survey results, e.g. in line 152ff "32% of the respondents expressed that a substantial portion of this information is missing ...". These numbers cannot be retraced anywhere. Fig. 3 is referenced at the end of this first paragraph, but the numbers provided can actually not be seen there, which is confusing. Can this be made more consistent? Reference is also made to Table S2 (actually presumably meaning S1) but here I struggled to follow how the %-numbers were generated. I feel that the manuscript should somehow provide access to the raw survey data. This would also adhere to good practice of transparency and data accessibility.
The Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise is usually abbreviated without a hyphen, just "KH SLR". For consistency, I suggest to adopt this for your paper also.
As this is about the European Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise, I suggest to use British spelling, i.e. the more common use of s instead of z in words like emphasise, prioritise, utilise, visualise, standardise, harmonise, materialise, ...
Throughout the manuscript, the word "significant" is used in different ways. Given that the manuscript has the analysis of survey data as a basis, please use consistently only for statistical or empirical significance. In other contexts, other adjectives like "relevant" might be more fitting (e.g. line 96, 208, 235, and elsewhere).
Below are some minor comments and editorial fixes:
TEXT:
line 24: replace "paper" with "chapter"
line 27: add "sea" to make it European sea basins
line 28: present tense "is" instead of "was"
line 30: long-term SLR: Can you give a semi-quantitative indication what you mean, like multi-decadal? Or multi-centennial? Or end of century? ...
line 37: especially end-users [add "of sea-level knowledge"]
line 41 and following: "uneven coverage in the knowledge ..." This sounds if we had sufficient information which is just a bit unevenly distributed. Is this the case? Or is applicable knowledge missing everywhere? If so, make sure to make this clear.
line 46: The word "is" is missing in "This IS the ambition ..."
line 52: "three key components": Further below it lists four components, including consultations. Please make consistent.
line 53: fix wording to "pertinent in Europe"
line 77: Fix typo 19502 to 1950.
line 99: Fix typo "on IPCC reports" to either in or of.
line 113: Please explain the logic of the maximum score of 600.
line 129: Delete "the" in "each of the Europe's ..."
line 130: For consistency with elsewhere in the text, change ocean basins to sea basins.
line 133: Once introduced the abbreviation KH SLR you may as well use it consistently throughout the text. Same applies to SLR
line 145/6: Be clearer how workshop participation was achieved and interest handled. By invitation only? I believe that the workshops had been advertised also.
line 162: Please choose the more formal "it is" instead of "it's".
line 164: For clarity add "sea" to make it "different sea basins".
line 242: "existing high-quality and up-to-date assessments of SLR-induced impacts" is not a statement. Please fix the sentence.
lines 264 and 514 (and elsewhere): Consider replacing optimistic with positive.
line 269: replace "an" with "this"
line 270: Consider making it "distribution of most frequent responses".
line 319: Please give an indication what sea-level milestones are. It seems to be the first mention in this manuscript here.
line 323: Replace its' with 'it is".
line 347: Budgets should probably be plural?
line 393: Rephrase to "... values were considered a top priority."
line 399: Remove "Sea" to make it "non-European coastal areas".
line 411/412: As you have introduced the abbreviation SLR already, you may use it throughout the text, i.e. also in line 412. On the other hand, I suggest to avoid using abbreviations in headers (like line 411 and elsewhere).
line 448: Make it "European sea basins"
line 450: Replace in with for.
line 455: Please give a better indication what citizen science sensors are.
line 471: Also italise "low-probability".
line 495: For consistency replace seawater with saltwater.
line 540: The spell Brügge with double-g.
line 549: LP should be LGP.FIGURES AND TABLES:
Figure 1 caption: Please be a bit more elaborate and precise what this is about (i.e. the KH's distinction of sea and ocean basins to structure the co-design consultations).
Table 1: This table contains interesting information but is not used in the text. I recommend to extract a few points that point to the differences and/or characteristics of the sea basins, which is relevant for the discussion then also.
Figure 2: Line 103ff describes the distinction of two professional groups. These could be indicated also in figure 2b to make this clearer.
Table 2: heading "N registered attendees" could be just "attendees" or at least just "registered attendees".
Supplement Tables: Numbering is inconsistent between text and supplement. It seems that one Table has been removed in the process but numbers in the text have not been corrected.
Figure 3: panel (a) could get a heading such as 'Information deficit' to make it clearer what topic this is about.
Table 3: caption: Can it be made more explanatory, e.g. by starting with "Rankings of perceived knowledge gaps based on ..."?
Figure 5: In analogy to Fig. 3, can the Likert-chart be put first (i.e. chart a here) and the colour matrix follow as chart b?
Figure 5: Can the Linkert graph get a keyword such as "Impact information availability"?
Figure 5: Black and Arctic Seas have no government values? Why are they then not identical with the grey bar mean?
Figure 5: caption: For clarity in relation to the other chart in this figure, could you add "specific" to make it read "Relevance of specific SLR-induced impacts ..."
Figure 5: caption: Please replace "colour bar" with "grey bar".
Figure 6: Consider adding keywords to the chrats for quicker grasping of the content, like effectiveness, flexibility, and NBS appropriateness.
Figure 7: caption: I can't find the question “Are there other decisions/purposes for which you currently don't consider SLR, but for which you think it would be important to do so?” in the supplement.SUPPLEMENT:
Please structure the supplement more clearly to make it easier to find the relevant information. I suggest to use the numbering 1.-8. on the cover page also within the summplement. Also, please number all elements in the supplement document.
Figure S1 ICES ecoregions should probably bot be S1 any more.
The table below that ICES ecoregions seems partly wrong. Several of the Atlantic labels should probably be Arctic. I would also suggest that you use the exactly same nomenclature as in Figure 1, i.e. if you said East Atlantic Seas there, also name it that way in the supplement.I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.
Kind regards,
Thorsten KieferCitation: https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-2023-34-EC1 - AC5: 'Reply on EC1', Jose A. Jiménez, 27 Mar 2024
Viewed
| HTML | XML | Total | Supplement | BibTeX | EndNote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 460 | 143 | 31 | 634 | 36 | 6 | 7 |
- HTML: 460
- PDF: 143
- XML: 31
- Total: 634
- Supplement: 36
- BibTeX: 6
- EndNote: 7
Viewed (geographical distribution)
| Country | # | Views | % |
|---|
| Total: | 0 |
| HTML: | 0 |
| PDF: | 0 |
| XML: | 0 |
- 1