While adapting to future sea-level rise (SLR) and its hazards and impacts is a multidisciplinary challenge, the interaction of scientists across different research fields, and with practitioners, is limited. To stimulate collaboration and develop a common research agenda, a workshop held in June 2024 gathered 22 scientists and policymakers working in the Netherlands. Participants discussed the interacting uncertainties across three different research fields: sea-level projections, hazards and impacts, and adaptation. Here, we present our view on the most important uncertainties within each field and the feasibility of managing and reducing those uncertainties. We find that enhanced collaboration is urgently needed to prioritize uncertainty reductions, manage expectations and increase the relevance of science to adaptation planning. Furthermore, we argue that in the coming decades, significant uncertainties will remain or newly arise in each research field and that rapidly accelerating SLR will remain a possibility. Therefore, we recommend investigating the extent to which early warning systems can help policymakers as a tool to make timely decisions under remaining uncertainties, in both the Netherlands and other coastal areas. Crucially, this will require viewing SLR, its hazards and impacts, and adaptation as a whole.

The Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus approach has proved valuable in the investigation of complex systems, allowing for tailored analysis for specific scopes. This is particularly relevant due to variations in WEF nexus interactions observed between countries and regions. This article uses qualitative methods to investigate the effects of Fiji’s ambitious carbon mitigation policies through a WEF nexus approach. A framework for Policy Coherence assessment was used to score the strength and direction of policy interactions. Overall, the assessment revealed more synergies than trade-offs between Fiji’s Low Emission Development Strategy (LEDS) and nexus sectoral policies, with the energy sector having the most interactions. Analysis of data obtained from key informant interviews and the policy coherence outcomes show important trade-offs and synergies between sectors, which are useful in informing national and sectoral level policy development. The research provides policy recommendations that address governance, technology and innovation, human capital, and land issues to overcome barriers to implementing climate mitigation targets in the LEDS and Nationally Determined Contributions. This study demonstrates the utility of the WEF nexus approach through applying qualitative methods to provide valuable insights for sectoral-level nexus research. Such an approach can be applied to other small island nations facing similar challenges.

This article considers the role of the public humanities in fostering conversations about climate science and policy through a transdisciplinary performance at the University at Buffalo in New York. The Great Lakes Climate Theatre Initiative is a new project that brings together sustainability scientists with theater practitioners to create new and mixed methods for climate preparedness that are both inclusive and impactful. Toward a Climate Haven was the first project conducted by the initiative with the goal of exploring how Buffalo might become a safe and equitable destination for climate migrants. This first project resulted in a public event that combined the performance of a newly-commissioned play, a talkback session, readings from a local youth writing workshop, and a presentation from a local county official. In this article, our team reflects on how we brought these various threads together to leverage the public humanities in the effort to prepare for climate change.

The Arctic is at the forefront of climate change, undergoing some of the most rapid environmental transformations globally. Here, we examine the impacts of climate change on the livelihoods in the coastal Inuit community of Hopedale, Nunatsiavut, Canada. The study examines recently evolved adaptation strategies employed by Inuit and the challenges to these adaptations. We document changing sea ice patterns, changing weather patterns and the impact of invasive species on food resources and the environment. Utilising knowledge co-production and drawing upon Indigenous knowledge, we monitor the changes and multiple stresses through direct observations, engagement with rights holders and community experiences to characterise climate risks and associated changes affecting livelihoods. We use both decolonising research and participatory methodologies to develop collaboration and partnership, ensuring that monitoring reflects local priorities and realities while also fostering trust and collaboration. We showcase that monitoring environmental trends involves more than data collection; it includes observing and analysing how environmental changes affect community well-being, particularly in terms of food security, cultural practices, economic activities, mental health, sea ice changes and weather patterns. The paper contributes to a nuanced understanding of Inuit resilience and experiences in confronting climate risks and the broader implications for Indigenous communities confronting climate challenges.

With coastal populations rising at three times the global average, sustainable ways of safeguarding human needs around access and use of the coast alongside lasting ecosystem health of coastal environments must be developed. At the same time, human populations are facing the challenge of managing coastal access on the back of a legacy of human interventions that have already altered – and have often had unintended or unforeseen impacts on – the coastal system and its functioning.

We chart the history of the evolution of North Bull Island in Dublin Bay as an example of major unforeseen sedimentation in a coastal estuarine bay following the construction of river mouth training walls. We investigate the impact of a constructed causeway on the evolved ‘naturescape’ by comparing accretion and elevation change on the mid-marsh either side of the access road over a 32-month period (autumn 2021 to summer 2024) and measuring water levels either side of the causeway on six spring tides on consecutive days characterised by varying meteorological conditions in early September 2023. The results allow us to consider the potential implications a lack of physical connectivity may cause for the future of the two artificially separated back-barrier lagoon environments.

Greenland is the world's largest island, but only a narrow strip of land between the Inland Ice and the sea is inhabitable. Yet, the Norse chose to settle here around ad 986. During the eleventh century ad, precontact Inuit people moved into Greenland from northern Alaska via Canada. Although the two cultures faced the same climatic changes during the Little Ice Age, the Inuit thrived, while the Norse did not, for multiple causes. The authors focus on one of these causes, the hitherto overlooked contribution of young children's learning strategies to societal adaptation. The detailed analysis of a large corpus of play objects reveals striking differences between the children's material culture in the two cultures: rich and diverse in the precontact Inuit material and more limited and normative in the Norse. Drawing on insights from developmental psychology, the authors discuss possible effects of play objects on children's future adaptability in variable climatic conditions.

Floods are not merely ‘natural’ disasters; rather, they emerge as socio-natural phenomena shaped by political, social, and economic processes. Law plays a pivotal role in producing and sustaining these processes and contributes to the creation of unjust environments. Drawing on political ecology and environmental history, this article analyzes the role of law and its interactions with colonialism and capitalism in the Damodar river valley in Eastern India. The Damodar river valley is an intensely engineered and hazardous region, a site of multiple interventions and developmental and ecological experiments for over a century. Colonial and post-colonial legacies have left a lasting imprint on legal, policy, and institutional frameworks, establishing a path-dependent trajectory for addressing future climate change adaptation challenges. While focusing on a specific case study, the article's approach and findings have broader significance, especially in the context of climate adaptation. The central argument underscores the need to understand the political and legal dimensions of flooding, and reinforces the need for a shift beyond incremental adjustments that do not tackle the underlying structures that produce the injustices associated with floods. It highlights the importance of ‘transformative adaptation’ approaches that address the root causes of climate-related disasters, such as restructuring power relations between actors, reconfiguring governance structures, and scrutinizing ideologies that mediate how water is used and distributed.