Boffa Miskell is undertaking research to improve understanding of the role that nature-based methods can play in the coastal hazard adaptation process. 

Nature-based solutions for coastal hazards are based on the creation, enhancement, or restoration of natural coastal features; including beaches, dunes, saltmarshes, mangroves, seagrasses meadows, kelp forests, and shellfish reefs.

These habitats can protect people, assets, and infrastructure by mitigating flooding, erosion, and wave impacts from the sea. Further inland, nature-based solutions can also mitigate coastal hazards by reducing the downstream flow of rivers towards the coast.

With climate change exacerbating the risks posed by coastal hazards, nature-based solutions are gaining traction in science and policy worldwide. Hard-engineered structures (such as seawalls) will continue to be widely used, but, in the right context, nature-based solutions can offer more flexible and sustainable approaches to coastal defence, while also providing a range of ecological, social, cultural and financial benefits.