Adaptation Tool Kit: Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Land Use

This report describes how local governments can use land-use practices to adapt to sea-level rise. It helps policymakers manage the complexity of adaptation by identifying and organizing adaptation tools. In this case, the tools are generally used legal devices such as laws and policies.

The Tool Kit describes each potential tool by:

• the type of power exercised to implement it (planning, regulatory, spending, or tax- and market-based tools);
• the policy objective that it facilitates (protection, accommodation, planned retreat, or preservation); and
• the type of existing or potential land uses that the tool can be used to adapt (critical infrastructure, existing development, developable lands, and undevelopable lands).