Assessment of sea‐level rise adaptation options: Multiple‐criteria decision‐making approach involving stakeholders

Purpose - The Gold Coast is a low-lying coastal Australian city and many residential areas are subject to 1:100 year flood events. Evidently, there is a need for the city to adapt to sea-level rise (SLR) by developing more effective policies to reduce its destructive impacts. Thus, the purpose is to identify and evaluate preferred adaptation alternatives to reduce the vulnerability to SLR and storm surges. Design/methodology/approach - In this research, we explore stakeholders' opinions for adaptation alternatives to adapt to the impacts of SLR. As part of exploring alternatives to improve Gold Coast's resilience to climate change effects we are undertake a multi-criteria analysis by using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The goal, criteria and adaptation alternatives were derived, and based upon, adaptation programmes, existing adaptation works by local governments and an extensive literature review. The final AHP structure was developed after further consultations with three local stakeholders (politicians, experts and residents). Findings - The results show that across the three stakeholder groups, effectiveness and sustainability are the criteria of highest priority, respectively. When considering adaptation alternatives, the highest priority for politicians and residents is improving building design whilst for experts improving public awareness is of most importance. Originality/value - We demonstrated that utilising the AHP method in the aforementioned context for the Gold Coast region could provide a straightforward approach to evaluate the adaptation alternatives from multi-stakeholders' perspectives. Advantages are its versatility in application to coastal processes and its inclusion of the multiple stakeholder in the decision-making process.