How to reflect sea level rise in infrastructure renewals

While the consideration of a number of different sea level rise scenarios will be important for very long-lived assets, the following more specific guidance (from MfE's December 2017 coastal hazards and climate change document) is also useful.

In the near term (eg by 2050), the projected global mean sea level rise (SLR) range for all ‘representative concentration pathways’ (RCPs) is relatively tight (0.2–0.4 metres). Sea-level rises of up to around 1 metre are ‘very likely’ over a planning timeframe out to the next 100–130 years — it is just a matter of when a specific SLR occurs. (From page 98 of the MfE guidance.)

For more detailed information over longer timeframes, a useful table of anticipated sea level rise under a wide range of different scenarios is provided on page 107 of the MfE guidance.