Boston tidal barrier, UK: adapting to climate change and delivering social outcomes

Summary

Climate-adaptation projects such as flood defence schemes must deliver wider societal benefits in the communities they protect to ensure long-term resilience and regeneration. This paper presents a case study of the £100 million Boston tidal barrier across the River Witham in Lincolnshire, UK, that now better protects over 13 000 homes from tidal flooding. The United Nations sustainable development goals provided a framework for monitoring and evaluating the wider benefits of the project and enabled its full societal benefits to be understood and communicated by all key project stakeholders. The primary barrier, completed in 2020, has delivered benefits against all 17 goals and is an example of how sustainability can be embedded into all aspects of a civil engineering project.