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Along the German Baltic coastline, artificially maintained Dune Systems prevent flooding and shoreline recession during extreme water levels and swells (e. g. during storm surges). Within a framework of other structures like coastal protection forests, groynes and landward dikes they are reffered to as soft measures. The design of their cross sections depends on the hydraulic load and their required resistance against erosion, estimated by empirical and/or numerical models based on simple hydraulic scenarios. Recently, predicting long term coastal evolution (> 1-5 years) for sustainable dune management depends on many uncertain factors. One reason are the complex hydraulic conditions of the Baltic Sea, a non-tidal-dominated basin, highly dynamic wind induced water levels with a small connection to the North Sea. In addition, climate change comes with accelerated Sea level rise, which has a significant impact on hydraulic loads and therefore the shape of the future coastline. Increasing costs for coastal protection due to higher erosion and interventions in the ecosystem are among the most severe consequences.

The joint research project ResCAD (Resistance and Climate Adaptation of Dune Systems) addresses the need of design and analysing tools for coastal authorities. It aims to develop a stochastic storm surge generator and a dune erosion model. The storm surge generator describes combined probabilities of water levels, fill and swell along selected locations of the southwestern Baltic Sea using multivariate statistical methods. In combination with Hydro-Morphodynamic-models and site-specific observation data it enables the probalistic description of volume changes by a dune erosion model.