The ComCoast project worked on the future approach on safety against flooding around the North Sea. ComCoast aimed to achieve a more gradual transition zone from sea to land, creating benefits for the wider coastal community and environment. In this approach safety and spatial use in the coastal defence zone are combined. From this approach the name of the project originates: Combined functions in Coastal defence zones, which has been abbreviated to ComCoast.ComCoast studied and investigated the following questions:• Where and when would this concept work well?• Which costs and benefits are to distinguish and how to deal with socio-economic issues?• Which technical aspects appear and how can they be solved?• How to involve stakeholders and general public in developing this new approach? Achievements: The project addressed the issue of safety against flooding, applying a multi-disciplinary approach, combining safety against flooding, land-use and economic development encouraged stakeholders to participate. The project work has been divided into six work pack-ages related to reconnaissance of the spatial potentials of the hinterland areas, performance of a socio-economic evaluation of the wetlands, providing a variety of technical solutions for strengthening of the flooding defences; implementing participatory actions; and conducting pilot projects which had been fed from the results from the rest of the work packages.The project created and applied new methodologies to evaluate multifunctional flood defence zones from an economical and social point of view. A more gradual transition from sea to land creates benefits for a wider coastal community and environment whilst offering economically and socially sound options. The project explored the spatial potentials for coastal defence strategies for current and future sites in the North Sea Region.