Background The EU has a long and complex coastline where natural hazards, including instability, erosion, coastal flooding, landslides and hydrogeological elements present significant risks to land use and development. Intensive coastal development and continuing development pressures are exacerbating challenges posed to coastal communities by the impact of climate change and the dynamic nature of the coastal environment. Climate change will affect the whole hydrological cycle with resulting changes in weathering, coastal erosion and instability. The effects of these problems throughout the EU could be very serious, especially for low-lying regions, unstable cliffs and slopes, and regions without the economic and social strength to adapt. Fluvial and coastal flooding and landslides pose a risk to over five million people in England alone, whilst 80% of Italy is significantly affected by natural hazards. Sustainable coastal risk management measures are needed to protect these areas. They should involve understanding and working with natural coastal processes wherever possible and promote adaptation to coastal and climate change. Objectives The RESPONSE project aimed to develop sustainable strategies for the management of natural hazards in coastal zones. It hoped to demonstrate an innovative regional-scale methodology for studying coastal evolution, leading to risk mapping for coastal natural hazards taking account of the impacts of climate change. This risk mapping would guide local authorities and stakeholders in land-use development and planning by ensuring that decisions are compatible with specific local coastal conditions and likely future challenges. They would allow an assessment of the current and predicted costs of climate change in the face of inaction. The project thus sought to promote cost-effective preventative action in the field of coastal protection. Training material and best practice advice for the end-user community was foreseen to enable transfer of RESPONSE project methodologies throughout EU coastal zones. The project aims were in line with LIFE-Environment objectives on Integrated Coastal Zone Management and addressed the EU's 6th Environment Action Programme need to “identify and implement measures aimed at adapting to the effects of climate change”. Results The RESPONSE project has developed a highly innovative mapping technique to assess current and future coastal risk. Going beyond previous macro-scale classifications of coasts, the project methodology allows for an assessment of local coastlines to provide detailed estimates of likely future changes. This has tremendous potential to improve local coastal planning around the world. The project showed how a local stretch of coast can be divided into ‘Coastal Behaviour Systems’ defining not just landforms, but patterns of behaviour, sensitivity to predicted climate change, and the consequences and likelihood of change. The project classified five study coastline areas, demonstrating how to collect data and how to interpret the behaviour and sensitivity of a segment of coast taking into account how it has changed historically. A sequence of maps of each study area was produced. These allow the identification of the impact of climate change on specific coastal regions rather than simply on coasts in general. This information provides understanding to local authorities and stakeholder groups of the specific hazards and risks to their local coastal areas. This allows them to make informed planning decisions on local and regional-level land-use development and shoreline management. A major strength of the project is that its methodology can be applied to any stretch of coastline in the world. The project offers real environmental benefits because it enables engineers, planners and decision-makers to anticipate impacts that could emerge over future decades and plan responses to minimise the risks or to mitigate possible consequences. This focus on prevention will help avoid the higher future costs of emergency action and remediation that would inevitably result from inaction. An excellent information pack was developed to disseminate the information and tools of the project to a large number of coastal authorities. It contains a training pack to set out the process of assessing and prioritising coastal risks, a guide to good practice in coastal planning policies, a CD-Rom containing case studies and practical guidance and a promotional DVD. The project web site will be open for two years after the end of the project.