5 November 2016Adapting to sea-level rise due to climate change involves new public policies that aim to relocate thoseassets most at risk from coastline erosion orflooding. It is no longer solely a question of studying themerits of a defence infrastructure project designed to prevent risks but of looking instead into a broaderand longer-term project implying a whole new logic of land-use management for the areas concerned. Inthis context, the aim of the present article is to compare different adaptation scenarios and to show theneed for evolving economic assessment and decision-making tools to include multidimensional andlong-term aspects of adaptation policies. It is important to show the limitations of traditional Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) by integrating economic impact and non-market factors which are currentlyonly assessed in multi-criteria approaches. Such assessments enable comparison of the Net Present Value(NPV) of a protection scenario using hard defence structures with various relocation scenarios,depending on whether the CBA includes only the direct damages avoided (classic CBA) or integrates thelong-term tourist economy and environmental impacts (enhanced CBA). As costs of property purchasingare high, CBA may initially favour the protection scenario over relocations despite unfavourable touristand environmental consequences. However, if one takes into consideration innovative land-purchasemechanisms which enable reduced investment costs in relocation scenarios, the latter measures mayhave a positive NPV. We therefore conclude that, in the long term, taking into account the local touristeconomy and environmental benefits, the likely fall in prices of real estate at risk and the implementationof anticipatory schemes could enable relocation policies to become economically viable