We continue to live in an area while increasing knowledge of the environment and aiming to increase community risk awareness. Options include things like emergency response management, maintaining existing infrastructure, broad district-wide land use planning, environmental monitoring and community awareness-raising.

We continue to use land in an area by raising our tolerance to hazards, which means we can avoid or delay the need to remove or relocate at-risk assets in the short term. Options include things like adapting buildings and infrastructure, raising land levels and managing ground and stormwater.

We interrupt coastal hazards using soft engineering approaches, hard engineering structures, or a combination of the two to form a barrier between the assets and the hazard. Options include things like shoreline nourishment, seawalls or stopbanks.

We retreat from coastal areas, or relocate existing and planned development to reduce our exposure to the hazards. The hazard risk to assets is reduced or removed entirely, leaving the coast to respond to natural processes. How this might be done and how any compensation might work is currently a work in progress for central government.

We use planning tools to avoid increasing the risk of harm to people and property. Options include things like land zoning or setbacks that prevent development in some areas.