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Ferryman of Memories: The Films of Rithy Panh is an unconventional book about an unconventional filmmaker. Rithy Panh survived the Cambodian genocide and found refuge in France where he discovered in film a language that allowed him to tell what happened to the two million souls who suffered hunger, overwork, disease, and death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. His innovative cinema is made with people, not about them-even those guilty of crimes against humanity. Whether he is directing Isabelle Huppert in The Sea Wall , following laborers digging trenches, or interrogating the infamous director of S-21 prison, aesthetics and ethics inform all he does. With remarkable access to the director and his work, Deirdre Boyle introduces readers to Panh's groundbreaking approach to perpetrator cinema and dazzling critique of colonialism, globalization, and the refugee crisis. Ferryman of Memories reveals the art of one of the masters of world cinema today, focusing on nineteen of his award-winning films, including Rice People, The Land of Wandering Souls, S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, and The Missing Picture.

The risk of flood disasters is increasing for many coastal societies owing to global and regional changes in climate conditions, sea-level rise, land subsidence and sediment supply. At the same time, in many locations, conventional coastal engineering solutions such as sea walls are increasingly challenged by these changes and their maintenance may become unsustainable. We argue that flood protection by ecosystem creation and restoration can provide a more sustainable, cost-effective and ecologically sound alternative to conventional coastal engineering and that, in suitable locations, it should be implemented globally and on a large scale.

Waves overtop berms and seawalls along the shoreline of Imperial Beach (IB), CA when energetic winter swell and high tide coincide. These intermittent, few-hour long events flood low-lying areas and pose a growing inundation risk as sea levels rise. To support city flood response and management, an IB flood warning system was developed. Total water level (TWL) forecasts combine predictions of tides and sea-level anomalies with wave runup estimates based on incident wave forecasts and the nonlinear wave model SWASH. In contrast to widely used empirical runup formulas that rely on significant wave height and peak period, and use only a foreshore slope for bathymetry, the SWASH model incorporates spectral incident wave forcing and uses the cross-shore depth profile. TWL forecasts using a SWASH emulator demonstrate skill several days in advance. Observations set TWL thresholds for minor and moderate flooding. The specific wave and water level conditions that lead to flooding, and key contributors to TWL uncertainty, are identified. TWL forecast skill is reduced by errors in the incident wave forecast and the one-dimensional runup model, and lack of information of variable beach morphology (e.g., protective sand berms can erode during storms). Model errors are largest for the most extreme events. Without mitigation, projected sea-level rise will substantially increase the duration and severity of street flooding. Application of the warning system approach to other locations requires incident wave hindcasts and forecasts, numerical simulation of the runup associated with local storms and beach morphology, and model calibration with flood observations.

Over recent years, many coastal engineering projects have employed the use of soft solutions as these are generally less environmentally damaging than hard solutions. However, in some cases, local conditions hinder the use of soft solutions, meaning that hard solutions have to be adopted or, sometimes, a combination of hard and soft measures is seen as optimal. This research reviews the use of hard coastal structures on the foreshore (groynes, breakwaters and jetties) and onshore (seawalls and dikes). The purpose, functioning and local conditions for which these structures are most suitable are outlined. A description is provided on the negative effects that these structures may have on morphological, hydrodynamic and ecological conditions. To reduce or mitigate these negative impacts, or to create new ecosystem services, the following nature-based adaptations are proposed and discussed: (1) applying soft solutions complementary to hard solutions, (2) mitigating morphological and hydrodynamic changes and (3) ecologically enhancing hard coastal structures. The selection and also the success of these potential adaptations are highly dependent on local conditions, such as hydrodynamic forcing, spatial requirements and socioeconomic factors. The overview provided in this paper aims to offer an interdisciplinary understanding, by giving general guidance on which type of solution is suitable for given characteristics, taking into consideration all aspects that are key for environmentally sensitive coastal designs. Overall, this study aims to provide guidance at the interdisciplinary design stage of nature-based coastal defence structures.

AIM: The global sprawl of marine hard infrastructure (e.g. breakwaters, sea walls and jetties) can extensively modify coastal seascapes, but the knowledge of such impacts remains limited to local scales. We examined the regional‐scale effects of marine artificial habitats on the distribution and abundance of assemblages of ascidians, a key group of ecosystem engineer species in benthic fouling systems. LOCATION: Five hundred kilometers of coastline in the North Adriatic Sea. METHODS: We sampled a variety of natural reefs, marine infrastructures and marinas, and tested hypotheses about the role of habitat type and location in influencing the relative distribution and abundance of both native and non‐indigenous species. RESULTS: Assemblages differed significantly between natural and artificial habitats and among different types of artificial habitats. Non‐indigenous species were 2–3 times more abundant on infrastructures built along sedimentary coastlines than on natural rocky reefs or infrastructures built close to rocky coastlines. Conversely, native species were twice as abundant on natural reefs than on nearby infrastructures and were scarce to virtually absent on infrastructures built along sedimentary coasts. The species composition of assemblages in artificial habitats was more similar to that of marinas than of natural reefs, independently of their location. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that marine infrastructures along sandy shores disproportionally favour non‐indigenous over native hard bottom species, affecting their spread at regional scales. This is particularly concerning for coastal areas that have low natural densities of rocky reef habitats. We discuss design and management options to improve the quality as habitat of marine infrastructures and to favour their preferential use by native species over non‐indigenous ones.

Estuaries provide vital ecosystem services, but the communities and ecosystems they support are increasingly threatened by flooding driven by climate change and sea level rise. Hard‐engineering solutions like levees, seawalls, river diversions, and storm‐surge barriers help mitigate flooding risk, but their combined operation within the same estuary can result in complex interactions, leading to unintended and difficult‐to‐predict ecological and environmental consequences. Here, we investigated the northern Venice Lagoon, where a spillway in a river levee bordering the lagoon and a floodgate system at the lagoon inlets operate as flood defenses. Using numerical modeling informed by field data, we evaluated their combined impacts on lagoon hydrodynamics during November 2019—a month marked by extreme rainfall and storm surges that triggered multiple spillway activations and severe flooding in Venice City. We compared scenarios with and without floodgate activation and assessed the effects of projected sea level rise over a 40‐year timespan. Our results show that floodgate closures reduce salinity by limiting tidal propagation and increasing hydraulic heads at the spillway, which enhances freshwater inflow by up to 40%. Future sea‐level rise scenarios predict more frequent and longer floodgate closures (up to +174 hr monthly), boosting freshwater inflow through the spillway and increasing lagoonal water levels (up to +3.6 cm). This might necessitate earlier floodgate activations, further widening areas affected by salinity changes. Our findings highlight the need to carefully evaluate interactions between flood‐defense measures to protect coastal cities while safeguarding estuarine ecosystem resilience under climate change and rising anthropogenic pressures.

Traditional coastal protection methods that rely on built, hard structures like seawalls may not be effective to keep pace with a changing climate. Nature-based coastal defences based on habitat restoration can be an adaptive coastal protection alternative.

From the early 1960’s when reinforced earth was introduced by Henri Vidal, much research has been carried out with the aim of estimating the improvement in shear strength of reinforced earth compared to that of unreinforced soil. This paper aims to find the maximum vertical pressure that the soil element can withstand while a lateral pressure is applied to the element. An analytical approach based on the enhanced confining pressure concept as well as some experiments employing triaxial test to determine the ultimate strength of reinforced earth seawalls are proposed. If the soil element is unreinforced, the maximum vertical stress can be easily obtained by multiplying the lateral pressure by the passive pressure coefficient, but for a reinforced element an additional term due to the effects of reinforcement must also be considered. In addition to analytical approach, triaxial tests were performed to examine the behaviour of reinforced and unreinforced sand elements in an undrained fully saturated condition. In conclusion, under low failure pressures (10–20 kPa) the reinforced soil has an internal friction angle higher than that for unreinforced sand, but under higher failure pressures (100 kPa) the internal friction angle of both unreinforced and reinforced sand remains the same.

The main focus of adaptation strategies to reduce climate change-related hazards has been on hard-engineered structures such as sea walls, irrigation infrastructure and dams. A Perspective suggests that consideration of a broader spectrum of adaptation options is urgently needed, particularly advocating the merits of flexible, cost-effective and broadly applicable ecosystem-based adaptation approaches. Adapting to climate change is among the biggest challenges humanity faces in the next century. An overwhelming focus of adaptation strategies to reduce climate change-related hazards has been on hard-engineering structures such as sea walls, irrigation infrastructure and dams. Closer attention to a broader spectrum of adaptation options is urgently needed. In particular, ecosystem-based adaptation approaches provide flexible, cost-effective and broadly applicable alternatives for buffering the impacts of climate change, while overcoming many drawbacks of hard infrastructure. As such, they are a critical tool at adaptation planners' disposal for tackling the threats that climate change poses to peoples' lives and livelihoods.