A West African coastal science trajectory of vulnerability, adaptability, and resilience

The West African coast faces intensifying vulnerabilities due to climate change, rapid urbanization, and anthropogenic pressures that threaten ecosystems, livelihoods, and infrastructure. To understand these vulnerabilities and be able to decipher solutions in West Africa, a comprehensive strategy is required. Using biannual WACA-VAR workshops between 2018 and 2024, and SCOPUS analysis over the 1998–2024 period, the VOSviewer tool was used to visualize coastal vulnerability to coastal erosion, flooding, pollution, and mangrove degradation across 14 coastal nations. The paper highlights hotspots like Senegal’s Saint-Louis, Ghana’s Volta Delta, and Nigeria’s Niger Delta. These hotspots regulate the evolution of key huge ecosystems within the subregion. The study revealed a comprehensive framework categorizing the factors, expertise, tools, and challenges associated with coastal development and management in West Africa as well as data limitations, and progress made towards addressing these vulnerabilities. The study shows remote sensing tools could be prioritized to investigate nature-based solutions. Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Mauritania experience the largest vulnerability based on combined mangrove cover, water quality, and coastal hazards indices. Senegal records the highest average erosion per year, while Nigeria records the fastest decline in mangrove cover. The emergence and development of new research dynamics over the last decade within the region show some progress made to address these endeavours, yet the challenges outperform this progress. A comprehensive data management strategy focused on emerging thematic areas of research has been proposed to address large-scale and small-scale hotspots of erosion and flooding identified within this subregion. The study proposes a framework where academic, industrial, and governmental projects must be harmonized. The implementation of common standardized tools and methodologies will enhance data collection and management. It is imperative that teams, individuals, organisations, and their efforts deployed in terms of hotspot management focus on bridging existing knowledge gaps. Thematic expert teams should be provided with actionable guidelines and methodologies for the implementation of strategies at these identified hotspots.