Coastal resilience in Semarang city: findings from a focus review

Abstract

Semarang City, a rapidly urbanizing coastal city on the northern coast of Java, Indonesia, faces escalating threats from tidal flooding (rob), land subsidence, sea level rise, and climate change. This article synthesizes findings from four peer-reviewed studies addressing community adaptation strategies, barriers to climate adaptation, probabilistic flood forecasting systems, and the role of community leadership in strengthening adaptive capacity. Using a purposive focused review approach, the study identifies cross-cutting insights into how coastal communities respond to recurring environmental hazards. The analysis is framed by socio-ecological resilience theory, adaptive governance, and community-based adaptation perspectives. The findings show that most residents prefer in-situ adaptation rather than relocation due to strong social attachment and livelihood dependence. Institutional and financial constraints remain the main barriers to effective climate action at the city level. The review also highlights the potential of a pre-running database probabilistic flood forecasting framework as a scalable and resource-efficient early warning system for data-scarce environments. In addition, community leaders play a critical role in linking households with information, resources, and collective action. Overall, the study emphasizes the importance of integrated, multi-level governance combining infrastructure development, adaptive planning, community empowerment, and early warning systems to strengthen long-term coastal resilience in Semarang and other Global South coastal cities.