Abstract: Global warming and rising sea level have been observed to exert great impacts on China's coast in the past century, including increased coastal erosion, degraded coastal ecosystems, exacerbated saltwater intrusion, and enhanced storm surges. The impacts of climate change and the adjustments of coastal systems are significantly site specific, resulting from local differences in climate change, coastal physiographic and ecological conditions, and resilience of coastal systems. Anthropogenic activities also exert increasing influences on coastal systems. Societal vulnerabilities to climate change are greatly influenced by their adaptive capacities and selective adjustment, which are greatly determined by local socioeconomic conditions, so they are also highly localized. Coastal systems do not behave linearly to climate change. The projected increasing global warming and accelerating sea level rise will undoubtedly impose more threats to coastal systems. However, it is still difficult to determine the coastal socio-ecological thresholds to climate change without full understandings of coastal physical and biological processes, and adaptation responses of coastal ecosystems and human societies.

Key words: coastal systems, climate change, sea-level rise, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, regional variability