Coastal zones in the vicinity of tidal inlets are commonly utilised for navigation, fishing, sand mining, waterfront development and recreation and are under very high population pressure. Any negative impacts of climate change (CC) on inlet environment are therefore very likely to result in significant socio-economic impacts. CC driven variations in mean water level (i.e. SLR), wave conditions and riverflow are likely to affect the stability of, particularly, the thousands of Small Tidal Inlets (STIs, or bar-built/barrier estuary systems) around the world. The combination of their predominant occurrence in developing countries, socio-economic relevance and low community resilience, general lack of data, and high sensitivity to seasonal forcing makes STIs potentially very vulnerable to CC impacts.