Rise of the sea level, storm surges, and coastal erosion are the greatest hazards in the southern coastal belt of Sri Lanka. Third most populated landmass, home for economically and socially important industries and rich architectural heritage appeal to rethink the resilience building mechanism. Our aim was to investigate the lifelong experiences of the coastal communities with special emphasis on nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change effects onf the southern coastal built environment. Multidimensional tools were instrumental to collect the data. Filed survey based on structured questionnaire (n = 135 fishery value chain actors), 5 focus group interviews with key informants of coastal communities and tourism and other industry representatives, resource mapping, transect walk and digital maps. Socially and economically active coastal belt of South coast is marked as highly vulnerable where natural barriers were destroyed and poor attention has been paid to restore. Unplanned, illegal and unethical developments made climate change impacts worse. Less vulnerable coastal areas were rich with natural barriers; vegetation, sand dunes and coral reefs. Nature based solutions can provide cost effective and no-regret solutions complementing conventional engineering solutions which already proved the mismatch with nature. Social capital status was recorded as poor in investment in natural infrastructure and area base community interventions will improve the status of nature-based solutions.