Participatory Mitigation and Adaptation to Coastal Hazards in North American Settlements: A Review

Keywords: hazards, coastal, vulnerability, mitigation, North America, institutional capacity, relocation
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 8

Abstract

Frequency and intensity of coastal hazards driven by changes in climate and land use have been increasing in many parts of the world. This includes North America, where 40% of the population lives near the coast. While many US coastal settlements already have or are in the process of preparing hazard mitigation and adaptation plans, often with local participation, the most salient factors that emerge during the participatory mitigation against and adaptation to coastal hazards is unclear. To this end, we carried out a systematic review and identified 53 papers that specifically studied participatory mitigation and adaptation in 125 locations vulnerable to coastal hazards. We grouped papers in our review according to the type of coastal hazards they considered, namely, Sea Level Rise, Coastal Storms, and Tsunami. Less than one-fifth of the papers considered broader environmental changes (e.g., change in precipitation regime, thawing permafrost) along with any of the three types of coastal hazards, indicating a lack of systemic approach to coastal hazards. Greater institutional capacity across all levels of governance, more efficient funding allocation mechanisms, and more effective integration of stakeholders into the decision-making processes remain as key challenges in adaptation and mitigation to coastal hazards. Resettlement as a last-resort and contentious form of adaptation presents particularly urgent governance, finance, and equity challenges, especially for remote Indigenous communities. Our findings are situated within a North American context and as such point to challenges that can be experienced, regardless of development, in any coastal adaptation and mitigation context.