Future Adaptive Coastal Management

Abstract

Many coastal regions constitute “contested spaces”. Potential consequences of climate change is bringing another set of pressures for communities and decision-makers to understand as they review and deliberate on options and set priorities for management action. Underpinning the decision-making process is a recognition of the values of those with particular interests at stake in any given location. Social conflicts arise from these different interests such as between landowners seeking to protect private property and those with a passion to ensure public good values are retained. Governments should be in a position to develop legislation that address all these interests in the context of long-term changes to coastal environments driven by natural forces knowing that frequently these forces are modified by human interventions. It is vital for science to have an input into the various stages of adaptive coastal management to ensure the consequences of existing and future human actions do not have adverse environment, social and economic consequences. Scientists should be willing to engage at all these stages from policy, law-making, implementation and enforcement and to monitor outcomes of actions so that in future improvements can be made. Their experience with field observations of coastal change, experiments in coastal processes, and modelling of long-term impacts are seen as important inputs in alerting governments and communities to those likely consequences of operating in a climate changing coastal world. This means that for adaptive coastal management in many countries to be effective coastal scientists should be prepared to move beyond the comfort zone of their disciplinary confines no matter how frustrating and painful it may be at times.

Scientists may depict the problems that will affect the environment based on available evidence, but their solution is not the responsibility of scientists but of society as a whole.

—Mario Molina—Nobel Laureate