13 Stuck in the twilight zone or moving towards sustainable climate adaptation?
Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Coastby
It is widely accepted today that the societal consequences of our changing climate need to be dealt with in parallel to emission reductions. Climate adaptation embraces attempts to respond to current climate vulnerability, extremes and future climate change and is currently recognised as a major challenge to both developing and developed countries (Adger et al., 2007; Gagnon-Lebrun and Agrawala, 2007). Adaptation to climate variability and extremes is often seen as an important starting point for targeting future climate change and represents the most common approach taken so far (Burton, 2004; Næss et al., 2005; Tompkins, 2005; Schipper and Pelling, 2006; Wall and Marzall, 2006; Adger et al., 2007). In the climate policy literature, a broadening of the current policy-agenda, explicitly linking climate change to sustainable development, is suggested to avoid negative trade-offs and identify potential synergies (Tompkins and Adger, 2005; Linnér, 2006; Burch and Robinson, 2007; Swart and Raes, 2007).
For adaptation to be sustainable, the long-term social, economic and environmental consequences inherent in and emanating from current adaptation practices need to be clarified (Eriksen and O´Brien, 2007; Ulsrud et al., 2008). Such clarifications are equally important for developing and developed countries. At the same time, current research indicates a predominant focus on short-term reactive considerations in climate adaptation that risk furthering business-as-usual, rather than triggering reflections on our current development in a way that would make possible a more proactive, integrated and long-term sustainable adaptation (Brown, 2011). In this context it is important to also be attentive to the conflicting interpretations, tensions and contentious priorities inherent in the sustainable development policy-framework (Owens, 2003; Stevenson and Richardson, 2003; Hedrén, 2009; Hedrén and Linnér, 2009; Storbjörk et al., 2009; Brown, 2011).
One approach with the potential to broaden the current agenda for climate adaptation in coastal zones is the principles of Integrated Coastal Zone-Management (ICZM), developed at the EU-level in the last decade. ICZM is framed as an integrated and strategic approach aimed at informed stakeholder involvement in addressing social/cultural, economic and environmental sustainability in coastal zones. It takes a long-term perspective based on the precautionary principle and the needs of present and future generations to make human activities more “environmentally friendly, socially responsible and economically sound” (EC 2002/413/EC; EC COM/2000/547). An evaluation completed in 2006 however concluded that no country had yet implemented an ICZM National Strategy (Rupprecht Consult, 2006). Later studies have shown evidence of the challenges in implementing practices of ICZM (e.g. Deboudt et al., 2008; McKenna et al., 2008). Still, a number of municipalities have chosen to adopt an ICZM-approach in managing their coastal zones. In a pioneer Swedish municipality with the assumed name of Coastby (Storbjörk and Hedrén, 2011), a policy-shift can today be witnessed where the former reactive approach with its reliance on technical fixes, hard shoreline protection, and business-as-usual regarding waterfront development has – at least on paper – been challenged by a more integrated, long-term and potentially sustainable approach of ICZM.
By taking the Coastby case as a starting point, the aim of this chapter is to discuss the current policy-shift as well as highlight a few critical points that seem to hinder the process of moving towards a more proactive climate adaptation in the form of ICZM. The chapter is empirically based on local documentation on ICZM and climate change as well as interviews with key officials and politicians.
In transition towards local ICZM?
Coastby is a small municipality populated by 27,000 inhabitants located in the south-east of Sweden with 40 kilometres of coastline. The coastline holds natural reserves, pastures, beaches, and infrastructure, such as summer houses, harbours and sewage treatment works, and is valuable in terms of recreation, employment and residential areas. Over the years, large areas of land have eroded and houses have disappeared into the sea. These problems are expected to increase with climate change and rising sea levels (Coastby, 2008). According to interviews, the awareness of eroding land in Coastby can be dated back to the 1820s, but the local administration has only worked actively with erosion-management since 1958.
In the 1980s Coastby was involved in two conferences with engineers at a nearby university, one in 1986 on the use and protection of coastal areas and the other in 1989 on the impacts of climate change and coastal planning. As a result of the first conference, an expert committee consisting of two leading Swedish scientists and two local officials was formed in 1987 to assess conditions and prioritise measures for local erosion-management (Coastby, 1988). The inventory also triggered an explicit local position in erosion-management, revealing strong disagreement between experts and local politicians. The experts explicitly stated how unsatisfactory it was that their recommendations were not politically accepted and warned that the politically preferred approach, relying strongly on hard shoreline protection rather than working with nature by, for example, removing summer cottages most at risk, would aggravate the situation and move erosion downstream. With reference to future sea level rise and the need for long-term coastal planning, problems with allowing attractive waterfront buildings were stressed (Coastby, 1988). These words of caution did not, however, influence local erosion-management. The technical adaptation undertaken in the coming years instead was based on a predominant trust in the effectiveness of hard shoreline protection. Over the years, erosion kept pushing the coastline further inland, resulting in the loss of camping sites, houses and land in unprotected areas, of which some are part of the EU biodiversity network of protected areas, Natura 2000. The solid constructions, together with the building of harbours, have tended to limit public access to beaches and aesthetic values while also drastically reducing the availability of sand and creating new problems by moving erosion downstream (Coastby, 2004; 2007a).
From local interviews we learnt that in the last few years, several concurrent factors have triggered the call for a new strategy for ICZM in Coastby. For example, a Centre for Erosion-Management was formed in 2004 as a joint venture between coastal municipalities, expert authorities and scientists aimed at developing flexible, cost-efficient and environmentally adjusted erosion-management techniques. Further, Coastby was directly involved in several EU-funded projects aimed at providing tools for ICZM, increased knowledge-exchange and learning between countries. Erosion-management has also experienced a heightened public and political priority due to the climate debate. Finally, the need for a more long-term and holistic approach was identified when processing environmental action plans of the Swedish Environmental Goal ‘A Balanced Marine Environment, Flourishing Coastal Areas and Archipelagos’ (Coastby, 2005).
A new policy based on ICZM was processed, mandated by the local environmental drafting committee in 2007 and accepted by the local government council in 2008. It is stated in the policy that Coastby needs to be adapted to meet future threats such as climate change within the framework of sustainable coastal zone management, with the long-term aim of balancing economic, social and cultural goals with environmental and recreational interests (Coastby, 2007b; 2008). A change from a reactive to a proactive approach is warranted in areas where further erosion would have severe consequences for the public, or unacceptable loss of valuable land such as settlements, buildings, infrastructure and sites for nature protection, recreation and tourism. Further the beaches need to be preserved.
The basic idea behind the policy is that nature should take its course and that erosion is a part of natural coastal dynamics. It is stated that in areas where existing settlements, facilities and infrastructure are threatened by erosion, re-localisation needs to be considered as a first measure. As a secondary measure soft methods such as beach nourishment should be evaluated. Solid constructions are only to be considered ‘after alternatives with less environmental impact have been evaluated and eliminated’ (Coastby, 2007b, 2008: 12). The policy is thus rather strict and brings back suggestions made in the 1980s by the expert committee. If properly implemented, the policy would involve a clear shift in how erosion is approached with the potential to achieve a more long-term, integrated and sustainable coastal zone management. However, the path forward in turning words to action is far from uncomplicated.
A number of critical points can be raised based on the Coastby case that are likely to influence the ability to achieve long-term, integrated and sustainable adaptation, as outlined in the new policy.
The technical fix of waterfront planning
The new policy states that considerations to climate change are to be made in waterfront planning by – as far as possible – minimising the risk of damage. Moreover it states that development is to be avoided in areas exposed to erosion, flooding and increased groundwater levels thus following a precautionary principle (Coastby, 2008). The practice in Coastby and many other Swedish municipalities, however, reveals a predominant reliance on technological support systems and attempts to assess what is secure or not rather than employing a precautionary approach. Such technical fixes and dependence on scenarios may in fact increase vulnerability, as it does not deal with the causes of the problems such as where we choose to live in the first place (Changnon, 2000; Sarewitz et al., 2003). Strategies to manage flood-risks have led to the justification of further exploitation and development in flood-prone areas which in fact have increased social vulnerability (Bass and Etkin, 2004).
To follow the new policy, there is a need for tough decisions counteracting the otherwise strong political emphasis on attractive waterfront planning. Recent media reporting in the local newspaper highlights disagreements between the municipality and private landowners, where the latter, call for unrestricted building-permits and hard shoreline protection. Such collision of values and priorities related to the safety vs. scenery divide (Storbjörk, 2007) need to be brought into the open and mediated. Similar problems have been identified in studies in the United States and the United Kingdom, where dilemmas over appropriate planning for future settlement and infrastructure, as well as shortsighted pro-development policies hamper forward-looking coastal management (Moser, 2005; Few et al., 2007; Nicholson-Cole and O’Riordan, 2009).
Erosion-management for whom?
In the British context, one of the key challenges of adaptive coastal governance is accounting for different expectations and understandings in defining what a future sustainable coast is (Nicholson-Cole and O’Riordan, 2009). In the Coastby ICZM-policy, the involvement of citizens is emphasised but nowhere are the divergent interests of citizens in coastal zone management acknowledged. Instead of assuming that the public speaks with one voice, the question ‘sustainable for whom and in what perspective’ needs to be posed. As a way to broadly sort out different citizen stakes, Pilkey states that ‘the erosion problem is caused by people who have purchased beachfront property adjacent to a retaining shoreline, a relatively small number of people compared to beach users’ and that beachfront property owners tend to be comparatively influential people with the ability and will to defend their houses (Pilkey, 2000: 159). This is easily seen in Coastby, where actors from the local landowners’ association play a strong lobbying role towards national authorities and politicians (Storbjörk and Hedrén, 2011). According to local interviews, private landowners have stacked piles of rock on the beaches outside their houses which has transformed waterfront areas, limited public access and moved erosion downstream.
In contrast to private property-defenders, public investments are specifically targeted at preserving public recreational beaches and waterfront areas attractive for citizens and tourists, due to their important monetary and recreational values. The difficulty in achieving citizen-engagement in erosion-management is, however, a local reality and, according to local interviews, the reason behind a local exhibition on coastal erosion. Local interviews indicate that comments in the local media show a divergent public, where some acknowledge the measures taken by the local administration and others speak of them as literally throwing taxpayers’ money into the sea as nature cannot be tamed complaining that taxpayers’ money is invested in preserving the interests of private landowners rather than citizens at large. Following this there is no unified view among the public of what a sustainable future coast is. The lack of focus on social sustainability and justice appears to be symptomatic in the Swedish context where justice between the global North and South appears to be more easily accommodated in the sustainable development framework than justice among different groups within Swedish society, at least on a rhetorical level (Bradley et al., 2008).
Colliding institutional frameworks and policy agendas
ICZM specifically aims at improved coordination among policies pertaining to the coastal zone (EC 2002/413/EC). The Coastby case instead reveals that conflicting formal institutional frameworks and lack of sufficient vertical administrative interplay between authorities at national, regional and local scales obstruct current erosion-management. For example, the soft methods for erosion-management outlined in the ICZM-framework generally mean working with rather than against nature by restoring sand, strengthening sandbanks and planting vegetation (Coastby, 2007b). Interviews show that after being permitted to extract 500 000 m³ of sand as beach nourishment in 2001, local officials have written several applications for permission to nourish beaches at a larger scale, which has been done in several erosion-burdened countries, but for a long time the applications have been rejected and passed between different national authorities and legislative settings. Further, the lack of coherent coastal zone policies at regional and national levels means that the views, interpretations and knowledge of individual administrative officials largely affect the standpoint of authorities in practical erosion-management. What is allowed or not varies from time to time, which is seen as highly problematic by the local administration (Storbjörk and Hedrén, 2011). Similar challenges in vertical administrative interplay have also been noted in a British context (Few et al., 2007).
There is also a difficulty emanating from conflicting policy agendas, where ambitions in coastal natural reserves and Natura 2000-areas of seeing erosion as part of the natural dynamics and letting nature take its course clash with ambitions in local erosion management to protect different societal values at risk. As a further conflicting agenda in the coastal-zone, there is a continuous pressure on politicians and planners to keep planning and developing attractive waterfront areas despite identified climate risks. Such tensions between policy-agendas, values and priorities among environmental officials, erosion-managers and planners and their respective implications for long-term social, economic and environmental sustainability are crucial to acknowledge and openly deal with in trying to live up to the new proactive ICZM policy.
Horizontal integration, ownership and learning
The new integrated policy in Coastby calls for more cross-sectoral engagement, interaction and knowledge-exchange in erosion management (Coastby, 2008). But in interviews, however, erosion management is described as ‘a one-man show’ with a strong and committed key official with erosion as his chief professional concern (Storbjörk and Hedrén, 2011). Because erosion has been so firmly anchored in the work of the technical unit with a few specialised actors building internal competence, networking with external actors and pushing for change has meant a corresponding lack of horizontal integration and knowledge-exchange across important administrative boundaries. Managing erosion has been seen as a predominant technical problem not influencing the agendas or practical activities of other sectors such as planning and environment. Differing professional cultures and interests as well as professional integrity and interdepartmental rivalry (e.g. not having the head of one administrative unit telling the other what to do) seems to stand in the way of more integrated approaches, leading to lack of mutual ownership and learning between administrative units and officials in managing the coastal zone (Storbjörk, 2010). Criticism has also been directed at local politicians for not being sufficiently involved in coastal zone management in Coastby (Ernst and Young, 2007).
If the new policy is to succeed in better balancing present and future economic, social and environmental interests, the sectoral tendencies that so far appear to have characterised the practice of adapting to coastal erosion need to be overcome and local key actors need to work together on how to manage coastal erosion. That limited internal coordination has had a negative influence on the outcome of local adaptation processes has been noted in several parallel studies both in Sweden and other countries (Moser, 2005; Lidskog and Uggla, 2009; Nicholson-Cole and O’Riordan, 2009; Glaas et al., 2010).
Concluding remarks
Attempts at taking a long-term and broad approach to the coastal zone problematic are essential in light of climate change. Here the policy-framework of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is promising as it strives to do just that. However it also needs to be able to account for tensions, conflicting values, interests and priorities that are a critical part of both current and future coastal zone management in practical planning and decision-making. Contrary to the consensual policy framing of sustainable development, where environmental, economic and social perspectives are framed as being easily reconciled, sustainability is in practice inherently political and contested (Hedrén, 2002; Stevenson and Richardson, 2003; Storbjörk et al., 2009; Brown, 2011).
Adopting the new policy on paper represents an important first step towards a more integrated, proactive and long-term approach to coastal zone management but, the real challenges are expected to appear when transforming the words into concrete action. In this chapter we have highlighted and briefly discussed a few critical points that are likely to influence the ability of actually implementing the ICZM policy. Specifically, we suggest there is a need to overcome the technical fix of waterfront planning, account for different interests, expectations and understandings of how to best manage the eroding coastlines and what a future sustainable coast is, openly dealing with conflicting institutional frameworks and policy-agendas and, finally, finding ways of facilitating cross-sectoral integration, ownership and learning. Besides bringing the different interests, values and priorities at hand into the open to be explicitly acknowledged, and ideally even reconciled, a more sustainable adaptation would also require increased awareness of the social, economic and environmental linkages of our current way of approaching coastal zones.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the following: the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning for funding the research project ‘Planning for climate adaptation – adaptive capacity and conditions for change’; the anonymous reviewers and editors for providing valuable comments, reflections and suggestions on how to improve the manuscript; the interviewees in Coastby for generously sharing their viewpoints and experiences of coastal zone management and climate change.
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