The uncertainty contagion: Revealing the interrelated, cascading uncertainties of managed retreat

Managed retreat presents a dilemma for at-risk communities, and the planning practitioners and decisionmakers working to address natural hazard and climate change risks. The dilemma boils down to the countervailing imperatives of moving out of harm’s way versus retaining ties to community and place. While there are growing calls for its use, managed retreat remains challenging in practice—across diverse settings. The approach has been tested with varied success in a number of countries, but significant uncertainties remain, such as regarding who ‘manages’ it, when and how it should occur, at whose cost, and to where? Drawing upon a case study of managed retreat in New Zealand, this research uncovers intersecting and compounding arenas of uncertainty regarding the approach, responsibilities, legality, funding, politics and logistics of managed retreat. Where uncertainty is present in one domain, it spreads into others creating a cascading series of political, personal and professional risks that impact trust in science and authority and affect people’s lives and risk exposure. In revealing these mutually dependent dimensions of uncertainty, we argue there is merit in refocusing attention away from policy deficits, barrier approaches or technical assessments as a means to provide ‘certainty’, to instead focus on the relations between forms of knowledge and coordinating interactions between the diverse arenas: scientific, governance, financial, political and socio-cultural; otherwise uncertainty can spread like a contagion, making inaction more likely

Beyond rules: How institutional cultures and climate governance interact

Institutions have a central role in climate change governance. But while there is a flourishing literature on institutions' formal rules, processes, and organizational forms, scholars lament a relative lack of attention to institutions' informal side; their cultures. It is important to study institutions' cultures because it is through culture that people relate to institutional norms and rules in taking climate action. This review uncovers what work has been done on institutional cultures and climate change, discerns common themes around which this scholarship coheres, and advances and argument for why institutional cultures matter. We employed a systematic literature review to assemble a set of 54 articles with a shared concern for how climate change and institutional cultures concurrently affect each other. The articles provided evidence of a nascent field, emerging over the past 5–10 years and fragmented across literatures. This field draws on diverse concepts of institutionalism for revealing quite different expressions of culture, and is mostly grounded in empirical studies. These disparate studies compellingly demonstrate, from different perspectives, that institutional cultures do indeed matter for implementing climate governance. Indeed, the articles converge in providing empirical evidence of eight key sites of interaction between climate change and institutional cultures: worldviews, values, logics, gender, risk acceptance, objects, power, and relationality. These eight sites are important foci for examining and effecting changes to institutions and their cultures; showing how institutional cultures shape responses to climate change, and how climate change shapes institutional cultures.publishedVersio

Managed retreat governance: Insights from Matatā, New Zealand.

This report provides an initial summary of case study findings from PhD research investigating the role of environmental planning in enabling managed retreat in New Zealand. It begins with an overview of the case study and background to the decisions that have led to managed retreat in Matatā. Fundamentally, it highlights key administrative barriers and enablers to implementing managed retreat, which will be further developed in the doctoral thesis. Principal findings are summarised below: 1. There is a lack of national policy guidance, legislative mechanisms and implementation support to achieve managed retreat of existing land-use activities under the current planning system. This not only creates difficulties for managed retreat policy formation and implementation (requiring a process of learning by doing) but more broadly, it hinders anticipatory governance and favours absorptive resilience over transformation away from risk. 2. There is no specific risk tolerance criteria in New Zealand to determine when a particular annual loss-of-life risk is acceptable or not. This makes it more difficult to determine the point at which risk reduction (such as managed retreat) is required. 3. The process for funding managed retreat (particularly where there is risk to life) is ad hoc and uncertain, with potential to undermine the legitimacy of incentivised retreat. 4. Whilst ‘voluntary retreat’ is the only tool currently available to territorial authorities to achieve (incentivised) managed retreat of existing uses, (where the Public Works Act 1981 cannot be applied) it is not perceived as being ‘voluntary’ by people and communities if it is combined with regulation to remove existing use rights or withdrawal of service. This perception undermines trust in the retreat process and further emphasises the need for mechanisms that affected communities consider fair. 5. Provision of risk information and previous disaster experience is ineffective in avoiding investment in risky areas. Therefore, other means of implementing managed retreat are necessary in order to reduce intolerable risk to life. 6. There is a mismatch of responsibilities and jurisdiction in the management of existing land uses between territorial and regional authorities under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). Integrated management (and potential transfer of powers) is necessary in order to overcome this barrier. Early political alignment and collaborative policy development may also help the political acceptability of retreat within local government. 7. While regional councils are generally considered to have the ability to extinguish existing use rights, there is uncertainty regarding the application of s85 RMA, and the presence of existing resource consents as highlighted by Grace, France-Hudson, and Kilvington (2018). It is likely that case law arising from the Bay of Plenty Regional Plan Change 17 will provide legal clarity on these matters. 8. In the absence of a national framework, Regional Policy Statements can assist in the enablement of managed retreat where they provide a strong policy framework including a community tested, risk-based approach with key risk thresholds and direction to reduce risk to acceptable levels. 9. Policy learning is occurring across New Zealand, driven by local leadership. Development of national managed retreat principles arising from Matatā demonstrate aspects of adaptive governance

Managed retreat in New Zealand: revealing the terminology, approaches and direction of local planning instruments.

Severe natural hazard events, the projected impacts of climate change and development trends mean that New Zealanders and the assets and services they value and depend on, will be increasingly exposed to natural hazard risks. Managed retreat is an adaptive approach to risk reduction, where people, activities and assets are strategically relocated away from hazardous locations. For it to have an impact in practice, it is crucial that managed retreat is not just included in key planning documents, but is included in a way that provides a means to inform development decisions and supplies a clear direction to elected members, council staff, property owners, developers, infrastructure providers and the public. This report is a summary of research conducted in New Zealand as part of National Science Challenge: Resilience to Nature’s Challenges. It is designed to answer three questions: • To what extent is managed retreat included in local planning instruments? • How is managed retreat discussed in local planning instruments? • What level of direction is afforded to managed retreat in local planning instruments? Our main findings are: 1. Approximately half of RMA planning instruments in New Zealand refer to managed retreat. If they do, it predominately applies to coastal hazards, rather than other hazards, such as land instability, earthquake faults, or inland flooding. 2. There is an inconsistency of terms used, such as managed retreat, relocate, soft-engineering, withdraw or setback. In almost every case, these are not further defined. 3. While it is commonly referred to in the singular, managed retreat policy approaches can be categorised as relating to five distinct ‘categories’ in local RMA policy and plans. 4. Planning instruments applying managed retreat are providing limited direction to enable it in practice. 5. A lack of implementation support exists for managed retreat policies, particularly in relation to relocatable buildings. 6. Clear links between local planning policy and other strategic documents (e.g. infrastructure plans or spatial plans) is important for the application of managed retreat. However, it was discovered there is a low recognition and a clear lack of strategic, coordinated provisions across various planning instruments operating in the same place. For example, only 14 out of 78 infrastructure strategies referenced managed retreat terms

Managed retreats by whom and how? Identifying and delineating governance modalities

Managed retreat has become a compelling policy imperative as climate change exacerbates socio-natural hazard risks and imminent harm looms for exposed communities. Retreats may be initiated over different times and scales using various instruments by actors, from the state to the private sector and civil society. However, in the absence of a coherent strategic vision, guiding frameworks, and capacity to manage retreats, at-risk communities, their elected representatives, policy makers, and planners are compelled to embark on retreat governance experiments. Consequently, retreat is perceived as a ‘high regrets’ policy imperative with potentially adverse impacts for community wellbeing, as well as political and professional risks. To help translate managed retreat rhetoric into reality, this paper presents a governance framework that acknowledges the multiplicity of ‘managed retreats.’ Using examples from Aotearoa-New Zealand, we identify and delineate retreat modalities and clarify terminology, converging our framework with the international mobility literature to harness the valuable lessons from decades of human mobility practice

Communities and Climate Change: Vulnerability to rising seas and more frequent flooding

Many communities and iwi in coastal and flood-prone locations face an uncertain future because of climate change, with rising sea levels and a greater frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events. We do not yet have a good understanding of how these long-term changes will affect people in these exposed locations, but we can learn from studies of the impacts of short-run natural hazards such as major floods and earthquakes. It is clear that individuals and households can suffer both directly and indirectly, and stressors even from single events can extend over years. These include significant financial impacts, loss of assets and resources, loss of access to valued places, loss of physical and mental health, and loss of identity and sense of belonging. Some individuals and groups may be more vulnerable to these impacts, while others may be more resilient. It is not yet clear who will be more vulnerable, nor what kinds of steps need to be taken to build resilience for the long term. Decision-making institutions such as councils will need to be proactive in working with exposed communities, anticipate the support that may be required, and offer equitable solutions. Iwi and community members will need to be involved in climate change adaptation processes, and to be in a position to make informed decisions about their future. Sometimes, people may already be facing financial, physical and mental stresses from impacts such as flooding and erosion, and at the same time may need to be involved in planning for a changing future. The social, cultural and psychological challenges could be immense, so response and adaptation processes need to be carefully designed and delivered, especially for the more vulnerable. Law and policy need to be adjusted to be fit-for-purpose for the new challenges of climate change, including the roles of government agencies, limiting exposure to hazards, and financing of adaptation. Knowledge gaps identified include: • understanding vulnerability and resilience in a climate change context; • how decision-making roles and responsibilities should be allocated especially in relation to more vulnerable people and communities; • the extent to which flood mitigation schemes will be effective in protecting communities under climate change conditions; • how iwi and community groups are already anticipating and responding to climate-related challenges; • how councils are and should be working proactively to reduce impacts on the more vulnerable; and • how information about climate change impacts can be more effectively communicated

Ten new insights in climate science 2022

Non-technical summary We summarize what we assess as the past year's most important findings within climate change research: limits to adaptation, vulnerability hotspots, new threats coming from the climate–health nexus, climate (im)mobility and security, sustainable practices for land use and finance, losses and damages, inclusive societal climate decisions and ways to overcome structural barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C. Technical summary We synthesize 10 topics within climate research where there have been significant advances or emerging scientific consensus since January 2021. The selection of these insights was based on input from an international open call with broad disciplinary scope. Findings concern: (1) new aspects of soft and hard limits to adaptation; (2) the emergence of regional vulnerability hotspots from climate impacts and human vulnerability; (3) new threats on the climate–health horizon – some involving plants and animals; (4) climate (im)mobility and the need for anticipatory action; (5) security and climate; (6) sustainable land management as a prerequisite to land-based solutions; (7) sustainable finance practices in the private sector and the need for political guidance; (8) the urgent planetary imperative for addressing losses and damages; (9) inclusive societal choices for climate-resilient development and (10) how to overcome barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C. Social media summary Science has evidence on barriers to mitigation and how to overcome them to avoid limits to adaptation across multiple fields

A proposed framework for recreation planning in South Africa, with particular reference to the Cederberg

Bibliography: pages 158-178.Over the years, recreation opportunities in South Africa have been subject to increasing visitor use and pressure from widespread environmental changes. There has been growing imbalance between recreation opportunities in more and less developed environments. As a result conflicts have arisen between different user groups. The "Cederberg Controversy" demonstrates the need for a redefined, comprehensive recreation planning framework to resolve such conflicts. Traditional recreation planning approaches have not provided a suitable framework. By comparison, the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum concept has considerable potential for aiding recreation planners in South Africa. An application of principles of the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum concept, and closer analysis, reveal that the concept is limited. An extension to the concept is proposed whereby the goal of visitor satisfaction is supplemented by a policy declaration to maintain diverse recreation opportunities. Whenever the consequences of a decision affecting the supply of recreation opportunities are irreversible, the maintenance of diversity should take precedence over visitor demand

Coastal Innovation Paradox

Coasts are the primary habitat for humanity. Throughout history, coastal cities and towns have been a crucible for innovation. However, business and technological innovations imperil coastal communities, because prevailing practices are unsustainable. Consequently, coasts are the frontline in humanity’s endeavour to learn to live sustainably in the face of global change. Governance innovations have done little to stem the tide of unsustainable coastal activities. Paradoxically, innovation is necessary to navigate a way out of the vulnerability trap that past innovation has unwittingly set. This is the first of two articles that examine, in turn, the coastal innovation paradox and the coastal innovation imperative. This article explains the coastal problématique and innovation paradox. Then, the nature and dimensions of innovation are outlined. Notwithstanding wholesale innovations in governance and public sector management, the sustainability crisis is deepening. Why is it so difficult to mobilize effective collective action for coastal sustainability? Locating coastal management within the wider milieu of evolving and multi-layered governance helps to answer this question. Resolving the coastal innovation paradox necessitates coherent innovation across governance episodes, processes and cultures. The second article posits a transformative foundation of deliberative coastal governance to foster innovation and facilitate the transition to coastal sustainability

Coastal Innovation Imperative

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