Losing Ground: Mediterranean Shoreline Change from an Environmental Justice Perspective

Abstract

Loss of land due to coastal erosion is a problem in the Mediterranean region and world-wide. Following a review of environmental justice (EJ) issues among different sectors of activity and contexts, this article describes research that examines the sociodemographic characteristics of populations destined to be effected by erosion in the city of Netanya, Israel. It also examines the availability of open space serving as an alternative to that expected to erode. Results provide a basis for which to explore the EJ implications of coastal erosion. The study finds that seashore dwellers in the case study area are generally mixed populations, not particularly strong or weak as defined herein. Also, planners and city managers have increasingly provided residents in close proximity to the shore with alternative open space. This work highlights the complexities of considering coastal erosion from a justice perspective. Although coastal erosion does not fit the typical EJ paradigm, the use of this analytical approach in the future at appropriate temporal and spatial intervals is recommended.

Keywords:

• beach loss
• coastal erosion
• environmental justice
• recreational open space
• sea-level rise
• shoreline change

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the Golda Meir Fund of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Ministry of Absorption, and the Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant Program (European Commission, FP7, Grant 268115) for support of this research.

Notes

1. Pulido (2000) uses the term environmental racism to highlight racial (as opposed to economic) disparities. She also explains that the term environmental justice is more inclusive. For this reason it used here unless racial disparities are emphasized.

2. The country's National Master Plan for the Mediterranean Coast calls for nine marinas to be built along the coast south of Haifa. Five of these exist today. Yaffo and Tel Aviv marinas were built in 1972 and large marinas in Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Herzliya were all built in the early 1990s.

3. Bathing beaches, where swimming is allowed, closed usually due to the inability of local authorities to maintain them with services required by law such as lifeguard stands and trash pickup (State Comptroller 2010).

4. Centroids within the 100-meter buffer have been deleted because the National Outline Scheme for the Mediterranean Coast completely prohibits construction within this distance from the waterline.

5. Statistical areas (SAs) are the smallest geographical division used by the ICBS composed along homogenic neighborhood lines. These are similar to census tracks in other countries.

6. I derived the data for four SAs for which socioeconomic data was not available by averaging together the values of the SAs that are adjacent to the missing area.

7. “Asian” in the 1995 Census includes those from countries of the former Soviet Union.

8. Although the ICBS has conducted a new 2010 Census, detailed socioeconomic data is not yet available at the SA unit level.

9. See Brown (2008) for a categorization of park sizes based on the U.S. National Park and Recreation Association's guidelines designed to promote adequate levels of recreation opportunities within urban areas.

10. In addition to the lack of statistical significance to determine the incidence of particular ethnic minorities living in proximity to coastal erosion in Netanya, the difference in beach use patterns between the ethnic groups in Israel in unclear. Other studies have shown the importance of understanding cultural and recreational practices to issues of distributional justice (Baas, Ewert, and Chavez 1993; Shaull and Gramann 1998).

11. A similar approach that compared expected to actual coefficient signs was used by Eberbach (2007) in examining the influence of environmental attributes related to coastal erosion on property values.

12. The EJ issues of concern at a global scale will be different from those at regional and local scales. The experiences of those in developing nations will be different from those in developed nations. For a discussion of how injustice is distributed differently in these cases see McLaren (2003) and Jacobs (2005).

13. Hard physical defenses are revetments, rip-rap, seawalls, breakwaters, bulkheads, jetties, groins, aprons, and various cliff base treatments.

14. The Central District Planning Commission reviewed the plan (No. 280) and called for the preparation of an environmental impact state in its interim decision (No. 200-1006) on May 22, 2010.