Implementing coastal adaptation: assessing and explaining success by local governments in Nova Scotia, Canada

Abstract

As coastal communities increasingly plan for climate change, there is a need to understand factors that influence whether planned actions get implemented. This study examines the implementation of coastal adaptation actions across Nova Scotia, Canada, the first province in the country to establish a regional policy framework to address adaptation by requiring municipalities to prepare Municipal Climate Change Action Plans (MCCAPs). Using the MCCAPs from 20 coastal communities, this study employs a mixed-methods approach that includes content analysis, surveys, and expert interviews to follow up on the actions identified as priorities in these plans. It finds that the MCCAPs successfully stimulated coastal adaptation throughout the province: within six years, nearly 75% of the 331 priority actions in these plans were implemented to some degree. Logistic regression models, supported by interviews with municipal representatives, indicate that political continuity and public participation throughout the planning process are significant determinants of successful implementation.

Keywords:

• coastal adaptation
• municipal adaptation planning
• implementation
• political continuity
• public participation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the study participants and the Resilient-C team for their substantial contributions to this study. The research was approved by the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board under certificate nos. H19-02792 and H20-00546. The authors report that there are no competing interests to declare.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The relevant data gathered from this study have been made publicly available on the University of British Columbia’s Resilient-C Platform (https://resilient-c.ubc.ca/). The platform contains a profile for each of the communities that participated in this study and tracks the coastal adaptation actions that have been identified as complete.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response (MEOPAR) Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE) under Grant no. 1-02-01-066.1.