Flexible coastal management in response to land-sea interface vulnerabilities : lessons and perspectives from the Life Adapto project by the Conservatoire du Littoral (French coastal protection agency) to the European Blue Green Governance project

The Conservatoire du littoral, a French public body, is a peculiar public actor in the preservation of natural coastal areas. From 2017 to 2022, it led the Life Adapto project (Adapto) which consisted in a number of experiments of “flexible” coastal management (mainly depoldering) on 10 pilot sites.

In dyked and poldered lands, history and practices have been linked for centuries to the presence of “hard” coastal management. People attachment is therefore a major subject: either facilitating or limiting adaptation strategies implementation, it is one of the main topics investigated by social science on vulnerable coastal areas. In view of the anxiety-inducing nature of climate issues, it is interesting to ask what are the blocking and facilitating factors for social acceptability towards “flexible” adaptation measures, for, in absolute terms, the abandonment of hard management in response to a risk can be counter-intuitive.

In line with the 2012 French National Strategy for Integrated Coastline Management, Adapto carried out various actions aiming at working on a public policy : depoldering and retreating activities in-land in the face of sea level rise. The project therefore focused on the socio-economic resilience and adaptation opportunities that offer Nature based Solutions when facing coastal risks.

As part of my PhD, I joined the Adapto team and built a survey on social perception of flexible coastal management : no less than 1678 sites’ users were interviewed. The overall idea behind the survey was to know more on how they perceive and understand coastal natural dynamics, and how they react when asked to choose between different scenarios: resist actively ?  Wait and see ? Adapt now the current coastal management in regard to future pressure ?

The survey highlights different trends; While there is a general acceptance of the need for adaptation, the fundamental problem remains that of the form this adaptation should take. Furthermore, sites’ users have high expectations towards public authorities, and wait for them to bring relevant solutions to a diversity of complex issues : risk management, socio-economic stability, landscape conservation, social justice and equity.

Coastal areas constitute perfect laboratories to collectively think the complexity of human/nature interactions.

This communication could be in two parts. First, by commenting the main results of the survey, I intend to illustrate how relevant it was to integrate local population perceptions in Adapto’s discussions around sustainable coastal management strategies; Second, I propose a discussion, “from science to action”, by linking my doctoral research results with my current postdoctoral work in the European Blue Green Governance project. As scientists and various stakeholders seem to make the same observation, that enough data exist to implement an integrated and sustainable land-sea management, how do we collectively go from science to action? As deep uncertainties remain, what are the current enablers or limiting factors (data, policies, risk, socio-economic situations, stakeholders implication …) that should be considered? Are tools, e-tools and technics, such as forecasting and backcasting, relevant and efficient to address stakeholders’ difficulties to get into motion?