(En)visioning place-based adaptation to sea-level rise
O'Neill, SJ; Graham, S
Date: 1 July 2016
Article
Journal
Geo: Geography and Environment
Publisher
Wiley
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Sustainable climate change adaptation requires an understanding of people’s place attachments, so that potential
impacts and trade-offs are illuminated when making adaptation decisions. Methods are needed that elucidate these
important, but often intangible, place attachments at risk. A study was undertaken to explore place attachment, ...
Sustainable climate change adaptation requires an understanding of people’s place attachments, so that potential
impacts and trade-offs are illuminated when making adaptation decisions. Methods are needed that elucidate these
important, but often intangible, place attachments at risk. A study was undertaken to explore place attachment, and
how these person–place bonds might be impacted by flooding and sea-level rise. It engaged with a small town in
coastal Australia that is already highly vulnerable to flooding, and which has been subject to numerous policy
directives intended to reduce climate change-induced flood risk. The town therefore acts as an analogue for climate
change adaptation in other semi-rural coastal communities. Photo-elicitation was found to be highly effective at
elucidating multifarious dimensions of residents’ place attachment. The attachments that were likely to be affected
by flooding (and adapting to flood risk) were encapsulated in: the personal and communal identities associated
with the tourism and fishing industries, the sense of belonging from living and re-living family connections to local
places, and the sense of community and enjoyment derived from diverse recreational activities. The photoelicitation
process provided different outcomes to conventional interviews, focus groups and questionnaires.
Participants sought to both vision (by elucidating their current experiences) and re-envision (in advocating for
different futures) their everyday experiences of adapting to flooding through their photographs and accompanying
narratives. A video introduction to this paper is available at: https://vimeo.com/83484905.
Geography - old structure
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