Managed retreat and coastal climate change adaptation: The environmental justice implications and value of a coproduction approach

Due to the effects of climate change, coastal areas and communities around the world will be increasingly impacted by diverse hazards including sea-level rise, flooding and eroding shorelines, leading to increasing displacement of people. Managed retreat is one potential adaptation strategy to proactively plan for large-scale climate-related displacements. There is, however, evidence that in many cases managed retreat has had problematic social impacts and that it has frequently been implemented through top-down models of planning. In response, this article reviews the literature on managed retreat to identify the limitations of current practices and the challenges for a more environmentally just approach. Based on this review, the article argues that a coproduction approach would provide a means to help address key planning challenges in this field. This involves collecting local knowledge of the risks posed by climate hazards and/or retreat, creating a connection between local knowledge and institutional mechanisms for supported relocation and facilitating community-led processes of retreat and redevelopment. The key contribution of the article is its analysis of the value of a coproduction approach from the perspective of achieving a more environmentally just approach to managed retreat.