Inequalities and solidarities: interactions and impacts of sea-level-rise adaptation policies

Abstract

Drawing on the results of two research programs undertaken in France, we consider environmental inequality and regional solidarity in the context of adaptation to sea-level rise, given that there is in France a bespoke national system for natural-disaster solidarity. The analysis makes it possible to address situations of inequality, in particular related to risk, and regional institutional capacities as well as the types of solidarity (at spatial and temporal scales), by studying their impact on motivation and adaptation practices in terms of incentives or behavioral inertia. It also highlights seven interactions and discusses their effects. It emerges that insurance-based solidarity favors the status quo: by compensating or protecting, through dykes construction, the populations whose property is exposed to coastal hazards, this strategy maintains the environmental inequalities present on the coasts; the least well-off social groups participate in this financing without benefiting from better access to the coast (land or recreational activities). It also appears that the recent taxation system for funding the cost of palliative measures reinforces inequalities between coastal municipalities and hinterland municipalities and that differentiated forms of solidarity between the risk of erosion (uncompensated victims) and inundation (compensated victims) generate inequalities. Finally, it is noteworthy that inequalities reduce social, and strengthen intragroup, cohesion. The analysis of these relations reveals their somewhat negative effect on regional adaptation strategies to sea-level rise and calls into question the scales and modalities of solidarity whilst highlighting the key role of social cohesion as a factor of acceptability of regional restructuring programs in the face of sea-level rise.

Social science to accelerate coastal adaptation to sea-level rise

“…Studies on adaptation finance can also help establishing a clearer vision of the economic opportunities and constraints in different coastal settings. For example, they make it possible to develop coastal adaptation pathways that consider equity and justice from an economic perspective (Adelman, 2016;Siders, 2019;Long et al, 2022). From this perspective, studies on the conditions for financing adaptation, on the financial framework and the more detailed financing mechanisms are essential.…”

“…Psychology could be much more developed and integrated into existing research programmes (section 'Social sciences delivering a more limited number of studies on coastal adaptation to sea-level rise'), including in new programmes focusing mainly on physical sciences and service development. Interdisciplinary research has been conducted, for example, on coastal adaptation geography and economy (Creach et al, 2020;Long et al, 2022) or political science and economy (van Ginkel et al, 2020;Woodruff et al, 2020), yet the majority of studies involve only one discipline, or two at best (Supplementary Material S3). Even more, interdisciplinarity could be promoted and ultimately benefit the practice of coastal adaptation.…”