Managed retreat and planned retreat: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Vulnerable locations, such as coastlines, are at a high risk of loss and damage. Such places will suffer deleterious impacts as climate change impacts are increasingly realized. As societies try to adapt to these impacts, managed or planned retreat—aimed at moving people and assets away from vulnerable locations—is gaining increased attention. Despite this increased attention, systematic literature reviews of the retreat literature remain scarce. This paper undertakes such review and uncovers a marked increase in retreat scholarly research papers in the past 5 years. An analysis of 135 managed and planned retreat journal articles is completed. Findings include a strong emphasis on regional or local case studies exploring governance, policy or institutional settings and levers across a range of geographies. Property rights and market interventions, such as compensation schemes, evidence the prevalence of neoliberal predilections. This emphasizes the importance of renewed engagement with political economy scholarship vis-à-vis climate change adaptation, also supported by the sharp increase in the evidenced social and environmental justice impacts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Nurturing resilient marine ecosystems’.

Cap. 9. Efectos costeros. En: La Quinta Evaluación Nacional del Clima

“…Sin embargo, los debates sobre la reubicación planificada siguen siendo difíciles y controvertidos 12,174 . Entre los impedimentos se incluye la resistencia al cambio 181 ; desacuerdos sobre el momento en que las comunidades y las infraestructuras pueden perderse irrevocablemente y, por lo tanto, el momento adecuado para la reubicación; falta de toma de decisiones dirigida por la comunidad; costo-efectividad en comparación con la defensa en el lugar 174,182 ; trastornos en la cohesión y el capital social de la comunidad 183,184 ; e identificación de lugares de sustitución adecuados 185 .…”

Social science to accelerate coastal adaptation to sea-level rise

“…Geographers are also addressing other issues, such as spatial planning for adaptation (Frazier et al, 2010;Hurlimann et al, 2014;Robert and Schleyer-Lindenmann, 2021;Wedin and Wikman-Svahn, 2021) or the question of climate-driven migrations. The literature distinguishes internal relocation within the same space, and international migration, which pushes populations to leave their island or their coastal areas to move elsewhere (Alexander et al, 2012;King et al, 2014;Bronen, 2015;Hino et al, 2017;Luetz and Merson, 2020;Horton et al, 2021;Duvat et al, 2022;O'Donnell, 2022), creating the notion of 'climate refugees'. In both cases, these climate-driven migrations are rarely chosen and not well accepted.…”

Lessons learned and policy implications from climate-related planned relocation in Fiji and Australia

“…This is done, to showcase the growing literature that has emerged over the last 10 years on planned relocation. A relevant example of the emergence of research on this topic is from a recent literature review undertaken by O'Donnell (2022). O'Donnell (2022) analyzed the last 5 years (2017-2022) of literature on managed retreat (often used interchangeably with planned relocation) and identified 135 academic articles over this 5-year period.…”

“…Depending on the language used and parameters of the relocation process explored, the geographical distribution of case studies differs somewhat. A high concentration of the literature on planned relocation is centered in Europe, the USA, Asia, and the Pacific Islands (Bower and Weerasinghe, 2021;Bower et al, 2022;O'Donnell, 2022). When exploring drivers of relocation, there is a high concentration associated with relocation in response to hydrometeorological events such as flooding, storms and tsunamis (Bower and Weerasinghe, 2021), and in low-lying coastal regions from slow onset change such as sea level rise and erosion (Bower et al, 2022).…”

“…Challenges and considerations in planning and policy have emerged as central to the research in this field. This includes from the starting point of decisions to relocate, questions and issues related to "voluntariness, " coordination across actors involved in planning for relocation, and land use planning (O'Donnell, 2022). Farbotko et al (2020) explore the concept of voluntary immobility, and that relocation policy and planning must account for these populations, especially as relocation may indeed increase exposure and vulnerability rather than reduce it.…”