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A method for building community resilience to climate change in emerging coastal cities
Futures 43 (2011) 673–679
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Futures journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/futures
A method for building community resilience to climate change in emerging coastal cities§ Timothy F. Smith a,*, Phillip Daffara b, Kevin O’Toole c, Julie Matthews a, Dana C. Thomsen a, Sohail Inayatullah a, John Fien d, Michelle Graymore e a
Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore DC 4558, Australia FutureSense, 17 Satinwood Place, Mountain Creek 4557, Australia c Deakin University, P.O. Box 423, Warrnambool 3280, Australia d RMIT University, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001, Australia e University of Ballarat, PO Box 300, Horsham, 3401, Australia b
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Available online 24 May 2011
Rapidly urbanising coastal locations represent prototypes of future cities. While these ‘‘sea change’’ locations will face a range of issues associated with rapid growth such as infrastructure provision and enhancement of social capital, anticipated environmental impacts are likely to add significant challenges. Climate change is likely to have dramatic impacts on sea change communities through diminished potable water supplies, rising sea levels, storm surges, and increased intensity of flood events – with indirect impacts on health, financial sectors, and biodiversity. Given the inherent diversity within sea change communities with regard to age, culture, and socio-economic status there are likely to be differences in ways of adapting, the ability to adapt, and the desired direction of any changes. Cognizant of the potential enormity of climate change impacts, the need for rapid responses, and the diversity within communities, this paper proposes a participatory and transformative method to work with communities in responding to climate change and variability within rapidly urbanising coastal locations. The method focuses on determining probable futures for various communities of place and interest within sea change areas and aims to build the capacity for dynamic on-going learning to achieve those futures, both within and between the communities. Through this process community members may be empowered with dynamic and future-orientated learning skills that build upon community knowledge, innovation, and resilience. ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction: rapidly urbanising locations as city prototypes The city has long inspired the work geographers, urban theorists and creative artists who have addressed it as: a spatial location, a political entity, an administrative unit, a place of work and play, a collection of dream and nightmares, a mesh of social relations, an agglomeration of economic activity, and so forth [1]. Characteristics such as size, concentration of power, population density, heterogeneity, and the exclusion of nature do not comprise singular or shared distinctions that can be claimed by all cities [1]. Indeed, the only clear way of differentiating
§
An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Community Development and Ecology conference, Melbourne, 26–28 March 2008. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 5456 5042. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.F. Smith).
0016-3287/$ – see front matter ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2011.05.008
674
T.F. Smith et al. / Futures 43 (2011) 673–679
cities is against rural and regional locations since the ‘city’ derives its meaning from an oppositional binary term namely the ‘region’. Terms relying on binary oppositions for their meaning are problematic because they only make sense in relation to their oppositional counterpart, moreover one oppositional term is commonly privileged to imply or to create an implicit hierarchy. The point being laboured here is that while we may not be clear on what cities actually are, they are frequently privileged in theory over and above the regional and rural. Indeed, cities are assumed to comprise the pinnacle of human social existence and organisation, if not now then in the future. The United Nations for instance assumes that all countries go through the same processes of urbanisation even though this is not borne out in newly developed counties [2]. Theories of urban transition simply assume that all countries go from low to high urban growth through a process initially driven by migration, and later by natural growth. What is unclear is the impact of local and historical factors and levels of economic development on areas of urban transition [2]. The question this raises for our understanding of coastal regional development is the extent to which current and future theoretical models are limited in three ways. First due to the assumption that regional locations are prototype cities, second the preoccupation with city futures, and third the failure to investigate and engage with bottom-up processes and practices that distinguish regions from one another (not simply from cities). Importantly, it is in many of these developing regions that innovative futures thinking can be stimulated to theorise regional development in terms of adaptive capacity, sustainable development, environmental planning and environmental impact. Due to the scale, divisions and haphazard establishment of most cities, such thinking is unlikely to arise in urban theory. Significant then in this paper, are our efforts to adopt futures tools to theorise on-the-ground regional adaptive capacity in a manner which seeks to disengage or indeed sidestep the metanarratives of traditional urban theory. The authors contend that the inherent complexity, uncertainty, and high decision stakes associated with climate change [3] are exacerbated within rapidly urbanising coastal regions (sea change communities), which are highly transient and heterogeneous. Hence, building resilience to climate change within sea change communities requires a new approach to science. The authors argue the need for a new method to be built on social foresight models in order to work towards an envisioned sustainable future. The authors discuss the key dimensions of this approach through: (i) the sea change phenomenon; (ii) the key characteristics of climate change; (iii) comparison of social foresight models; and (iv) a new research approach. 2. The sea change phenomenon The sea change phenomenon can be described as ‘‘. . . [the rapidly] increasing settlement of the . . . coast, particularly those areas outside the primary urban metropolitan centres’’ [4]. In the Australian context, while capital cities continue to experience large increases in the actual numbers of people moving to those areas [5,6], studies conducted over the last 30 years into Australian population movements to non-metropolitan high amenity environs concluded that Australia was experiencing a ‘‘population turnaround’’, whereby large numbers of people were moving to non-metropolitan coastal towns [7]. The Australian Bureau of Statistics [8] also projects that these population trends are likely to continue into the future (Table 1). As Smith and Thomsen [9] highlight, ‘‘The issue for sea change communities is the rate of change in low population areas, where the effects of high percentages of growth on relative small communities may not be as easily absorbed as in the [established] cities’’. The rates of change also create potential indirect impacts such as reduced social capital, which may translate into challenges for effective response to natural disasters [9]. Similar to many other coastal regions throughout the world, the Australian interest in the sea change phenomenon has been apparent both within civil society and all tiers of government—as exemplified by the formation of the National Sea Change Taskforce (by local governments), the Federal Government commissioning of the cross-cutting commentary on the Suburbanisation of Coastal Australia in the latest Commonwealth State of Environment Report [4], and numerous newspaper articles and television segments on sea change. The rates of growth and transient populations in these regions compound the potential vulnerabilities of these communities, which are prone to a range of climate change impacts such as sea level rise, storm surge, and flooding. 3. Key dimensions of climate change Smith [3] describes climate change as being categorised by three main dimensions. Firstly, climate change is highly complex; secondly, it is highly uncertain; and thirdly, it creates an environment of high decision stakes. Smith goes on to
Table 1 Population projections for selected sea change regions [8–10]. Australian sea change regions (local government area, State)
Projected population change (2002–2022)
Projected population in 2022
Sunshine Coast, Queensland Surf Coast, Victoria Douglas Shire, Queensland Augusta-Margaret River, Western Australia
80% 71% 65% 64%
450,000 30,572 17,365 16,513
increase increase increase increase
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675
describe a ‘‘neo-research’’ approach that combines systems thinking, post-normal science, futures, and a proactive approach to learning, as a means to achieving an empowered and educated society focused on effective response to climate change through social learning. This paper addresses three key features of the neo-research approach – a futures focus and proactive approach to learning within a post-normal science framework. However, as the method is focused on envisioned futures of communities it does not seek to integrate systems thinking, although the addition of systems thinking and systems stimulus would add value in a broader research approach that included communities, governments and businesses. 4. Comparison of social foresight models Various Social Foresight models have been compared and integrated to develop a holistic community visioning method (Table 2). The social foresight models are also supplemented with community action planning and analysis of adaptive capacity. It is proposed that this method be applied within sea change communities facing current and future climate change risks for the purpose of assessing their capacity to adapt and build resilience as part of their transition towards coastal cities. The proposed approach may also be utilised as a comparative method to assess resilience between different ‘‘types’’ of sea change communities [11]. The proposed approach is broken into four stages, including: (i) community visioning; (ii) institutional analysis; (iii) evaluation of capacity changes; and (iv) transfer of findings and methods to other sea change communities. The various Social Foresight models (Table 2) integrated include: (i) the Inayatullah Model based on the six pillars of Futures Studies [12,13]; (ii) the Oregon Model [14]; (iii) the Sydney Coastal Councils’ Empirical Model [15]; (iv) the Natural Resource Adaptive Management Model; and (v) the Local Transition Initiative Model [16]. The examination of the different models enabled the synthesis of the most effective participatory techniques into a comprehensive community visioning process. For example: The Oregon model of community visioning is an effective process of vision-orientated planning, at the strategy or systems level of reality, however it lacks holism, as an effective cultural change or transformational process. This weakness is only apparent when viewed using futures frameworks, such as casual layered analysis and the futures landscape [17,18]. This finding affected the design of the proposed visioning process, by adding another step to the Oregon Model’s participant questioning between steps two and three – ‘‘What are the value systems affecting our choices?’’ The Transition Town (TT) methodology is tailored as a community grassroots movement to build local awareness and capacities for agency. Successful case studies have occurred in small compact towns in the UK. For example, Kinsale 2021 Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) was developed in a town of a population of about 7000 and the Totnes EDAP for a population of 8500. So there is some doubt about the efficacy of the TT approach in fast growing, larger, car-orientated, less compact and more socially polarized sea change communities. A transition movement has been established on the Sunshine Coast, Australia, but no data exists about the level of community awareness of the project, compared to the Maroochy 2025 community vision project conducted by the former Maroochy Shire Council. At the time of writing this paper the Transition Sunshine Coast volunteers were drafting the EDAP, based on the visioning workshops conducted earlier. It is also noted that within the different communities where the community visioning process is implemented, that the foresight capacity gaps would be assessed and compared using pre- and post-visioning participant surveys and interviews. 5. A proposed method to build resilience in sea change communities Comparing the social foresight models presented in Table 2, the authors propose a four-stage approach to building resilience in sea change communities. 5.1. Stage 1: community visioning The community visioning involves a series of workshops within each of the sea change communities under investigation. As people are engaged in communities of mutual interest more so than place based communities, workshops should be conducted for different communities of interest (e.g. entrepreneurs, environmentalists, urban managers/planners, absentee landowners, new residents, and long-term residents). Segmenting the workshops will allow preferred futures and capacity to achieve those futures to be compared between communities of interest (i.e. between sectors) and communities of place (i.e. between sea change regions). Participants should be selected through a multi-method approach (e.g. snow-ball approach to recruit urban managers and planners, and database analysis and random selection of absentee landowners). Workshops should be conducted at times when participation is likely to be high (e.g. during holiday periods for absentee landowners). Secondary data sources may also be used to provide stimulus for the workshops (e.g. potential climate change scenarios, and other pressures such population growth). For a more detailed critique of participatory methods for climate change response, see Gidley et al. [19]. Key questions to be addressed in the workshops include: How will we be affected by the impacts of climate change?
676
Table 2 Comparison of social foresight models [12–16,18]. Oregon Model
Sydney Model
Regional Adaptive Management Model
Local Transition Initiative Model (UK)
1. Shared history and understanding of the present.
1. Where are we now? Demographic community profile. Community values and issues
–
1. Understand management setting.
2. Mapping the future (forces of change). Drivers to, Obstacles against and Images of the future. 3. Anticipating the future. Emerging Issues Analysis (wildcards). Futures wheel (consequences of issues). Patterns of social change (macrohistory) 4. Deepening the future. Diverse perspectives of stakeholders. Underlying worldviews/ paradigms shaping stakeholder behaviour. 5. Creating alternative futures. Scenario generation – worst case vs preferred to manage the complexity of information 6. Transforming the future. Visioning (analytic + intuitive). Back-casting. Navigating strategic pathways. Action learning experiments
2. Where are we going? Trend analysis and probable scenario. –
1. Vulnerability stimulus.
2. Investigate and assess.
Key principle: honour the elders (how things were done before cheap oil). 1. Establish the baseline data for each working group (theme). –
2. Participatory vulnerability assessment. 3. Barriers and opportunities.
3. Understand and predict.
–
4. Case studies of adaptive capacity.
–
3. Where do we want to go? Community visioning and key focus areas. 4. How are we going to get there? Community Action Planning. Performance indicators. 5. Are we getting there? Monitoring and review.
–
–
5. Strategy development to deal with vulnerability. 6. Feasibility of strategies / analysis of capacity. 7. Demonstration projects
4. Set management targets: Resource conditions (30 yrs+). Mgt actions (>5 yrs). 5. Develop mgt options. 6. Monitor & review. Local and regional feedback loops.
2. Assess existing local government community plans for effectiveness in building community resilience and reducing carbon footprint. Key principles: awareness raising + laying the foundation (shared understanding of stakeholders’ roles in the transition). 3. Overall community visioning. 4. Detailed working group visioning. 5. Backcasting by working groups. 6. Transition tales to promote the community vision. 7. Integrate backcasts into overall plan. 8. Draft Energy Descent Action Plan with transition tales and invite community feedback. 9. Finalise the EDAP, Review and continual updating.
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Inayatullah Model
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What is our collective capacity to adapt and be resilient to the impacts of climate change? What are the value systems affecting our choices? What is our preferred future/s? How will we achieve our preferred future/s? Outputs from stage 1 include: Development and testing of a community visioning process to assess preferred futures and perceptions of capacity among a range of sea change communities, including: Identification of community values and long-term priorities; Probable scenarios of how participants will be vulnerable (e.g. storm surges, food security, restructuring economy, and biosecurity risks); Identification of cultural/social barriers and opportunities to adaptation; Development of a shared vision of a preferred future. Visioning would combine analytic and intuitive methods (e.g. strategic questioning and creative visualisation); Development of community action plans using backcasting techniques.
5.2. Stage 2: institutional analysis Stage 2 seeks to test the validity of the perceived capacity constraints identified in the community visioning workshops. The institutional analysis is based on a monitoring and evaluation model developed to assess healthy regional planning systems in northern Australia [20]. The aim of the institutional analysis is to assess perceived capacity constraints through contextual, structural and process criteria (Table 3) in order to determine underlying impacts on the capacity of various sea change community sectors to adapt to climate change. Outputs from stage 2 include: Assessment of perceived capacity barriers and opportunities for adaptation to climate change; Identification of underlying impacts on capacity; Recommendations to decision makers on ways to enhance the adaptive capacity of various sea change community sectors.
5.3. Stage 3: evaluation of capacity changes At intervals after the community visioning workshops, a random selection of participants are approached for in-depth interviews to assess: (i) what progress they have made in adapting to climate change; (ii) whether their capacity to adapt has improved or diminished; and (iii) the constraints and opportunities they have experienced in relation to their capacity to adapt. The interviews also enable adaptation successes or failures to be captured. Outputs from stage 3 include:
Benchmark of adaptation progress; Confirmation of barriers to and opportunities for adaptive capacity; Capture of adaptation successes; Further recommendations to decision makers on ways to enhance the adaptive capacity of various sea change community sectors.
5.4. Stage 4: transfer of findings and methods to other sea change communities In order to facilitate the improved resilience of sea change communities more broadly, it is advisable to distribute the findings of the previous three stages through peak stakeholder groups and national advisory bodies (e.g. the National Sea Change Taskforce). Workshops may also be offered to other sea change communities on the potential transfer and adoption of the methods to their regions. Table 3 Description of contextual, structural and process capacity constraints. Context Structure Process Adapted from [20].
Refers to the factors that influence the framing or characterisation of the problems and opportunities associated with an issue (e.g. social, economic, environmental, institutional and technological factors). Refers to the formal rules that relate to an issue (e.g. legislative and policy mechanisms). Refers to the operationalisation of formal and informal rules related to an issue through strategies and activities (e.g. resourcing, education, and capital works).
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Outputs from stage 4 include: Transfer of findings; Transfer of methods and application; Post project evaluations.
6. Outcomes Five key outcomes result from the proposed approach, including: Development of community action plans for the implementation of adaptation options – resulting in increased targeted action in relation to climate adaptation among various sectors within sea change communities. Understanding of rates of uptake of adaptation actions and the barriers and opportunities in relation to implementation – resulting in increased understanding among communities and decision makers of the capacity of various sectors to respond to climate change within sea change communities. Increased understanding among communities and decision makers of the desired futures of various sectors in relation to climate change within sea change communities. Improved feasibility of cross-sector initiatives to adapt to climate change in sea change communities. Improved return on government investment allocated to help sea change communities adapt to climate change and input into relevant strategies (e.g. growth and infrastructure management).
7. Summary of potential transferability and community benefit The lessons from the proposed approach are applicable wherever rapidly urbanising coastal communities are vulnerable to the ecological, social, and economic impacts of climate change, and where an improved understanding of communities is sought towards rapid and sustained community adaptation. In particular, lessons may be applied to rapidly developing coastal communities, as well as other communities undergoing transition (e.g. tree change communities). Lessons may also be applied to other instances where sustained change and transformation is desired from community engagement. The improved ability to change on a community level assists in coping with climate change and in achieving sustainability more generally. 8. Conclusions The vulnerability of sea change communities to climate change impacts is compounded by high population growth rates, transient populations, and increased exposure to sea level rise, storm surge, and flooding. The authors propose a method to build the resilience of sea change communities to climate change. The methods consist of: (i) community visioning; (ii) institutional analysis; (iii) evaluation of capacity changes; and (iv) transfer of findings and methods to other sea change communities. Through this approach probable futures for various communities of place and communities of interest within sea change areas can be identified. Adopting the approach enhances the creation of dynamic and future-orientated learning skills, which better equip sea change communities to respond to climate change and achieve their preferred futures. References [1] P. Hubbard, City, Routledge, New York, 2006p.10. [2] Brocquier (2004) World urbanization prospects: an alternative to the unmodel of projection compatible with urban transition theory, Working Papers from DIAL (De´veloppement, Institutions & Analyses de Long terme) http://www.dial.prd.fr/dial_publications/PDF/Doc_travail/2004-08.pdf. [3] T.F. Smith, Beyond knowledge: a neo-research approach to enhance climate change adaptation, in: J. Martin, M. Rogers, C. Winter (Eds.), Climate Change in Regional Australia: Social Learning and Adaptation, VURRN Press, Victoria, 2009, pp. 30–44. [4] Smith, T.F., Doherty, M. (2006) ‘‘The Suburbanisation of Coastal Australia’’, In the Australian State of the Environment Report 2006 (cross cutting commentaries). Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 2. [5] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Social Trends: Population Seachange – New Coastal Residents, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2004. [6] Australian Bureau of Statistics, How Many people Live in Australia’s Coastal Areas?’’ in Year Book Australia 2004 (Cat. No. 1301.0), Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2004. [7] I.H. Burnley, P.A. Murphy, Sea Change: Movement from Metropolitan to Arcadian Australia, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2004. [8] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Population Projections by SLA (ASGC 2001), 2002–2022, Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, Canberra, 2001. [9] T.F. Smith, D.C. Thomsen, Understanding vulnerabilities in transitional coastal communities, in: L. Wallendorf, L. Ewing, C. Jones, B. Jaffe (Eds.), Proceedings of Solutions to Coastal Disasters 2008, April 13–16, American Society of Civil Engineers, Hawaii, 2008, pp. 980–989. [10] Queensland Department of Infrastructure and Planning (QDIP), Sunshine Coast population and Housing Fact Sheet, Queensland Department of Infrastructure and Planning, Brisbane, 2008, February 2008. [11] N. Gurran, C. Squires, E. Blakely, Meeting the Sea Change Challenge: Sea Change Communities in Coastal Australia, Neutral Bay, National Sea Change Taskforce, 2005. [12] S. Inayatullah, Questioning the Future - Futures Studies, Action learning and Organisational Transformation, Tamkang University, Taipei, 2002. [13] S. Inayatullah, Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming, Foresight 10 (1) (2008) 4–21. [14] S. Ames, A Guide to Community Visioning, Oregon Visions Project, Portland, 1998.
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[15] T.F. Smith, C. Brooke, B. Preston, R. Gorddard, D. Abbs, K. Mcinnes, G. Withycombe, Managing for climate variability in the sydney region, J. Coastal Res. 50 (2007) 109–113 (Special issue). [16] B. Brangwyn, R. Hopkins, Transition Initiatives Primer - Becoming a Transition Town, City, District, Village, Community or Even Island, version 27, Transition Network, UK and Ireland, 2007. [17] P. Daffara, Maroochy 2025 community visioning – a partnership towards a preferred future, 6th International Cities, Town Centres & Communities Conference, Australia, 1–3 June, 2005. [18] P. Daffara, Maroochy 2025 community visioning, 1st International Conference and Workshop on City Foresight in Asia Pacific, Chiang Mai University, Thailand, 5–7 September, 2007. [19] J.M. Gidley, J. Fien, J.-A. Smith, D.C. Thomsen, T.F. Smith, Participatory futures methods: towards adaptability and resilience in climate-vulnerable communities, Environ Policy Governance vol. 19 (2010) 427–440. [20] J. Bellamy, T. Smith, B. Taylor, G. McDonald, M. Walker, J. Jones, L. Pero, Criteria and Methods for Monitoring and Evaluating Healthy Regional Planning Arrangements, Tropical Savannas Management CRC, Darwin, 2005.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Futures journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/futures
A method for building community resilience to climate change in emerging coastal cities§ Timothy F. Smith a,*, Phillip Daffara b, Kevin O’Toole c, Julie Matthews a, Dana C. Thomsen a, Sohail Inayatullah a, John Fien d, Michelle Graymore e a
Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore DC 4558, Australia FutureSense, 17 Satinwood Place, Mountain Creek 4557, Australia c Deakin University, P.O. Box 423, Warrnambool 3280, Australia d RMIT University, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001, Australia e University of Ballarat, PO Box 300, Horsham, 3401, Australia b
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Available online 24 May 2011
Rapidly urbanising coastal locations represent prototypes of future cities. While these ‘‘sea change’’ locations will face a range of issues associated with rapid growth such as infrastructure provision and enhancement of social capital, anticipated environmental impacts are likely to add significant challenges. Climate change is likely to have dramatic impacts on sea change communities through diminished potable water supplies, rising sea levels, storm surges, and increased intensity of flood events – with indirect impacts on health, financial sectors, and biodiversity. Given the inherent diversity within sea change communities with regard to age, culture, and socio-economic status there are likely to be differences in ways of adapting, the ability to adapt, and the desired direction of any changes. Cognizant of the potential enormity of climate change impacts, the need for rapid responses, and the diversity within communities, this paper proposes a participatory and transformative method to work with communities in responding to climate change and variability within rapidly urbanising coastal locations. The method focuses on determining probable futures for various communities of place and interest within sea change areas and aims to build the capacity for dynamic on-going learning to achieve those futures, both within and between the communities. Through this process community members may be empowered with dynamic and future-orientated learning skills that build upon community knowledge, innovation, and resilience. ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction: rapidly urbanising locations as city prototypes The city has long inspired the work geographers, urban theorists and creative artists who have addressed it as: a spatial location, a political entity, an administrative unit, a place of work and play, a collection of dream and nightmares, a mesh of social relations, an agglomeration of economic activity, and so forth [1]. Characteristics such as size, concentration of power, population density, heterogeneity, and the exclusion of nature do not comprise singular or shared distinctions that can be claimed by all cities [1]. Indeed, the only clear way of differentiating
§
An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Community Development and Ecology conference, Melbourne, 26–28 March 2008. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 5456 5042. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.F. Smith).
0016-3287/$ – see front matter ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2011.05.008
674
T.F. Smith et al. / Futures 43 (2011) 673–679
cities is against rural and regional locations since the ‘city’ derives its meaning from an oppositional binary term namely the ‘region’. Terms relying on binary oppositions for their meaning are problematic because they only make sense in relation to their oppositional counterpart, moreover one oppositional term is commonly privileged to imply or to create an implicit hierarchy. The point being laboured here is that while we may not be clear on what cities actually are, they are frequently privileged in theory over and above the regional and rural. Indeed, cities are assumed to comprise the pinnacle of human social existence and organisation, if not now then in the future. The United Nations for instance assumes that all countries go through the same processes of urbanisation even though this is not borne out in newly developed counties [2]. Theories of urban transition simply assume that all countries go from low to high urban growth through a process initially driven by migration, and later by natural growth. What is unclear is the impact of local and historical factors and levels of economic development on areas of urban transition [2]. The question this raises for our understanding of coastal regional development is the extent to which current and future theoretical models are limited in three ways. First due to the assumption that regional locations are prototype cities, second the preoccupation with city futures, and third the failure to investigate and engage with bottom-up processes and practices that distinguish regions from one another (not simply from cities). Importantly, it is in many of these developing regions that innovative futures thinking can be stimulated to theorise regional development in terms of adaptive capacity, sustainable development, environmental planning and environmental impact. Due to the scale, divisions and haphazard establishment of most cities, such thinking is unlikely to arise in urban theory. Significant then in this paper, are our efforts to adopt futures tools to theorise on-the-ground regional adaptive capacity in a manner which seeks to disengage or indeed sidestep the metanarratives of traditional urban theory. The authors contend that the inherent complexity, uncertainty, and high decision stakes associated with climate change [3] are exacerbated within rapidly urbanising coastal regions (sea change communities), which are highly transient and heterogeneous. Hence, building resilience to climate change within sea change communities requires a new approach to science. The authors argue the need for a new method to be built on social foresight models in order to work towards an envisioned sustainable future. The authors discuss the key dimensions of this approach through: (i) the sea change phenomenon; (ii) the key characteristics of climate change; (iii) comparison of social foresight models; and (iv) a new research approach. 2. The sea change phenomenon The sea change phenomenon can be described as ‘‘. . . [the rapidly] increasing settlement of the . . . coast, particularly those areas outside the primary urban metropolitan centres’’ [4]. In the Australian context, while capital cities continue to experience large increases in the actual numbers of people moving to those areas [5,6], studies conducted over the last 30 years into Australian population movements to non-metropolitan high amenity environs concluded that Australia was experiencing a ‘‘population turnaround’’, whereby large numbers of people were moving to non-metropolitan coastal towns [7]. The Australian Bureau of Statistics [8] also projects that these population trends are likely to continue into the future (Table 1). As Smith and Thomsen [9] highlight, ‘‘The issue for sea change communities is the rate of change in low population areas, where the effects of high percentages of growth on relative small communities may not be as easily absorbed as in the [established] cities’’. The rates of change also create potential indirect impacts such as reduced social capital, which may translate into challenges for effective response to natural disasters [9]. Similar to many other coastal regions throughout the world, the Australian interest in the sea change phenomenon has been apparent both within civil society and all tiers of government—as exemplified by the formation of the National Sea Change Taskforce (by local governments), the Federal Government commissioning of the cross-cutting commentary on the Suburbanisation of Coastal Australia in the latest Commonwealth State of Environment Report [4], and numerous newspaper articles and television segments on sea change. The rates of growth and transient populations in these regions compound the potential vulnerabilities of these communities, which are prone to a range of climate change impacts such as sea level rise, storm surge, and flooding. 3. Key dimensions of climate change Smith [3] describes climate change as being categorised by three main dimensions. Firstly, climate change is highly complex; secondly, it is highly uncertain; and thirdly, it creates an environment of high decision stakes. Smith goes on to
Table 1 Population projections for selected sea change regions [8–10]. Australian sea change regions (local government area, State)
Projected population change (2002–2022)
Projected population in 2022
Sunshine Coast, Queensland Surf Coast, Victoria Douglas Shire, Queensland Augusta-Margaret River, Western Australia
80% 71% 65% 64%
450,000 30,572 17,365 16,513
increase increase increase increase
T.F. Smith et al. / Futures 43 (2011) 673–679
675
describe a ‘‘neo-research’’ approach that combines systems thinking, post-normal science, futures, and a proactive approach to learning, as a means to achieving an empowered and educated society focused on effective response to climate change through social learning. This paper addresses three key features of the neo-research approach – a futures focus and proactive approach to learning within a post-normal science framework. However, as the method is focused on envisioned futures of communities it does not seek to integrate systems thinking, although the addition of systems thinking and systems stimulus would add value in a broader research approach that included communities, governments and businesses. 4. Comparison of social foresight models Various Social Foresight models have been compared and integrated to develop a holistic community visioning method (Table 2). The social foresight models are also supplemented with community action planning and analysis of adaptive capacity. It is proposed that this method be applied within sea change communities facing current and future climate change risks for the purpose of assessing their capacity to adapt and build resilience as part of their transition towards coastal cities. The proposed approach may also be utilised as a comparative method to assess resilience between different ‘‘types’’ of sea change communities [11]. The proposed approach is broken into four stages, including: (i) community visioning; (ii) institutional analysis; (iii) evaluation of capacity changes; and (iv) transfer of findings and methods to other sea change communities. The various Social Foresight models (Table 2) integrated include: (i) the Inayatullah Model based on the six pillars of Futures Studies [12,13]; (ii) the Oregon Model [14]; (iii) the Sydney Coastal Councils’ Empirical Model [15]; (iv) the Natural Resource Adaptive Management Model; and (v) the Local Transition Initiative Model [16]. The examination of the different models enabled the synthesis of the most effective participatory techniques into a comprehensive community visioning process. For example: The Oregon model of community visioning is an effective process of vision-orientated planning, at the strategy or systems level of reality, however it lacks holism, as an effective cultural change or transformational process. This weakness is only apparent when viewed using futures frameworks, such as casual layered analysis and the futures landscape [17,18]. This finding affected the design of the proposed visioning process, by adding another step to the Oregon Model’s participant questioning between steps two and three – ‘‘What are the value systems affecting our choices?’’ The Transition Town (TT) methodology is tailored as a community grassroots movement to build local awareness and capacities for agency. Successful case studies have occurred in small compact towns in the UK. For example, Kinsale 2021 Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) was developed in a town of a population of about 7000 and the Totnes EDAP for a population of 8500. So there is some doubt about the efficacy of the TT approach in fast growing, larger, car-orientated, less compact and more socially polarized sea change communities. A transition movement has been established on the Sunshine Coast, Australia, but no data exists about the level of community awareness of the project, compared to the Maroochy 2025 community vision project conducted by the former Maroochy Shire Council. At the time of writing this paper the Transition Sunshine Coast volunteers were drafting the EDAP, based on the visioning workshops conducted earlier. It is also noted that within the different communities where the community visioning process is implemented, that the foresight capacity gaps would be assessed and compared using pre- and post-visioning participant surveys and interviews. 5. A proposed method to build resilience in sea change communities Comparing the social foresight models presented in Table 2, the authors propose a four-stage approach to building resilience in sea change communities. 5.1. Stage 1: community visioning The community visioning involves a series of workshops within each of the sea change communities under investigation. As people are engaged in communities of mutual interest more so than place based communities, workshops should be conducted for different communities of interest (e.g. entrepreneurs, environmentalists, urban managers/planners, absentee landowners, new residents, and long-term residents). Segmenting the workshops will allow preferred futures and capacity to achieve those futures to be compared between communities of interest (i.e. between sectors) and communities of place (i.e. between sea change regions). Participants should be selected through a multi-method approach (e.g. snow-ball approach to recruit urban managers and planners, and database analysis and random selection of absentee landowners). Workshops should be conducted at times when participation is likely to be high (e.g. during holiday periods for absentee landowners). Secondary data sources may also be used to provide stimulus for the workshops (e.g. potential climate change scenarios, and other pressures such population growth). For a more detailed critique of participatory methods for climate change response, see Gidley et al. [19]. Key questions to be addressed in the workshops include: How will we be affected by the impacts of climate change?
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Table 2 Comparison of social foresight models [12–16,18]. Oregon Model
Sydney Model
Regional Adaptive Management Model
Local Transition Initiative Model (UK)
1. Shared history and understanding of the present.
1. Where are we now? Demographic community profile. Community values and issues
–
1. Understand management setting.
2. Mapping the future (forces of change). Drivers to, Obstacles against and Images of the future. 3. Anticipating the future. Emerging Issues Analysis (wildcards). Futures wheel (consequences of issues). Patterns of social change (macrohistory) 4. Deepening the future. Diverse perspectives of stakeholders. Underlying worldviews/ paradigms shaping stakeholder behaviour. 5. Creating alternative futures. Scenario generation – worst case vs preferred to manage the complexity of information 6. Transforming the future. Visioning (analytic + intuitive). Back-casting. Navigating strategic pathways. Action learning experiments
2. Where are we going? Trend analysis and probable scenario. –
1. Vulnerability stimulus.
2. Investigate and assess.
Key principle: honour the elders (how things were done before cheap oil). 1. Establish the baseline data for each working group (theme). –
2. Participatory vulnerability assessment. 3. Barriers and opportunities.
3. Understand and predict.
–
4. Case studies of adaptive capacity.
–
3. Where do we want to go? Community visioning and key focus areas. 4. How are we going to get there? Community Action Planning. Performance indicators. 5. Are we getting there? Monitoring and review.
–
–
5. Strategy development to deal with vulnerability. 6. Feasibility of strategies / analysis of capacity. 7. Demonstration projects
4. Set management targets: Resource conditions (30 yrs+). Mgt actions (>5 yrs). 5. Develop mgt options. 6. Monitor & review. Local and regional feedback loops.
2. Assess existing local government community plans for effectiveness in building community resilience and reducing carbon footprint. Key principles: awareness raising + laying the foundation (shared understanding of stakeholders’ roles in the transition). 3. Overall community visioning. 4. Detailed working group visioning. 5. Backcasting by working groups. 6. Transition tales to promote the community vision. 7. Integrate backcasts into overall plan. 8. Draft Energy Descent Action Plan with transition tales and invite community feedback. 9. Finalise the EDAP, Review and continual updating.
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Inayatullah Model
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What is our collective capacity to adapt and be resilient to the impacts of climate change? What are the value systems affecting our choices? What is our preferred future/s? How will we achieve our preferred future/s? Outputs from stage 1 include: Development and testing of a community visioning process to assess preferred futures and perceptions of capacity among a range of sea change communities, including: Identification of community values and long-term priorities; Probable scenarios of how participants will be vulnerable (e.g. storm surges, food security, restructuring economy, and biosecurity risks); Identification of cultural/social barriers and opportunities to adaptation; Development of a shared vision of a preferred future. Visioning would combine analytic and intuitive methods (e.g. strategic questioning and creative visualisation); Development of community action plans using backcasting techniques.
5.2. Stage 2: institutional analysis Stage 2 seeks to test the validity of the perceived capacity constraints identified in the community visioning workshops. The institutional analysis is based on a monitoring and evaluation model developed to assess healthy regional planning systems in northern Australia [20]. The aim of the institutional analysis is to assess perceived capacity constraints through contextual, structural and process criteria (Table 3) in order to determine underlying impacts on the capacity of various sea change community sectors to adapt to climate change. Outputs from stage 2 include: Assessment of perceived capacity barriers and opportunities for adaptation to climate change; Identification of underlying impacts on capacity; Recommendations to decision makers on ways to enhance the adaptive capacity of various sea change community sectors.
5.3. Stage 3: evaluation of capacity changes At intervals after the community visioning workshops, a random selection of participants are approached for in-depth interviews to assess: (i) what progress they have made in adapting to climate change; (ii) whether their capacity to adapt has improved or diminished; and (iii) the constraints and opportunities they have experienced in relation to their capacity to adapt. The interviews also enable adaptation successes or failures to be captured. Outputs from stage 3 include:
Benchmark of adaptation progress; Confirmation of barriers to and opportunities for adaptive capacity; Capture of adaptation successes; Further recommendations to decision makers on ways to enhance the adaptive capacity of various sea change community sectors.
5.4. Stage 4: transfer of findings and methods to other sea change communities In order to facilitate the improved resilience of sea change communities more broadly, it is advisable to distribute the findings of the previous three stages through peak stakeholder groups and national advisory bodies (e.g. the National Sea Change Taskforce). Workshops may also be offered to other sea change communities on the potential transfer and adoption of the methods to their regions. Table 3 Description of contextual, structural and process capacity constraints. Context Structure Process Adapted from [20].
Refers to the factors that influence the framing or characterisation of the problems and opportunities associated with an issue (e.g. social, economic, environmental, institutional and technological factors). Refers to the formal rules that relate to an issue (e.g. legislative and policy mechanisms). Refers to the operationalisation of formal and informal rules related to an issue through strategies and activities (e.g. resourcing, education, and capital works).
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Outputs from stage 4 include: Transfer of findings; Transfer of methods and application; Post project evaluations.
6. Outcomes Five key outcomes result from the proposed approach, including: Development of community action plans for the implementation of adaptation options – resulting in increased targeted action in relation to climate adaptation among various sectors within sea change communities. Understanding of rates of uptake of adaptation actions and the barriers and opportunities in relation to implementation – resulting in increased understanding among communities and decision makers of the capacity of various sectors to respond to climate change within sea change communities. Increased understanding among communities and decision makers of the desired futures of various sectors in relation to climate change within sea change communities. Improved feasibility of cross-sector initiatives to adapt to climate change in sea change communities. Improved return on government investment allocated to help sea change communities adapt to climate change and input into relevant strategies (e.g. growth and infrastructure management).
7. Summary of potential transferability and community benefit The lessons from the proposed approach are applicable wherever rapidly urbanising coastal communities are vulnerable to the ecological, social, and economic impacts of climate change, and where an improved understanding of communities is sought towards rapid and sustained community adaptation. In particular, lessons may be applied to rapidly developing coastal communities, as well as other communities undergoing transition (e.g. tree change communities). Lessons may also be applied to other instances where sustained change and transformation is desired from community engagement. The improved ability to change on a community level assists in coping with climate change and in achieving sustainability more generally. 8. Conclusions The vulnerability of sea change communities to climate change impacts is compounded by high population growth rates, transient populations, and increased exposure to sea level rise, storm surge, and flooding. The authors propose a method to build the resilience of sea change communities to climate change. The methods consist of: (i) community visioning; (ii) institutional analysis; (iii) evaluation of capacity changes; and (iv) transfer of findings and methods to other sea change communities. Through this approach probable futures for various communities of place and communities of interest within sea change areas can be identified. Adopting the approach enhances the creation of dynamic and future-orientated learning skills, which better equip sea change communities to respond to climate change and achieve their preferred futures. References [1] P. Hubbard, City, Routledge, New York, 2006p.10. [2] Brocquier (2004) World urbanization prospects: an alternative to the unmodel of projection compatible with urban transition theory, Working Papers from DIAL (De´veloppement, Institutions & Analyses de Long terme) http://www.dial.prd.fr/dial_publications/PDF/Doc_travail/2004-08.pdf. [3] T.F. Smith, Beyond knowledge: a neo-research approach to enhance climate change adaptation, in: J. Martin, M. Rogers, C. Winter (Eds.), Climate Change in Regional Australia: Social Learning and Adaptation, VURRN Press, Victoria, 2009, pp. 30–44. [4] Smith, T.F., Doherty, M. (2006) ‘‘The Suburbanisation of Coastal Australia’’, In the Australian State of the Environment Report 2006 (cross cutting commentaries). Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 2. [5] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Social Trends: Population Seachange – New Coastal Residents, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2004. [6] Australian Bureau of Statistics, How Many people Live in Australia’s Coastal Areas?’’ in Year Book Australia 2004 (Cat. No. 1301.0), Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2004. [7] I.H. Burnley, P.A. Murphy, Sea Change: Movement from Metropolitan to Arcadian Australia, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2004. [8] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Population Projections by SLA (ASGC 2001), 2002–2022, Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, Canberra, 2001. [9] T.F. Smith, D.C. Thomsen, Understanding vulnerabilities in transitional coastal communities, in: L. Wallendorf, L. Ewing, C. Jones, B. Jaffe (Eds.), Proceedings of Solutions to Coastal Disasters 2008, April 13–16, American Society of Civil Engineers, Hawaii, 2008, pp. 980–989. [10] Queensland Department of Infrastructure and Planning (QDIP), Sunshine Coast population and Housing Fact Sheet, Queensland Department of Infrastructure and Planning, Brisbane, 2008, February 2008. [11] N. Gurran, C. Squires, E. Blakely, Meeting the Sea Change Challenge: Sea Change Communities in Coastal Australia, Neutral Bay, National Sea Change Taskforce, 2005. [12] S. Inayatullah, Questioning the Future - Futures Studies, Action learning and Organisational Transformation, Tamkang University, Taipei, 2002. [13] S. Inayatullah, Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming, Foresight 10 (1) (2008) 4–21. [14] S. Ames, A Guide to Community Visioning, Oregon Visions Project, Portland, 1998.
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