Donald Robadue

Practicing Coastal Adaptation to Climate Change: Lessons from Integrated Coastal Management

The challenges faced in adapting to climate change present themselves with increasing urgency. Nowhere will these challenges be greater than in the developing world where often weak institutions and governance systems struggle to deal with mounting pressures from population growth, inadequate infrastructure, and diminishing or already depleted natural resources. This article synthesizes the many global climate change and other anthropogenic threats to coastal ecosystems and draws on lessons and good practices from global experience in integrated coastal management (ICM) that can be transferred to coastal adaptation to these challenges. The case is made that the process and best practices of ICM are not radically changed by applying a climate lens. For the most part, the good practices of planning and implementation coastal management measures apply equally to climate change as they do to other coastal issues. However, there are some new and important considerations that enter into planning and decision-making with respect to climate change. These considerations include the need for an even greater emphasis on nature-based coastal protection strategies and measures, more pronounced issues of uncertainty in decision-making, the need for a longer planning horizon, and the importance of including in the decision-making equation opportunities to mitigate the sources of climate change with adaptation measures.

The evolution of adaptive management for estuarine ecosystems: the National Estuary Program and its precursors

Abstract The Great Lakes Program and The Chesapeake Bay Program represent the two primary precursors to the development of adaptive estuary management in the United States. Many of the lessons and experiences of these two programs have been incorporated within the design of the National Estuary Program. This paper assesses the suitability of the National Estuary Programs Management Conference process for managing estuarine ecosystems. Based upon the characteristics of marine ecosystems, it appears that there are several requirements for the design of governance institutions for estuarine ecosystems; namely flexibility, adaptation, and ultimately a capacity to learn. On the basis of this analysis, it appears that the Management Conference process is flexible enough to stimulate the selection of the diverse issues and remedial actions that are required to address the environmental concerns appropriate for each estuary. Because of the lack of sufficient experience, it remains to be determined if a states ‘ecological capacity’ will limit the implementation of the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plans (CCMPs) that are produced by each estuary program. However, these limitations should be recognized both during the plans preparation and implementation. This paper also suggests that adaptive implementation approaches be adopted instead of viewing the CCMP as a static blueprint for an estuarys protection.

An evolutionary perspective on the development and assessment of the national estuary program

Abstract This article addresses the U.S. approach to managing environmental quality in estuarine regions. It reviews the progress that has been achieved in managing coastal environmental quality and looks at the factors that have affected the design of coastal and estuarine management programs by examining five experiences in environmental management that have been important influences on the development of the National Estuary Program (NEP): the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC); the federal river basin commissions; the Section 208 area‐wide waste treatment planning; the federal coastal zone management program; and the Chesapeake Bay Program. These programs offer important strengths and weaknesses as models for managing estuarine environmental quality. The authors propose evaluation criteria based on the strategy, structure, and process of coastal environmental programs, which can be used to evaluate the structure and management process of contemporary coastal environmental programs such as the Nati...

Public involvement in offshore oil development: Lessons from New England

Abstract Public perceptions of the risks and benefits of offshore oil development off the New England coast are examined. The influence of these perceptions on state policies toward federal actions is analyzed. A distinct trend of issue identification, critical analysis, consensus building, and state or regional action is observed. Throughout this interactive process between the region and the federal government, even though divergent state positions have evolved, there is a growing regional acceptance of coastal zone management concepts.

Conservation in the Context of Climate Change: Practical Guidelines for Land Protection at Local Scales

Climate change will affect the composition of plant and animal communities in many habitats and geographic settings. This presents a dilemma for conservation programs – will the portfolio of protected lands we now have achieve a goal of conserving biodiversity in the future when the ecological communities occurring within them change? Climate change will significantly alter many plant communities, but the geophysical underpinnings of these landscapes, such as landform, elevation, soil, and geological properties, will largely remain the same. Studies show that extant landscapes with a diversity of geophysical characteristics support diverse plant and animal communities. Therefore, geophysically diverse landscapes will likely support diverse species assemblages in the future, although which species and communities will be present is not altogether clear. Following protocols advanced in studies spanning large regions, we developed a down-scaled, high spatial resolution measure of geophysical complexity based on Ecological Land Units (ELUs) and examined the relationship between plant species richness, ecological community richness, and ELU richness (number of different ELU types). We found that extant landscapes with high ELU richness had a greater variety of ecological community types and high species richness of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. We developed a spatial representation of diverse ELU landscapes to inform local conservation practitioners, such as land trusts, of potential conservation targets that will likely support diverse faunas and floras despite the impact of climate change.

How Digital is What Divides Us? Global Networks of Practice for Coastal Management

Learning is an essential element for building capacity and achieving tangible results to advance marine and coastal management in developing countries. Networks of practice are emerging to take advantage of information technology, with the notion that virtual communities might be a low cost way to share information and overcome some of the barriers to good governance and sustainable development by enabling leaders to become more effective. Fostering networks of practice across regions and continents is motivated by the need to reduce the profound isolation that practitioners feel as well as to build their personal knowledge and social capital. However, active networks are based on engaging in joint activities and building personal commitment and trust, and technology by itself cannot supply these essential ingredients. There is no substitute for face to face contact in the generation and transmission of knowledge that is most relevant to leaders working in the unique circumstances of every coastal ecosystem. A review of recent literature and experience reported by large international organizations provides the backdrop for an examination of the success and challenges of a network of Latin-American coastal managers and a network of mariculture professionals in East Africa.