Reimagining nature-based coastal adaptation: A nested framework

Abstract

Nature-based coastal adaptation is a subset of nature-based solutions that has to this point focused on the materiality of managing coastal risks: what our coastal protections are made of or where we put things that are in the way of harm. In our collaborative interdisciplinary work, we have been reimagining nature-based coastal adaptation to start with first principles: how we think about the coast and what makes a good coastal life. In a nature-based approach our shared sense of what is good and possible, also known as the social imaginary, needs shifting before any physical material. This paper presents a new nested framework for thinking about nature-based coastal adaptation using five words starting with R: Reimagine, Reserve, Relocate, Restore, Reinforce. We use the nature-based adaptation option of managed dyke realignment in Bay of Fundy agricultural dykelands to illustrate the utility of the framework in practice but assert its more generic applicability.