Societies are now squarely facing the risks of environmental and climatic change, and developed coastlines are ground zero. Climate change will cause damage to, or loss of, coastal property - property that, in most Western societies, is considered a high net value asset. This paper examines cultural ideas about private property and the complexities of using land use planning law as an enabler of climate change adaptation. It reports the findings of qualitative research that explores how residents living in coastal Australia respond to the risks to their property and to the places they live that are posed by sea level rise and other coastal climate change-related risks. By reporting how residents experience their material coastal environment, and how they relate with and to ideas of property in a coastal environmental change context, this paper contributes to both coastal policy and to legal geography scholarship.
O'Donnell, T
Don't get too attached: Property-place relations on contested coastlines
Transactions Of The Institute Of British Geographers