The resident and visitor gaze: A comparison of coastal social values at risk due to sea-level rise

Highlights

• Visitors and residents are equally concerned about the impacts of climate change.

• Natural, biodiversity and education are the most important landscape values.

• Residents place greater importance on biodiversity, safety, identity and pride.

• Expansion of the urban areas and airport is a significant concern to respondents.

Abstract

Climate change will have a significant impact on coastal locations, affecting visitors’ and residents’ values and experiences. Yet, we know little about the ways visitors value the coast and how they may be affected by climate change impacts. There is a need for place-based studies, where residents and visitors are studied alongside one another to inform more comprehensive and socially-inclusive adaptation strategies. This study sought to understand the lived and landscape values that visitors and residents attribute to the natural reserves and beach of the Llobregat Delta in the densely built-up environment of Barcelona, Spain, as well as their concerns about the impacts of climate change. Results of our survey (n = 133) showed that residents and visitors alike highly valued the natural environment, biodiversity and therapeutic aspects. Residents placed more importance on the biodiversity, safety and sense of identity and pride that the area provides. Visitors were just as likely as residents to be concerned about the effects of climate change on the region. This concern reveals that visitors are key stakeholders with coastal place attachments that need to be integrated into future adaptation research and practice.

Introduction

Coastal areas are highly vulnerable to impacts related to climate change, such as sea-level rise, increased erosion, and more frequent and intense storms (Poulter et al., 2009). Such environmental changes are particularly significant because of their impacts on residents and tourists. It is estimated that globally some 250 million people living on the coast are currently at risk of annual flooding and that by 2050 this number may rise to 340 million based on median sea-level rise projections (Kulp and Strauss, 2019). Coastal landscapes are also highly important tourist destinations (Ariza et al., 2008), with many coastal areas economically reliant on tourism (Schliephack and Dickinson, 2017; Uyarra et al., 2005). Climate changes are expected to affect tourist visitor numbers and profiles through changes to ecological systems, which will affect the availability, accessibility and quality of recreation activities (Coombes and Jones, 2010).

There are a growing number of studies that examine how to best plan for and deliver effective coastal adaptation that meets the needs of communities without exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and inequalities. Many of these studies emphasize the need to take community values and beliefs about climate change into account in adaptation planning (Henderson and Seekamp, 2018; Kaján and Saarinen, 2013; Oulahen et al., 2019). This is because stakeholder values and perceptions of environmental change can affect adaptation preferences, generate conflict, and affect the sustainability of adaptation outcomes (Albizua and Zografos, 2014; Schliephack and Dickinson, 2017). For example, Rey-Valette et al. (2015) found that semi-permanent coastal residents are less sensitive to coastal inundation risk and are more likely to support hard engineering solutions. Schliephack and Dickinson (2017) found that coastal tourists highly value the natural setting and will seek other destinations should social representations suggest changes in amenity, regardless of the physical reality. Such studies show the importance of considering how different community members and visitors value the coast, perceive climate change impacts and expect adaptation to unfold.

Despite advances in social research on coastal adaptation over the last decade, there are two key gaps that undermine our understanding of coastal values and concerns about the impacts of climate change on coastal landscapes. First, study of coastal values and climate change concern are usually studied in isolation from one another. A notable exception is Kreller (2020) who found that residents who were dismissive of the impacts of climate change, were the least likely to explicitly value living in a coastal location and the lifestyle it affords. Less directly, Milfont et al. (2014) found that the closer people live to the coast, the more likely they are to believe in climate change. Thus, there appear to be interactions between coastal values and beliefs about climate change.

The second key gap is that coastal residents and visitors are usually studied separately, with more attention given to residents than visitors. It has been repeatedly observed that there are few climate change adaptation studies that consider tourists (Coombes and Jones, 2010; Kaján and Saarinen, 2013; Schliephack and Dickinson, 2017). It is often assumed that tourists have a higher adaptive capacity compared to residents (Schliephack and Dickinson, 2017) because they can easily substitute one place or activity for another (Wilkins and de Urioste-Stone, 2018). As such, the focus has been on how changes in tourism demand will affect tourism businesses, and to a lesser extent, local destination communities (Kaján and Saarinen, 2013). This is also reflected in adaptation decision-making, where it is uncommon for strategies to include visitors in planning processes (McCreary et al., 2018). The focus on residents at the expense of visitors overlooks the long-term attachments of some tourists to particular places, the existence of multiple place attachments, and the links between repeat visits and future migration to valued places, i.e. some current tourists represent future coastal residents (Wildish et al., 2016). There is a need for coastal adaptation research that is destination-based and that considers tourists and residents together.

To better inform coastal adaptation planning and implementation, this study aims to provide a holistic understanding of what diverse coastal users value about the coast and whether they are concerned about the impacts of climate change on coastal places. It uses the Llobregat Delta, in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Spain, as a case study. The research questions are: What do coastal residents and visitors’ value about the Llobregat Delta? How concerned are they about climate change impacts? Is there a significant difference between visitors’ and residents’ values and climate change concerns? The article starts by explaining what we currently know about resident and visitor values and perceptions of climate change impacts on coastal landscapes before explaining how the study was undertaken, the results found, and how the study strengthens our capacity to effectively and equitably plan for climate change.