Operationalizing equity in nature-based coastal adaptation: Assessing practitioner perspectives from the San Francisco Bay Area, California

Abstract

Coastal regions are faced with rising sea levels as well as other coastal hazards caused by climate change. As coastal areas begin adapting shorelines to present and future impacts, planners and land managers are increasingly encouraged to pursue nature-based coastal adaptation (NBCA) approaches as opposed to traditional gray infrastructure solutions. Recent policies also emphasize the importance of centering social equity and environmental justice in climate change adaptation initiatives, calling for increased community engagement and the prioritization of project work in disadvantaged communities. Though NBCA and equity-led approaches are growing more mainstream, to date, no empirical work has investigated how practitioners are currently framing and operationalizing concepts of equity in the burgeoning field of practice. Using an analytic of multiple framings of equity, this study describes how practitioners are currently addressing social equity in NBCA projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, a densely populated and highly urbanized estuary in Northern California. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 individuals involved in NBCA projects and planning work across the region, including representatives from government agencies, community-based organizations, and consulting groups. We found that practitioners are overwhelmingly focused on strategies to address distributive and procedural inequities. A minority of practitioners applied contextual, management, and Indigenous sovereignty frames of equity, which depend on larger structural shifts in governance, funding models, shoreline property regimes, and land repatriation and require more NBCA-specific approaches. This study demonstrates the importance of sustaining and increasing attention to multiple dimensions of equity in NBCA planning, particularly those that are currently underrepresented in practitioners’ scopes. We argue for developing specific equity interventions that address the unique challenges of integrating nature into urban coastal adaptation and offer recommendations for practitioners seeking to better operationalize multiple frames of equity in NBCA.