Hazard Experiences, Concerns and Responses in Coastal Municipalities and Communities: Insights from Nova Scotia, Canada

Abstract The majority of the human population lives adjacent to coastal waters, where in recent years, climate change has both exasperated existing hazards and produced new hazards for coastal communities. Due to the key role municipalities play in addressing hazards faced by coastal communities, it is important to understand the relationship between the municipal level and the community level, in order that more can be done to alleviate community concerns over hazards. This study incorporates a hazard survey conducted across 21 coastal communities in Nova Scotia, Canada. For each community, municipal documents (by-laws/policies/plans) were compared with community experiences obtained in the survey. While municipal documents play a key role in how a community responds to a hazard, our study shows that municipal by-laws/policies do not always reflect the concerns of coastal communities. This may explain why communities have a high degree of concern regarding specific hazards. Municipalities are typically aware of, and have plans to, address hazards of concern to coastal communities, but turning these plans into reality is difficult due to financial constraints and lack of political support. The results discussed in this paper have broad applicability, as many of the hazards and community circumstances observed here are shared by coastal communities across the globe.