Adaptation to Flooding in St. Augustine, USA

Abstract

While sea level rise is usually considered as a problem that will be faced in the future, the cumulative effect of decades of slowly rising water levels have meant that many low-lying communities around the planet are already experiencing an increased frequency in tidal flooding. This includes many communities in the United States, such as the city of St. Augustine, in Florida, which has also been devastated by several hurricanes in the early 21st century. The process of how communities will adapt or relocate is notably complicated, and in the present work the authors outline an improved framework that can help to explain the process which individuals undergo as a consequence of individual stressors caused by climate change. Particularly, the feelings of individuals has so far not been studied in detail, and the authors thus conducted a qualitative analysis of the adaptation response by interviewing 20 individuals in two different neighborhoods of St. Augustine, focusing on how “eco-anxiety” might influence them. The results suggest that adaptation countermeasures have been implemented at the city, and sometimes individual level, though community-level strategies have so far been lagging. While short-term adaptation strategies to flooding might be adequate even if individuals are not aware -or deny- long-term climate change, it is unclear whether long-term adaptation by such retroactive approaches might lead to maladaptation practices.