Community Response to Coastal Erosion Hazard

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 24, No. 1. May 1984, pp. 42-57 COMMUNITY RESPONSE TO COASTAL EROSION HAZARD* Owen J. Furuseth and Salite M. Ives For the general public and the news media the most important environmental changes that occur to the coastal shoreline are a direct consequence of major storms moving across the area. Throughout the southeastern United States there is a widespread appreciation of the damaging impacts of hurricanes and extratropical winter storms, often referred to as "Northeasters". This awareness is not unexpected, since much of the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico's coastline lies in a zone with a high probability for tropical and extratropical storm activity. While the catastrophic effects of these major storm systems on the coastal zone are a serious concern, an equally costly threat which receives little attention is long-term annual beach erosion. Because it has a low catastrophe potential, beach erosion is not a natural hazard which lends itself to news media coverage and, therefore, public awareness. As a result, the public understanding of the social and economic costs of beach erosion tend to be restricted to that segment of the population directly affected by the hazard. This is despite the fact that the southeastern U.S. suffers widespread erosion hazard. While a large number of research investigations dealing with coastal erosion have been and continue to be carried out, the focus of earlier research has been almost exclusively limited to engineering solutions to coastal erosion, with secondary foci on planning and legal studies, and coastal ecology. (J) When compared with other natural hazards, the level of funding for coastal erosion research is relatively high. Research monies, however, have been aimed at controlling or mitigating causal processes, rather than exploring non-physical adjustments to reduce the risk of erosion loss. Despite urgings that behavioral and attitudinal research offered "promising prospects for research payoffs," few investigators have explored public attitudes toward this hazard. (2) To date only two social scientists, both geographers, have directly * The authors wish to acknowledge partial financial support from the National Hazards Research and Application Information Center through an NSF grant and to thank Anne Garren and Suzanna Schwartz for help in data collection. Dr. Furuseth and Dr. Ives are Assistant Professors of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in Charlotte, NC 28223. Vol. XXIV, No. 1 43 examined coastal residents' attitudes and perception of coastal erosion hazard. James Mitchell's research on community response to erosion along the east coast was carried out in 1969-70. (3) In 1971, Rowan Rowntree carried out field interviews in Northern California. (4) In the intervening years, research on this topic has been limited, with no attempts to update or expand on the earlier findings of Mitchell and Rowntree. (S) ORJECTIVES. The purpose of this paper is to analyze community cognition and response to beach erosion hazard in a small, traditional coastal community. The study area is Carolina Beach, North Carolina. This research emphasizes three main issues: (1) how do residents perceive the coastal erosion hazard; (2) what are their attitudes toward adjustments to beach erosion; and (3) what is the perception of the role of government in mitigating beach erosion. In discussing each of these issues, the findings are presented in the context of the study site, as well as compared with the earlier results of Mitchell and Rowntree. One goal of this research was to examine the current validity of the earlier research. It has been over a decade since the Mitchell and Rowntree case studies were completed. Have public attitudes and response to the threat of coastal erosion shifted? If so, in what way have they changed? Finally, bow might these shifts in public attitudes affect public and private decision-making related to coastal erosion hazard? Given the scope of our investigation, its restriction to a single coastal community , this research may only begin to address these policy issues. Nevertheless, it does represent the first effort to update the conclusions of earlier studies, while providing insights into current public response to coastal erosion hazard. Hopefully, this effort will stimulate further research and generate sufficient evidence to permit future analysis of broader policy issues. PREVIOUS FINDINGS...