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=== 4.4.3 Governance challenges in responding to sea level rise ===

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==== 4.4.3.1 Introduction ====

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Governance is pivotal to shaping SLR responses. The assessment of SLR responses above has shown that each type of response raises specific governance challenges associated with the distribution of costs, benefits and negative consequences of responses across societal actors. Hence, SLR responses require governance efforts if social conflicts are to be resolved and mutual opportunities amongst all actors realised. Generally, responses involve the interaction of diverse public and private actors at different levels of decision making with divergent values, interests and goals on coastal activities, lifestyles, livelihoods, risks, resilience and sustainability ( ''high confidence'' ; Dovers and Hezri, 2010; Foerster et al., 2015; Giddens, 2015; Mills et al., 2016; Dolšak and Prakash, 2018; Hinkel et al., 2018; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018; AR5). This leads to a number of overarching governance challenges that arise from the nature of SLR, which will be assessed in this section.

While there is a substantial literature on coastal governance, little attention has been focused explicitly on SLR governance, as was also the case in AR5 (Wong et al., 2014). Furthermore, much of the adaptation governance literature has focused on putting forward normative prescriptions on how governance arrangements ought to be (e.g., transformative governance; Chaffin et al., 2016), but with limited empirical evidence on the actual effectiveness of these prescriptions (Klostermann et al., 2018; Runhaar et al., 2018). Hence, understanding the social mechanisms leading to the emergence of particular governance arrangements, and how effective they are in addressing climate change and SLR, is limited (Wong et al., 2014; Bisaro and Hinkel, 2016; Oberlack, 2017; Bisaro et al., 2018; Roggero et al., 2018a; Roggero et al., 2018b). An important post-AR5 development has thus been to move beyond descriptions and normative prescriptions about ‘good governance’ to explore which factors help (called enablers) or hinder (called barriers) how social choices are made and implemented on complex issues like climate change and SLR, as elaborated in the next subsection.

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==== 4.4.3.2 Understanding Barriers to Adaptation as Governance Challenges ====

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AR5 stated that there are many reasons why adaptation governance is complex (Klein et al., 2014). The first generation of studies that investigated this question empirically identified many (lists of) barriers that people have experienced in adaptation governance in specific case contexts, including political, institutional, social-cognitive, economic, financial, biophysical and technical barriers (Klein et al., 2014). Although insightful for these specific cases, including SLR (Hinkel et al., 2018), accumulation of empirical findings in building theory proved to be limited, and it did not result in more evidence-informed advice to policy makers on how to deal with barriers (Biesbroek et al., 2013; Eisenack et al., 2014).

In response, in a second generation of studies, several frameworks have been proposed and tested to advance scholarship on barriers to adaptation (Eisenack and Stecker, 2012; Barnett et al., 2015; Lehmann et al., 2015; Bisaro and Hinkel, 2016). A frequently used framework was developed by Moser and Ekstrom (2010) who identified and linked key barriers to certain stages of the policy process: understanding, planning and management stages. Moser and Ekstrom (2010) argue that conditions, such as the scope and scale of adaptation, have significant implications for which barriers are activated in the policy process, and how persistent and difficult they are to overcome. This and other frameworks have been applied in a diversity of contexts, providing valuable insights about the governance challenges involved in adapting to climate change and suggestions for improvement (Ekstrom and Moser, 2014; Rosendo et al., 2018; Thaler et al., 2019).

A recent generation of studies takes more theory based approaches and includes contextual factors to analyse the key social mechanisms that explain why adaptation processes are often complex, result in deadlocks, delays or even failure (Biesbroek et al., 2014; Eisenack et al., 2014; Wellstead et al., 2014; Biesbroek et al., 2015; Bisaro and Hinkel, 2016; Oberlack and Eisenack, 2018; Sieber et al., 2018; Wellstead et al.). Such insights are critical as they can be used by practitioners for policy design (e.g., to prevent certain deadlocks from emerging by (re)designing contextual conditions), or provide insights on strategic interventions in ongoing processes to revitalise deadlocked adaptation governance (Biesbroek et al., 2017).

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==== 4.4.3.3 Governance Challenges in the Face of Sea Level Rise ====

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There is a wide diversity of governance challenges and opportunities for tackling SLR, with marked differences within and between coastal communities in developed and developing counties. Five salient overarching governance challenges that arise due to distinctive features of SLR were highlighted. This typology is then used to assess how planning, participation and conflict resolution (Section 4.4.4.2), decision analysis methods (Section 4.4.4.3), and enabling conditions (Section 4.5) can help to address these five challenges.

'''Time horizon and uncertainty''' '':'' The long-term commitment to SLR (Section 4.2.3.5) and the large and deep uncertainty about the magnitude and timing of SLR beyond 2050 (Section 4.4.4.3.2), challenge standard planning and decision making practises for several reasons ( ''high confidence'' ; Peters et al., 2017; Pot et al., 2018; Hall et al., 2019; Hinkel et al., 2019). The time horizon of SLR extends beyond usual political, electoral and budget cycles. Furthermore, many planning and decision making practices strive for predictability and certainty, which is at odds with the dynamic risk and deep uncertainty characterising SLR (Hall et al., 2019). Tensions can arise between established risk-based planning that seeks to measure risk, and adaptation responses that embrace uncertainty and complexity (Kuklicke and Demeritt, 2016; Carlsson Kanyama et al., 2019). For example, tensions arise because of the mismatch between the relative inflexibility of existing law and institutions and the evolving nature of SLR risk and impacts (Cosens et al., 2017; Craig et al., 2017; DeCaro et al., 2017). Possible limits of in situ responses to ongoing SLR (e.g., protection and accommodation), bring into question prevailing legal approaches to property rights and land use regulation (Byrne, 2012). In addition, because uncertainty about SLR makes it difficult to decide when to wait and when to act, public actors fear being held accountable for misjudgments (Kuklicke and Demeritt, 2016). The long time horizon and uncertainty of SLR make it difficult to mobilise political will and the leadership required to take visionary action (Cuevas et al., 2016; Gibbs, 2016; Yusuf et al., 2016; Yusuf et al., 2018b).

'''Cross-scale and cross-domain coordination''' : SLR creates new coordination problems across jurisdictional levels and domains, because impacts cut across scales, sectors and policy domains and responding often exceeds the capacities of local governments and communities ( ''medium confidence'' ; Araos et al., 2017; Termeer et al., 2017; Pinto et al., 2018; Clar, 2019; Clar and Steurer, 2019; Sections 4.3.2 and 4.4.2). Local responses are generally nested within a hierarchy of local, regional, national and international governance arrangements and cut across sectors (Cuevas, 2018; Chhetri et al., 2019; Clar, 2019). Furthermore responding to SLR is only one administrative priority amongst many, and the choice of SLR response is influenced by multiple co-existing functional responsibilities and perspectives (e.g., planning, emergency management, asset management and community development) that compete for legitimacy, further complicating the coordination challenge (Klein et al., 2016; Vij et al., 2017; Jones et al., 2019).

'''Equity and social vulnerability:''' SLR and responses may affect communities and society in ways that are not evenly distributed, which can compound vulnerability and inequity, and undermine societal aspirations, such as achieving SDGs ( ''high confidence'' ; Section 4.3.3.2; Eriksen et al., 2015; Foerster et al., 2015; Sovacool et al., 2015; Clark et al., 2016; Gorddard et al., 2016; Adger et al., 2017; Holland, 2017; Dolšak and Prakash, 2018; Lidström, 2018; Matin et al., 2018; Paprocki and Huq, 2018; Sovacool, 2018; Warner et al., 2018a). Costs and benefits of action and inaction are distributed unevenly, with some coastal nations, particularly small island states, being confronted with adaptation costs amounting to several percent of GDP in the 21st century (Section 4.3.3.2). Land use planning for climate adaptation can exacerbate sociospatial inequalities at the local level, as illustrated in a study of eight cities, namely Boston (USA), New Orleans (USA), Medellin (Colombia), Santiago (Chile), Metro Manila (Philippines), Jakarta (Indonesia), Surat (India), and Dhaka (Bangladesh; Anguelovski et al., 2016). Private responses may also exacerbate inequalities as, for example, in Miami, USA, where purchase of homes in areas at higher elevation has increased property prices displacing poorer communities from these areas (Keenan et al., 2018). In Bangladesh, some adaptation practices have enabled land capture by elites, public servants, the military and roving gangs, and resulted in various forms of marginalisation that compound vulnerability and risk (Sovacool, 2018); a reality also faced by many other coastal communities around the world (Sovacool et al., 2015).

'''Social conflict:'''  Ongoing SLR could become a catalyst for possibly intractable social conflict by impacting human activities, infrastructure and development along low-lying shorelines ( ''high confidence'' ). Social conflict refers here to the non-violent struggle between groups, organisations and communities over values, interests, resources, and influence or power, whereby parties seek to achieve their own goals, and may seek to prevent others from realising their goals and possibly harm rivals (Coser, 1967; Oberschall, 1978; Pruitt et al., 2003). SLR impacts that could contribute to conflict include: disruptions to critical infrastructure, cultural ties to the coast, livelihoods, coastal economies, public health, well-being, security, identity and the sovereignty of some low-lying island nations (Sections 4.3.2.4, 4.3.3.2, 4.3.3.6; Mills et al., 2016; Yusuf et al., 2016; Nursey-Bray, 2017; Hinkel et al., 2018). SLR responses inevitably raise difficult trade-offs between private and public interests, short- and long-term concerns, and security and conservation goals, which are difficult to reconcile due to divergent problem framing, interests, values and ethical positions (Eriksen et al., 2015; Foerster et al., 2015; Mills et al., 2016; Termeer et al., 2017; Sovacool, 2018). To some countries, SLR presents a security risk due to the scale of potential displacement and migration of people (Section 4.4.2.6). Climate change, and rising seas in particular, could compound sociopolitical stressors (Sovacool et al., 2015), challenge the efficacy of prevailing legal processes (Byrne, 2012; Busch, 2018; Setzer and Vanhala, 2019), and spark or escalate conflict (Lusthaus, 2010; Nursey-Bray, 2017).

'''Complexity:''' SLR introduces novel and complex problems that are difficult to understand and address ( ''high confidence'' ; Moser et al., 2012; Alford and Head, 2017; Wright and Nichols, 2018; Hall et al., 2019). As a result of the preceding features of the SLR problem, and the complexity of the nonlinear interactions between biogeophysical and human systems, SLR challenges may be difficult to frame, understand and respond to. Often, disciplinary science is not sufficient for understanding complex problems like SLR and traditional technical problem solving may not be well suited for crafting enduring SLR responses (Lawrence et al., 2015; Termeer et al., 2015). SLR poses a challenge for bridging gaps between science, policy and practice (Hall et al., 2019). The complexity and rapid pace of SLR in some localities is also challenging traditional community decision making practices, for example, in some Pacific Island communities (Nunn et al., 2014).

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