Realizing managed retreat and innovation in state-level coastal management planning

U.S. coastal areas are projected to experience varying degrees of climate-change induced sea level rise (SLR), erosion and inundation in the next century. More than half of the countryʹs population lives in a coastal area, putting growth on a collision course with observed and anticipated climate change impacts. This research examines the current status of the state-level coastal management toolbox and their ease of implementation compared to the ideal of managed retreat, and the emergence of innovative tools in response to climate change impacts. The first of a two-phased methodology, the authors conducted document collection to generate a regulatory context for each coastal state, followed by survey administration to record a temporal slice of both the managed retreat efforts and the self-identified and empirically determined coastal management innovations in 29 coastal states. The authors generated a new definition of innovation in the coastal management canon, and conducted follow-up interviews with those empirically innovative states. Despite site-contingent application of the managed retreat ideal tools, soft stabilization remains the most ubiquitous and easiest tool category to implement in urban coastal areas. The managed retreat idealʹs fixed setbacks, land acquisition, and hazardous zoning tools are used more frequently than most modification of development tools, particularly in the innovative states. Coastal management tool innovations reflect the managed retreat idealʹs holistic ocean/estuarine shoreline management intent. But additional innovation is needed to generate long-term strategies that balance growth pressure with dynamic coastal processes. Program implementation still lags, given the property rights battles that are increasingly relevant in the current political climate.