Anglia Ruskin Research Online (ARRO)
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Social capital and the public acceptability of climate change adaptation policies: a case study in Romney Marsh, UK

journal contribution
posted on 2023-07-26, 14:27 authored by Nikoleta Jones, Julian R. A. Clark
There is now a growing literature emphasizing the critical importance of social variables in the formulation of coastal management policies seeking to tackle climate change impacts. This paper focuses on the role of social capital, which is increasingly identified as having a significant role in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. We focus on public perceptions of the social costs and benefits arising from two management options (managed retreat/realignment and hold-the-line), the resulting level of policy acceptability, and how this acceptability is mediated by social capital parameters within coastal communities. These issues are examined by means of a quantitative social survey implemented in Romney Marsh (east Sussex/Kent, UK), an area facing significant impacts from climate change. We tested two models through path analysis with latent structures. The first correlates respondents’ perceived costs and benefits with the level of public acceptability of the two policy options. In the second model, we introduce social capital variables, investigating the impacts on perceived social costs and benefits of the policy options, and the overall effect on the level of public acceptability. Our findings demonstrate: (1) perceived social costs and benefits of proposed policy options influence the level of public acceptability of these policies; (2) these social costs and benefits are connected with the level of public acceptability; and (3) specific social capital parameters (i.e. social trust, institutional trust, social networks and social reciprocity) influence perceived policy costs and benefits, and also have a significant impact on the level of public acceptability of proposed policy options.

History

Refereed

  • Yes

Volume

123

Issue number

2

Page range

133-145

Publication title

Climatic Change

ISSN

1573-1480

Publisher

Springer

Language

  • other

Legacy posted date

2018-10-15

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

ARCHIVED Faculty of Science & Technology (until September 2018)

Usage metrics

    ARU Outputs

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC