Rising waters, divergent perspectives: Understanding sea level rise concerns and gender differences

Abstract

The impacts of sea level rise (SLR) are already being felt in many populous and low-lying coastal areas worldwide, making it one of the most pressing threats posed by climate change. While public concerns and perceptions regarding SLR have been widely studied, limited research has investigated divergent views on its specific impacts on local communities. This study aims to fill this gap by examining concerns over the economic, physical, and ecological impacts of SLR through a household survey conducted in Florida in 2014. Our findings indicate that residents express the greatest concern about higher insurance premiums, followed by increased contaminants in water supply and destructive storms. Moreover, this study places special focus on gender differences along with other factors contributing to heterogeneous concern levels. Our results demonstrate that women exhibit significantly higher levels of concern than men for all potential impacts associated with sea level rise, with the most pronounced differences observed in physical impacts and less pronounced differences in economic impacts. Furthermore, the gender gap is greater in low-resilience communities and smaller in high-resilience communities across all impacts. These insights provide valuable guidance for the development of adaptation strategies for sea level rise in coastal areas.