How Have the U.S. Coasts Changed (and How Are They Going to Change) as Cultural and Policy Spaces? An Example from California

Abstract Over the centuries, the coastal zones of the world have attracted agents of political expansion and instrumental maritime (e.g., fishing, shipping, boat building) industries seeking profit, and also great numbers of the general public seeking a place for residence, relaxation, outdoor recreation, tourism and other forms of play. The impressive amenities of the coastal zone are the economic value of natural resources and the social value of a sublime biophysical and human ecology. In the United States, the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 created a mandate for special area management plans to balance protection of the coasts with provisions that allow residence, visitation, and industry. This mandate is also found in the California Coastal Act of 1974 which created the California Coastal Commission. In the time since the passage of these acts, the cultural and policy spaces of California’s coast have changed dramatically. It is, however, an open question as to whether the Coastal Commission—and the many governmental entities with which it interacts—have succeeded or failed in their mandates. Whatever the conclusion drawn, this speculative essay suggests that climate change-induced future sea level rise will render the historic coastal management institutions and approaches obsolete. The future will be very different—ecologically, culturally, economically and politically. Coastal zone practitioners will be forced to reconfigure and expand their mandates and toolkit. We encourage a recognition that the challenge before them will be a new and very different one. It will call for an adaptation of the coastal management profession and the reorientation of the training and education of the next generation of coastal leaders in the public, private and civil society sectors. This should entail an expansion of disciplinary expertise to address human dimensions topics that include planned retreat, population and infrastructure relocation, social equity and environmental justice and be intimately informed by science and stakeholder engagement.