Bruce Glavovic

Massey University · School of People, Environment and Planning

The United Nations’ Ocean Decade calls for co-designing transformative science, ocean networks, and learning strategies to address ocean health decline and deep-blue social divides in ocean governance. Yet the transformative capacity to advance ocean sustainability pathways shared by the UN Ocean Decade ecosystem of partners is still under-realized...

Priorities and programmes in the City of Cape Town's Integrated Development Plan (2022-2027) demonstrate progress towards operationalising local level planning for climate-resilient development. These developments provide lessons of process and focus on transformative outcomes for cities seeking equitable and just development while implementing cli...

Considerable research has focused on how pre-disaster actions degrade ecosystem resilience that exacerbates risk to human communities. In contrast, little is known about how ecosystem resilience benefits people during disaster recovery, and how pre- and post-disaster recovery planning and decisions affect ecosystem resilience. This article offers a...

Non-technical summary We summarize what we assess as the past year's most important findings within climate change research: limits to adaptation, vulnerability hotspots, new threats coming from the climate–health nexus, climate (im)mobility and security, sustainable practices for land use and finance, losses and damages, inclusive societal climate...

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes COVID-19, emerged in late 2019, halfway through the preparation of the IPCC WGII Sixth Assessment Report. This Cross-Chapter Box assesses how the massive shock of the pandemic and response measures interact with climate-related impacts and risks as well as its significan...

Navigating waves of disaster depends on how we make social choices. Ōtautahi experience testifies to the dire consequences of governance practices that close down opportunities for authentic public engagement, deliberation and reflexivity. There are legion examples of how local democracy was stifled over the last decade. There are also examples of...

This book critically surveys a decade of disasters in Ōtautahi Christchurch. It brings together a diverse range of authors, disciplinary approaches and topics, to reckon with the events that commenced with the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence. Each contribution tackles its subject matter through the frame of Critical Disaster Studies (CDS)....

Decision-makers, managers and communities in low-lying coastal regions face many challenges in planning for and adapting to escalating coastal hazard risk, given uncertainty about sea-level rise and complex and contested environmental and socio-economic futures. Collaborative and participatory approaches can help to address such challenges and enab...

The science-society contract is broken. The climate is changing. Science demonstrates why this is occurring, that it is getting worse, the implications for human well-being and social-ecological systems, and substantiates action. Governments agree that the science is settled. The tragedy of climate change science is that at the same time as compell...

Institutions have a central role in climate change governance. But while there is a flourishing literature on institutions' formal rules, processes, and organizational forms, scholars lament a relative lack of attention to institutions' informal side; their cultures. It is important to study institutions' cultures because it is through culture that...

Festering ocean conflict thwarts efforts to realize the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This paper explores transformations of ocean conflict into situated sustainability pathways that privilege human needs, justice and equity. We first outline the promise and limits of prevailing ocean/coastal governance practices, with a focus on marin...

With the increasing need for and emergence of research on ocean and coastal issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ocean & Coastal Management journal presents this Special Issue with relevant articles within the scope of Coastal Management in times of COVID-19. This Special Issue received 43 tentative abstracts, 29 manuscripts were sub...

Natural hazards present significant challenges for managing risk and vulnerability. It is crucial to understand how communities, nations, and international regimes and organizations attempt to manage risk and promote resilience in the face of major disruption to the built and natural environment and social systems. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Natura...

Multistakeholder participatory processes are essential decision-making elements in contemporary contested marine spaces. Such processes have long time horizons, diverse interests, and complex objectives. Their complex and evolving nature make it difficult for participatory process proponents and participants to adequately plan their processes and t...

Managed retreat has become a compelling policy imperative as climate change exacerbates socio-natural hazard risks and imminent harm looms for exposed communities. Retreats may be initiated over different times and scales using various instruments by actors, from the state to the private sector and civil society. However, in the absence of a cohere...

Environmental valuation provides a way of soliciting and organising information about how people relate to their environments. By canvassing a broad spectrum of human–nature relationships, valuation practice seeks to make environmental decision‐making more inclusive of diverse human concerns and aspirations. When valuation is undertaken in real‐wor...

COVID-19 has triggered major upheavals to life as we know it in every corner of the planet. The governance response has been deep and far-reaching, albeit variable and contradictory. Disruptions like the pandemic inspire new perspectives on climate resilient development, especially with respect to the role of governance in navigating transformation...

Decision makers need better insights about solutions to accelerate adaptation efforts. Defining the concept of solution space and revealing the forces and strategies that influence this space will enable decision makers to define pathways for adaptation action. .

In this chapter we outline the metaphor and narrative work of participatory processes as they contribute to social knowledge in highly contested multiuse and multiuser marine spaces. By adopting a sociotheoretic approach, we can provide multiple layers of contextualization to establish the conditions in which participatory processes have emerged, e...

Managed retreat presents a dilemma for at-risk communities, and the planning practitioners and decisionmakers working to address natural hazard and climate change risks. The dilemma boils down to the countervailing imperatives of moving out of harm’s way versus retaining ties to community and place. While there are growing calls for its use, manage...

Diverse and contested local interests and the complexity of climate change make adaptation to climate change risks at the coast challenging. Even in similar settings, adaptation experiences and prospects can differ markedly. Why? This paper provides empirical evidence of comparative adaptation experiences in two regions of Aotearoa-New Zealand - th...

Managed retreat is a deliberate strategy to remedy unsustainable land use patterns that expose people, ecosystems, and assets to significant natural (and socio-natural) hazard and climate induced risks. The term is all-encompassing, broadly capturing planned relocation in the fields of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, as well...

This is the Summary for Policy Makers of the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, as approved by the IPCC member countries at the Plenary in Monaco, 25 September 2019.

Coastal nations and islands have featured a participatory turn this century directed to resolving conflicts in multi-use/user marine spaces. Yet, few conceptual and empirical studies focus on participation as an institutional form to engage with the pressures of diverse and contesting uses and user interests in marine environments. These spaces are...

Valuation encompasses far more than the practice of estimating the financial value of environmental services and changes. It extends to almost any socio-political process in which local actors seek to shape the development of their places and environments by describing what matters about these places. This paper draws on diverse engagements with pa...

HIGHLIGHTS The Anthropocene compels unlocking of ocean-related network capabilities. Orchestration of local, regional, and global knowledge networks can augment transformative capacity. Transdisciplinary network diagnostics are promising social learning tools. Strategic advice for transformational research in ocean territories are provided. This p...

Coastal hazard risk, compounded by climate change, is escalating. Efforts to address this challenge are fraught and ‘success’ is elusive. We focus on this impasse and recommend ways to improve understanding, reduce risk and enable adaptation. Two Aotearoa New Zealand coastal communities, Mercury Bay and Kennedy Bay, on the Coromandel Peninsula, ser...

The coast attracts people because of its beauty, productivity, and the immense array of benefits coastal ecosystems provide. Coastal ecosystems are, however, among the most threatened on Earth, jeopardizing the livelihoods and wellbeing of those living at the land–sea interface. Moreover, future prospects are bleak because global environmental chan...

The Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) project was established in 1993 as a core project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) to provide the science knowledge to answer “How will changes in land use, sea level and climate alter coastal systems, and what are the wider consequences?” In its first phase of operati...

The advent of the Anthropocene underscores the need to develop and implement transformative governance strategies that safeguard the Earth's life-support systems, most critically at the ocean–land interface — the Margin. The seaward realm of the Margin is the new frontier for resource exploitation and colonization to meet the needs of coastal natio...

LOICZ (Land Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone) (see http://www.loicz.org/) is a core research project of International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP) (and previously also the International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP) involving scientists from across the globe investigating biogeochemical as well as social, economic and governance relat...

Abstract: A deliberative approach to coastal governance is needed to navigate the stormy seas of the Anthropocene. Coasts are the frontline of the global struggle for sustainability and the primary arena for learning how to adapt to the super-wicked problem of climate change. Coastal communities need to build layers of resilience in the face of wav...

In recent decades, Brazil's coast has been subject to rapid urbanization , industrialization, port expansion and development, tourism development , offshore oil and gas exploitation, and activities ranging from fishing to shrimp farming and coastal conservation. There is escalating conflict between many of these activities and inequitable and envir...

It is widely recognised that small, low-lying island nations are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This chapter provides a comparative meta-analysis of climate change adaptation in two atoll nations: Kiribati in the Pacific and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The analysis focuses on how biophysical constraints coupled with polit...

Coastal sustainability is elusive in South Africa and the Mississippi delta. These case studies and convergent literatures demonstrate the merits of reconceptualising coastal management as a transformative practice of deliberative governance. A normative framework is presented that focuses attention on underpinning deliberative outcomes to enable g...

This book explores lessons learned from the study and real-world experience of natural hazards to help communities plan for and adapt to climate change.

Climate change exacerbates the flood risk facing many New Zealand communities. The February 2004 floods severely impacted the Manawatu region and reveal valuable lessons and shed light on barriers and opportunities, and priority actions, for reducing flood risk and building resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of climate change. The 2004 fl...

A significant part of adapting to climate change involves learning from the many lessons found in planning for natural hazards and acting on this information. In the preceding chapters four imperatives have emerged that will be used to summarise our collective findings and structure a set of lessons to help stimulate and inform a still nascent dial...

The Mississippi delta is a place of remarkable ecological, cultural and economic significance. Prevailing practices are, however, unsustainable; and climate change compounds disaster risk in the region. Delta communities need to build layers of resilience as a buffer against the waves of adversity they face. The historical context and distinctive s...

The role of community-based religious institutions has been largely undocumented, underestimated and overshadowed in the disaster studies literature. This paper explores the role of the mosque, a community-based religious institution, in disaster management by documenting and analysing its role in rural settings in the aftermath of the 2005 earthqu...

This book identifies lessons learned from natural hazard experiences to help communities plan for and adapt to climate change. Written by leading experts, the case studies examine diverse experiences, from severe storms to sea-level related hazards, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, floods, earthquakes and tsunami, in North America, Europe, Australa...

Integrated Coastal Management has seen an on-going debate on the best way of integrating knowledge with political decision-making across the so-called ‘science-policy interface’. This paper engages with this debate by presenting an empirical study into practice at the science-policy interface supporting coastal management in New Zealand. The resear...

Coasts are the primary habitat for humanity. Throughout history, coastal cities and towns have been a crucible for innovation. However, business and technological innovations imperil coastal communities, because prevailing practices are unsustainable. Consequently, coasts are the frontline in humanity's endeavour to learn to live sustainably in the...

This is the second of two articles that explores the coastal innovation paradox and imperative. Paradoxically, innovation is necessary to escape the vulnerability trap created by past innovations that have degraded coastal ecosystems and imperil coastal livelihoods. The innovation imperative is to reframe and underpin business and technology with c...

Integrated coastal management (ICM) has long sought to create political settings within which coastal communities can arrive at collective decisions, and support these decisions with the best quality knowledge available. Traditionally this has been through the integration of natural and social science with the political processes of decision-making...

Prompted by demands from the Canterbury earthquakes, The Joint Centre for Disaster Research (JCDR) formed an advisory group to support organisations involved in psychosocial aspects of recovery. This Psychosocial Recovery Advisory Group draws on evidence-based research findings to provide an academic contribution to policy and practice development....

Ecological economics is a field of enquiry that has had, with a few exceptions, an almost entirely terrestrial focus. Given the fundamental ecological and economic importance of oceanic and coastal ecosystems, and the accelerating deterioration of these ecosystems, we argue that there is an urgent case to redress this imbalance. In so doing, the sc...

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the development of the concepts, principles, and good practices of integrated coastal management (ICM). Experience is drawn from the United States, Europe, South Africa, and Ecuador to help illustrate both innovation in developing ICM and obstacles to use of ICM to promote a transition toward more sustainab...

Effective recovery from disasters depends not just on the physical impacts of the event but also on how the societal environment supports the complex and protracted processes of recovery. Research highlights the importance of not only strong local government capacity, but also of a cohesive system of public, private and volunteer groups integrated...

Engagement and participation are terms used to describe important processes in a democratic society. However, the definition and understanding of these terms is broad and varied. In a disaster context, community engagement and participation are recognised as important processes to support individual and community recovery. What these terms mean, wh...

Following the Canterbury earthquakes, the Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University/GNS Science, formed a Psychosocial Recovery Advisory Group to help support organisations involved in the recovery process. This advisory group does not make direct interventions, rather, it signposts and summarises relevant evidence-informed research fin...

Following the Canterbury earthquakes, The Joint Centre for Disaster Research (JCDR), a Massey University and Geological and Nuclear Science (GNS Science) collaboration, formed a Psychosocial Recovery Advisory Group to help support organisations involved in the recovery process. This advisory group reviews and summarises evidence-based research find...

Land-use planners have a critical role to play in building vibrant, sustainable and hazard resilient communities in New Zealand. The policy and legal setting for natural hazards planning provides a solid foundation for good practice. But there are many examples of ‘bad practice’ that result in unnecessary risks and, in some cases, exposure to repea...

This introductory article sets the scene for this Special Issue about the role of land-use planning in disaster risk reduction in Australasia. Proactive natural hazards planning enables communities to understand disaster risk and make decisions that promote their safety, resilience and sustainability. Despite the prevalence of natural hazards in Au...

Building sustainable, hazard-resilient communities is a challenging imperative. Meaningful community involvement in planning for and managing hazard risks is the starting point for meeting this challenge. This research presents lessons learned from community-based emergency management experiences in the Northland region of New Zealand. The Northlan...

The New Zealand policy and legal setting for land-use planning provides a robust foundation for reducing hazard risks. But much remains to be done to improve hazards planning policy and practice in New Zealand. This article starts by describing the setting within which natural hazards planning takes place. Five critical issues are identified and pr...

Hurricanes devastated the Gulf coast of the USA in 2005. Hurricane Katrina, in particular, highlighted the compelling need to build more sustainable and hazard-resilient communities. Much can be learned from recovery efforts to rebuild the Gulf coast. Personal observations and interviews with planners, academics and others involved in recovery effo...

The consequences of living in hazard-prone areas were brought home by graphic television coverage of the hurricanes that devastated the Gulf coast of the USA in 2005. Hurricane Katrina, in particular, highlighted the compelling need to build more sustainable and hazard- resilient communities. Much can be learned from recovery efforts to rebuild the...

This is the second of two articles exploring coastal management in South Africa. It focuses on the adoption of the Sustainable Livelihoods approach that has underpinned recent policy implementation efforts. This approach complements prevailing coastal management thinking and practice by focusing attention on the strategies that poor people use to a...

The growing international interest in environmental mediation prompts an examination of the training and education of environmental mediators; the characteristics particular to environmental disputes that make mediation an appropriate, if not essential, response to such disputes; the role, responsibilities, and ideal qualities of the environmental...

This is the first of two articles exploring coastal management in South Africa. Decades of coastal management effort culminated in a Cabinet-approved coastal policy in December 1999. Based on a Government–civil society partnership, the policy aims to promote sustainable coastal development through integrated coastal management. It represents a mark...

This is the third in a series of articles exploring South Africa's new approach to coastal management. Based on a critical analysis of South Africa's coastal policy experience, it presents a generic set of lessons for coastal management. These lessons are grouped into four themes consistent with the main objectives of the policy formulation process...

This is the second in a series of three articles exploring the adoption of a new approach to coastal management in South Africa, perceptions of the coastal policy formulation process, and lessons learned from this experience. South Africa has adopted a new policy that promotes sustainable coastal development through integrated coastal management. F...

Sustainability is an elusive pursuit. But coastal poverty is a pervasive and debilitating reality for many coastal communities and the coastal management literature provides little explicit direction for tackling poverty. How then can a more people-centred, pro-poor Integrated Coastal Management approach be developed and implemented? The Sustainabl...

ISSN 0749-0208. Efforts to promote sustainable development are paradoxically degrading the natural systems essential for life on earth. Furthermore, despite these efforts, global poverty and inequality persist. The result is a cruel dilemma that is manifested in pervasive environmental conflict. This dilemma is readily apparent in coasts around the...