Challenges for local adaptation when governance scales overlap. Evidence from Languedoc, France

Abstract

In coastal areas around the world, actors are responding to multiple global changes by implementing adaptation plans, often
confined within a single-focal perspective with few explanations of targeted changes and cross-scale interactions. To better anticipate
the raising coordination issues and the potential feedbacks generated by adaptation in these complex social-ecological systems
where governance scales overlap, we used the robustness framework (Anderies et al. 2004; Anderies 2015). We analyzed a case
study along the Languedoc coastline in southern France, where governance is organized in multiple jurisdictions which we
considered as interlinked adaptation situations.We identified three interacting changes impacting adaptation: demographic growth,
climate change, and large-scale political changes, such as decentralization.We used the examples of land-use planning and coastal management to illustrate the major coordination challenges facing the implementation of adaptation plans in coastal areas by various intertwined communities. In the example of land-use planning, adaptation is impacted by miscoordination between multiple sectors
that all rely on a shared resource, land, thus putting more pressure on the decision-makers to make explicit trade-offs between multiple issues. Coastal management illustrated how emerging adaptation strategies created new interdependencies in the system and how these were hardly considered due to confusion in the devolution of responsibility between multiple jurisdictions. In both examples, using coupled and evolving robustness diagrams was helpful in revealing renewed fragilities, foreseeing consequences of adaptation in inter-related decisional contexts, and promoting collective action to redefine the boundaries of adaptation situations and their coordination to cope with converging changes along coastlines.

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Challenges for local adaptation when governance scales overlap.
Evidence from Languedoc, France
Clara Therville
1,2,3,4
&Ute Brady
5
&Olivier Barreteau
2
&François Bousquet
3,4
&Raphael Mathevet
1
&
Sandrine Dhenain
2
&Frédéric Grelot
2
&Pauline Brémond
2
Received: 13 September 2017 / Accepted: 4 October 2018
#Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract
In coastal areas around the world, actors are responding to multiple global changes by implementing adaptation plans, often
confined within a single-focal perspective with few explanations of targeted changes and cross-scale interactions. To better antic-
ipate the raising coordination issues and the potential feedbacks generated by adaptation in these complex social-ecological systems
where governance scales overlap, we used the robustness framework (Anderies et al. 2004;Anderies2015). We analyzed a case
study along the Languedoc coastline in southern France, where governance is organized in multiple jurisdictions which we
considered as interlinked adaptation situations. We identified three interacting changes impacting adaptation: demographic growth,
climate change, and large-scale political changes, such as decentralization. We used the examples of land-use planning and coastal
management to illustrate the major coordination challenges facing the implementation of adaptation plans in coastal areas by various
intertwined communities. In the example of land-use planning, adaptation is impacted by miscoordination between multiple sectors
that all rely on a shared resource, land, thus putting more pressure on the decision-makers to make explicit trade-offs between
multiple issues. Coastal management illustrated how emerging adaptation strategies created new interdependencies in the system
and how these were hardly considered due to confusion in the devolution of responsibility between multiple jurisdictions. In both
examples, using coupled and evolving robustness diagrams was helpful in revealing renewed fragilities, foreseeing consequences of
adaptation in inter-related decisional contexts, and promoting collective action to redefine the boundaries of adaptation situations
and their coordination to cope with converging changes along coastlines.
Keywords Adaptation .Coastal areas .France .Multi-scale governance .Robustness .Social-ecological systems
Introduction
Challenges linked to global change are leading to the emer-
gence of a specific field of action and research on ‘adaptation
to climate change’, which can be limited by the fact that it is
often confined to a single-focal perspective: one actor
adapting to one change, often climatic, in one place at one
moment. This restricted vision tends to under-estimate
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1427-2) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
*Clara Therville
clara.therville@gmail.com
Ute Brady
ubrady@asu.edu
Olivier Barreteau
olivier.barreteau@irstea.fr
François Bousquet
francois.bousquet@cirad.fr
Raphael Mathevet
raphael.mathevet@cefe.cnrs.fr
Sandrine Dhenain
sandrine.dhenain@irstea.fr
Frédéric Grelot
frederic.grelot@irstea.fr
Pauline Brémond
pauline.bremond@irstea.fr
Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Regional Environmental Change
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1427-2

interconnectivity, feedback processes, and complexity (Pielke
et al. 2007; Adger et al. 2011; Bassett and Fogelman 2013).
For example, Turner et al. (2010) illustrate how people’sad-
aptation to climate change can have impacts that even exceed
the direct effects of climate change on ecosystems. In eastern
England, investments in ‘hold-the-line’policies to address
local erosion affect erosion rates down the coast and reduce
adaptive capacity to future sea level rise (Milligan et al. 2009).
Hence in this globalized world (Steffen et al. 2004), multiple
changes and interconnectivity emerge as critical elements
when implementing adaptation. Current research emphasizes
the co-occurrence of ‘multiple stressors’or ‘double exposure’
(O’Brien et al. 2004; Klein et al. 2014): adaptations are not
isolated from other decisions dealing both with global change
(e.g., structural changes associated with economic globaliza-
tion) and with socio-economic and environmental changes
occurring in a specific context (Adger et al. 2005a).
Moreover, the process of globalization is increasing the speed
of interaction and multiplying the connectedness within and
among coupled social-ecological systems (SES) (Young et al.
2006; Liu et al. 2013), i.e., integrated systems of ecosystems
and human society with reciprocal feedbacks and interdepen-
dences (Gallopín et al. 1989;BerkesandFolke1998). It has
thus been recognized that adaptation needs to be understood
as a cross-scale and multilevel process (Klein et al. 2014):
diverse elements (places, people, species, timings…)thatare
considered and managed as disconnected can in reality be
strongly interconnected and will likely be even more so in
the future. More trade-offs have to be expected between ro-
bustness, performance and flexibility, and between different
types of robustness in the face of different types of change.
Society has to make choices and is facing dilemmas: improve-
ments to SES robustness in one area could result in ‘hidden
fragilities’in other areas (Anderies et al. 2013).
Integrating the domino effect associated with the parallel
implementation of several adaptation strategies is a wicked
challenge (Moser et al. 2012). It requires a cross-scalar anal-
ysis of interactions and feedbacks that reshape linkages within
a SES and among interconnected SES submitted to multiple
changes. Here, scale refers to analytical dimensions used to
study adaptation: spatial, temporal, institutional, or jurisdic-
tional (Cash et al. 2006). Each scale is composed of multiple
internal levels (e.g., municipality to central government in the
context of jurisdictional scale). This reshaping of the intercon-
nectivity within and among systems at multiple scales must be
translated into governance responses. According to Berkes
(2002), a failure to recognize cross-scale linkages is a central
reason for some unsuccessful interventions in resource sys-
tems and the persistence of resource degradation may be in
part related to ‘cross-scale institutional pathologies’.Recent
meta-analysis underlines the importance of institutional con-
straints on adaptation (Biesbroek et al. 2013), asserting issues
of miscoordination and mismatch when institutional
procedures that coordinate actions are in misfit with the inter-
dependencies between actors and with the resources
(Oberlack 2017). Hence, adaptation strategies have to simul-
taneously address: (i) the constraints and opportunities repre-
sented by cross-scale implementation dynamics (Klein et al.
2014), (ii) the consequences of implementation on others at
diverse scales and levels (Adger et al. 2005b), (iii) the arche-
typal scale challenge of the mismatch when the authority or
jurisdiction of the management institution is not coterminous
with the problem or the resource (Cash et al. 2006).
Doing so requires using frameworks developed to analyze
the linkages between the interconnected pieces of the SES
puzzle, including actors, their system of concern, and the larg-
er context in which they act (Moser and Ekstrom 2010).
Among the diversity of conceptual tools developed to address
these pieces, the robustness framework was designed by
Anderies et al. (2004) to focus on the interactions that arise
from dynamics within key elements of the SES—the re-
source system, resource user, public infrastructure provid-
er, and public infrastructure—as described in the methods
section. However, the use of the robustness framework to
analyze multi-functional coastal SES, where actors orga-
nized at multiple scales are pursuing a diversity of objec-
tives and are facing diverse and growing changes, may be
challenging. In this paper, we suggest some adaptations to
the robustness framework to cope with interacting co-
existing governance levels and to discuss cross-scale pro-
cesses occurring when adaptation is implemented. What
are the cascade of changes induced by adaptation patterns
due to interactions within multiple SES facing concomitant
challenges? Using the Languedoc coastline in southern
France as a case study, we discuss how adaptation reshapes
linkages in a complex coupled infrastructure system sub-
ject to multiple changes and composed of multiple issues,
scales, and levels of organization. We use two examples,
land-use planning and coastal management, to highlight
(1) how multiple adaptation strategies interact through
cross-scale processes, (2) the trade-offs involved by these
interactions, and (3) the underlying issues of governance
coordination and reorganization.
Materials and methods
Presentation of the case study
In France, the investigation took as its case study the area
between Montpellier and Nîmes, influenced by these two
main cities and organized around four watersheds from the
interior lands to the coastline (Fig. 1). This area is located
along a major European axis connecting Spain and northern
Europe. It is characterized by a Mediterranean climate, with
major climate change effects expected (ONERC 2015). The
C. Therville et al.

area’s sandy coastline is very sensitive to sea level rise and to
submersions along the coast, and interior lands are impacted
by extreme events such as violent flashfloods in the plains,
and by fires in the interior scrublands. Accordingly, there has
been a historical focus on risk management policies. The
Mediterranean basin is also considered a global biodiversity
hotspot that is particularly sensitive to global changes (Myers
et al. 2000). Coastal wetlands, lagoons, and Mediterranean
cultural landscapes, shaped by an age-old history of human
presence, are characterized by high levels of complexity and
diversity. Agriculture, mostly viticulture, is still important in
the area, shaping the landscapes and contributing to the local
economy. In the 1960s, state-mandated mass market tourism
development led to the construction of seaside resorts along
the coast (Klemm 1996). Today, tourism represents the major
industry in Région Languedoc contributing 15% of the re-
gional GDP and almost 60,000 jobs. Sixty percent of regional
tourism is concentrated along the coastline (Région
Languedoc-Roussillon 2013). Moreover, the region devel-
oped a ‘host county’policy which actively solicits in-
migration resulting in a rapid demographic growth rate with
newcomers coming from other parts of France and settling
mainly in cities, along the main roads and next to the shore-
line. This generates an important urban sprawl and
artificialization process. A large part of the regional economy
can be characterized as a ‘presential’economydrivenby
inhabitants’day-to-day needs. We observe a fragile economic
development, with a high level of inequity, low average in-
come levels, and a high rate ofunemployment. This study area
was chosen for analysis to illustrate the reshaping of the link-
ages emerging through adaptation processes along a gradient
of diverse natural habitats, species, human activities, and in-
stitutions that could be identified as multiple SES with fuzzy
borders defined according to sectoral perspectives.
Meanwhile, this diversity of possible SES is interlinked
through the watersheds and the process of metropolization.
The use of the robustness framework
To analyze the Languedoc case study, we use the robustness
framework (Anderies et al. 2004; Anderies 2015), which is an
extension of the Institutional Analysis and Development
(IAD) framework (Ostrom 2011) (see also, this issue’sedito-
rial). A challenge associated with the use of the robustness
framework is that multi-functional coastal SES are composed
of multiple resources, resource users, infrastructures, and in-
frastructure providers (see Online Material 1for a summary of
the Languedoc system). The robustness framework requires a
focus on specific characteristics of the study area, including
parsing the whole territory into sub-systems for analysis.
Indeed, the governance of human-environment problems in
the Languedoc case study isstructured in a polycentric system
Fig. 1 Magic study area, Languedoc-Roussillon, France. Data: Corine LandCover 2006
Challenges for local adaptation when governance scales overlap. Evidence from Languedoc, France

characterized by modularity: management and decision-
making processes are organized around diverse more or less
inter-related ‘system modules’(Anderies 2013). The French
government structure is organized sectorally and across space
with multiple levels of jurisdictions, beginning with the mu-
nicipal (local government level), to the intercommunality level
(voluntary cooperation of a group of municipalities), regional
(including county and province), and national. Modules can
thus be defined as clearly bounded and organized jurisdiction-
al units with linkages between them (Cash et al. 2006), de-
fined by their spatial extent (e.g., regional, intercommunal,
municipal) and by the issue they address (e.g., flood manage-
ment, biodiversity conservation, or land-use planning).
Certain jurisdictional units are concerned with a single issue
(for example, an intercommunality managing a watershed),
while others integrate several issues (like a municipality in
charge of land-use planning and flood prevention). It should
also be noted that some governance mismatch might occur:
landscape units and watersheds can be managed by a single
jurisdictional unit, but most of the time, several units that are
not necessarily coordinated are involved. We distinguish three
types of cross-scale interactions between multiple jurisdiction-
al units: (1) overlapping—meaning that different, spatially
overlapping jurisdictional units address different issues (flood
risk management, land-use planning, biodiversity conserva-
tion); (2) horizontal interplay—meaning that equivalent juris-
dictional units dealing with the same issue are right next to one
another in space (e.g., several municipalities in charge of land-
use planning); (3) vertical interplay (Young 2006)—meaning
that jurisdictional units dealing with the same issue represent
multiple levels along a single spatial scale (e.g., municipalities
andintercommunalitiesinchargeofland-useplanning).
Our analysis focused on the interplay between these
institutionalized jurisdictional units, i.e., between different
levels of social organization that are recognized by law.
These units can be defined as action situations which con-
sist of strategic interactions between participants, rules,
norms, and attributes of the physical world that generate
outcomes. Following the suggestion of Oberlack (2017),
we define these action situations as adaptation situations:
a stimulus (climatic or other) influences an exposed unit
(or system) where participants implement adaptation ac-
tions. Participants have the ability to design, build, and
maintain hard (roads, dikes, bridges) and soft (rules, regu-
lations, norms, e.g., to establish a protected area) infra-
structures to reduce losses or increase benefits from these
influences. These infrastructures will affect the target ad-
aptation situation, but also other interconnected adaptation
situations through the outcomes generated. These adjacent
adaptation situations combine to create networks of adja-
cent action situations (NAAS) (McGinnis 2011), or in our
case, networks of adjacent adaptation situations.The anal-
ysis of the system is based on diverse sources: literature
review, content analysis of diverse policy documents, and
stakeholder interviews, including strategic decision makers
representing the main organizations. A total of 29 inter-
views were conducted lasting 90 min on average. We met
with representatives of State services, regional and local
authorities, and of other public policy organizations. The
interviews were recorded with a tape-recorder, transcribed,
and thematically analyzed. This general framework of
analysis allowed for an explorative and inductive ap-
proach. Interviewees were asked to talk about four main
topics: the missions and objectives of the represented or-
ganization; the changes and drivers affecting these mis-
sions and objectives; the actions taken to account for these
changes; and the outcomes of their responses across scales.
We used the robustness framework associated with the con-
cept of NAAS to analyze two examples of nested feedback
systems: (1) land-use planning management and the growing
scarcity of land and (2) evolution of coastal area management.
These examples illustrate two major challenges linked to
cross-scale interactions when implementing adaptation in
coastal areas: miscoordination and mismatch in a polycentric
system and fuzziness in the devolution of responsibility.
Results
Main changes in the Languedoc case study
The question of adaptation in land-use planning and in coastal
management comes from the exposure of the study area to
several changes which ‘is more than climate change’
(Steffen et al. 2004, p.4). The robustness framework considers
such changes as ‘exogenous drivers’that can impact the re-
source system (RS) and the infrastructures (PI) (link 7)orthe
users (RU) and the infrastructures providers (PIP) (link 8). As
detailed in Online Resource 2, multiple changes were identi-
fied through the interviews and the literature review. Among
them, we distinguish three main types of change:
(1) Demographic growth due to in-migration and changing
lifestyles (link 8 on RU) has a direct impact on the users
and an indirect consequence on resources (link 1 of RU
on RS). This growth also calls into question the suitabil-
ity of local political choices and public infrastructures
(link 2 of PIP on RU; links 4, 5, and 6 of PI on RU and
RS). Languedoc is one of the most attractive French re-
gions and subject to rapid demographic growth (see
Online Resource 2). This growth phenomenon is due to
a voluntary interregional net migration linked to the
coastal zone attractiveness, to heliotropism, but also to
the active recruitment of new residents by regional
policymakers and Montpellier city officials (link 2 of
PIP on RU) who pursue a persistent ideology that
C. Therville et al.

equates progress with growth. In this case, demographic
growth is facilitated through local political choice and
infrastructure implementation. New inhabitants need wa-
ter, housing, transport infrastructures, and services, lead-
ing to an important demand upon resources, particularly
land (link 1 of RU on RS), and to the artificialization of
agricultural and natural land into urban areas. Changes in
family structure (e.g., increase in single-parent families)
and the fact that many newcomers prefer living in single-
family residences are trends which further exacerbate the
need for land. The space-saving political effort indicated
by a decreasing urban sprawl indicator cannot compen-
sate for the concomitant increase in demand for land
spaces to accommodate the needs of such a rapidly grow-
ing population. Moreover, due to the geographical loca-
tion of the Languedoc (France–Spain cross-border traffic
hub), the study area is also subject to ‘external’land-
consuming forces linked to the development of transpor-
tation drivers, such as the high speed rail or the A9 free-
way projects. Artificialization is recognized as one of the
main drivers of biodiversity loss (see Online Resource 2)
and as an aggravating factor in flood and submersionrisk
management, an exacerbated trend since most develop-
ment occurs in coastal areas which are more vulnerable
to the adverse impacts of climate change. Hence, demo-
graphic growth and changing lifestyles place an addition-
al strain on finite resources which are already struggling
to adjust to changing climate conditions.
(2) Languedoc is predicted to experience major climate
change effects, especially along the coast. Climate
change is and will continue to impact directly both re-
source availability which is expected to become less
abundant (link 7 on RS) and infrastructures, which will
be subject to more extreme events and pressures (link 7
on PI). Manifestations of climate change in Languedoc
include rising sea levels, temporary marine submersions,
accentuated coastal erosion, rising temperatures, and
more extreme rainfall events (see Online Resource 2).
Aside from creating new environmental conditions, cli-
mate change will also magnify well-known risks such as
flash floods, erosion, and submersion, as well as resource
scarcity, especially water. It will also have major conse-
quences for biodiversity with changes in species distri-
bution or phenological decoupling. As depicted earlier,
climate change effects are exacerbated by other ongoing
changes such as demographic growth. Climate change
calls into question the suitability of current policy orien-
tations and public infrastructures. Under future climatic
conditions, the robustness of infrastructures (link 7 on
PI) is challenged, i.e., will the dykes and risk prevention
plans be adapted to more extreme events (links 4, 5,and
6ofPIonRSandRU)? Is the current network of
protected areas sufficient to allow continued species
migration (link 4 PI on RS)? And how will decision-
makers adapt their strategies (link 3 of PIP on PI)?
Hence, climate change raises the question of adapting
infrastructures and who will be responsible to do so.
(3) Last, decentralization, neo-liberalism, and increasing en-
vironmental concerns among policymakers and the pub-
lic (link 8 on PIP and RU, see Online Resource 2)call
into question the devolution of responsibilities between
multiple governance levels to implement infrastructures
(links 2, 3, and 6 between PI, RU, and PIP) and the
choice between various adaptation strategies, notably in-
frastructures (evolution of link 3 of PIP on PI, having
consequences for links 4, 5, and 6 of PI on RS and
RU). The emergence of a neoliberal paradigm is associ-
ated with an increase in individual responsibility, a call
for greater efficiency, and budgetary restrictions.
Moreover, the State’s withdrawal from local affairs since
the 1980s has led to greater decentralization of authority
to the local arena. For example, decentralization process-
es provided local authorities at the municipality and
intercommunality levels with more power over land-
use planning, particularly through tools such as munici-
pal land-use plans and intercommunal land-use recom-
mendations. Decentralization is still ongoing, for exam-
ple in 2014 with the launching of a law regarding the
management of flood prevention, empowering
intercommunalities instead of the State. A key issue re-
lated to this change is the devolution of responsibility
among multiple users and infrastructure providers as
well as their coordination: who is in charge of what,
who will pay for what, and how are multiple jurisdiction-
al levels coordinated? Lastly, a new political paradigm,
defined as the greening or sustainable paradigm, sustains
the integration of multiple issues in policies, notably with
the inclusion of rules andnorms to ensure environmental
sustainability. This shift pushes stakeholders to rethink
management in a more integrated way, leading to differ-
ent types of infrastructure implementation, for example
natural-infrastructures such as dune ridges to face ero-
sion, and renewed coalitions of actors.
Some of these changes are already well known and have
led to the development of long-standing policies (e.g., hosting
policies, biodiversity conservation policies, risk management
policies), others are currently ongoing (e.g., decentralization,
strengthening of the sustainability paradigm), and others are
expected and associated with a high level of uncertainty (e.g.,
climate change). They interact in complex ways, now trans-
lating into a period of instability where stakeholders are sub-
ject to several disturbances, pursuing multiple sometimes con-
tradictory objectives, in a context of fuzziness in the devolu-
tion of responsibilities among scales. We use the example of
land-use planning and of coastal management to illustrate how
Challenges for local adaptation when governance scales overlap. Evidence from Languedoc, France

these changes lead to multiple adaptation strategies that rede-
fine cross-scale interactions and raise new coordination chal-
lenges. Both policies, currently high on the political agenda,
are essentially cross-sectoral and concern the diversity of re-
sources and people that have to work together in the same
network of connected places.
Land-use planning
The example of land-use planning, summarized in Fig. 2and
in Online Material 3, illustrates how ongoing changes de-
scribed in section “Main changes in the Languedoc case
study”worsen a situation of competing planning agendas
and miscoordination in a context of cross-scale governance,
which are two major institutional constraints for adaptation
(Oberlack 2017).
As mentioned earlier, because of the multiple changes
occurring in the Languedoc case, land-use control is a
crucial issue. Land appears as a precious resource upon
which there is a growing demand to respond to well-
known issues (housing new residents, preserving biodi-
versity) and to anticipate sea level-rise, more extreme
flooding events, and future repartitioning of biodiversity
under changing climatic conditions. Land-use planning is
under the influence of multiple interconnected adaptation
situations, in which a large set of regulations focusing on
these issues is developed and is evolving with renewed
climatic and governance conditions. The coordination be-
tweentheseregulationsisthusamajorchallenge,illus-
trated in our example by three interacting issues: land-use
planning of urbanization, flood risk prevention, and bio-
diversity conservation.
First, urbanization is mostly driven by demographic
growth and changing lifestyles, slowly increasing the de-
mand upon agricultural and natural land to develop urban
areas. This growth, at the heart of the local economic
model, is amplified by the hosting policy that has been
cultivated since the 1960s. Land-use plans are the main
infrastructure used to control the growing demand for
land. Their implementation is decentralized between mul-
tiple levels along a jurisdictional scale, and more particu-
larly between the municipality and the intercommunality,
with a municipal land-use plan (PLU) and intercommunal
land-use recommendations (SCOT). Even if we focus here
on a single issue (urbanization), challenges of coordina-
tion emerge at two levels: between municipalities or be-
tween intercommunalities (horizontal interplay) and be-
tween multiple municipalities and the overarching
intercommunality (vertical interplay). Sometimes, the lack
of coordination between the different jurisdictions where
the PLU or SCOT are implemented, and the fact that these
tools remain planning documents that decision-makers are
not strictly obliged to implement, raises several problems:
‘the [communal] economic competition is exacerbated,
land consumption is not optimized…’.
1
Second, land-use plans interact with risk management pol-
icies by identifying flood risk or submersion risk areas, lead-
ing to zones where construction is not allowed. These zones
are defined through an independent flood risk management
policy implemented by specific intercommunalities in liaison
with the State. Implemented infrastructures include flood risk
prevention plans, no-build zones, dykes, retention dams, and
warning systems. These infrastructures and their implementa-
tion are now challenged both by an evolving paradigm in
flood prevention, climate change, and governance modifica-
tions. Based on climate change scenarios, both soft and hard
infrastructures are now evolving, increasing the spatial expan-
sion of risk areas, and therefore increasing constraints on land
use. For certain stakeholders, a forward-looking vision of
coastal risks management is also leading to the consideration
of relocation policies which question the availability of
land reserves (see the coastal management example).
Paradoxically, the construction of important hard infrastruc-
tures for risk protection, associated with the development of
temporary and/or resilient urbanization, can also favor the
expansion of urbanization in risky areas. This situation is well
illustrated in Lattes and Sommières, two municipalities histor-
ically subjected to major flood risks. In Lattes, the construc-
tion and reinforcement of an important flood protection sys-
tem (including dykes) facilitated urbanization: residential
areas are now built ‘safely behind the dyke’
2
in areas that were
previously considered at risk of flooding. In this context, a
dyke failure would have catastrophic consequences. In
Sommières, we observe a continuing urbanization on the hills
and the development of different infrastructures (retention
dams, hill reservoirs, a warning system, and buildings adapted
to flood risk) that do not prevent people from living in flood
areas—sometimes in unsanitary conditions.
Third, biodiversity conservation is another policy that has
an important impact on land-use planning. Biodiversity is
strongly impacted by urban land-use change, by the transfor-
mation of agriculture (intensification and decline), and by cli-
mate change. To respond to these threats, environmental
stakeholders, especially at the national and regional levels,
are mobilizing a large diversity of infrastructures such as
protected areas, but are also trying to influence land-use plan-
ning through new soft infrastructures such as ecological net-
work and compensation policies. While the ecological net-
work policy (SRCE) aims to identify and preserve ecological
continuities through their incorporation into land-use planning
documents, compensation policies are also contributing to
more pressure upon land since any destruction of a protected
1
All quotes from local stakeholders have been translated from French to
English by authors.
2
Internship report: Sougrati (2015).
C. Therville et al.

natural habitat has to be compensated by protection or resto-
ration measures in another area. In a forward-looking vision
that includes climate change, environmental stakeholders are
beginning to think about extending land tenure to the ecolog-
ical habitats of the future, even if the social acceptability of
this option is now non-existent.
As summarized in Online Material 3, the example of land-
use planning illustrates the coordination challenge occurring
between inter-related adaptation situations and regulations
around the management of a shared and coveted resource:
land. It reveals the interplay between multiple providers
pursuing diverse objectives through infrastructures imple-
mentation (link 3 of PIP on PI), and organized in over-
lapping, horizontally, and vertically linked adaptation sit-
uations. These infrastructures influence the control of land
(links4and5and6ofPIonRUandRS): access to land
is necessary to many adaptation strategies in the face of
climate change, narrowing options for the future and put-
ting more pressure on the infrastructure providers to make
trade-offs. As discussed in the last section, power relation-
ships between the State and local authorities, between local
authorities and between sectorial issues, play an important
role in this negotiation.
Coastal management
This second example about coastal management illustrates
how multiple adaptation strategies involve renewed cross-
scale interactions and governance challenges through time
(see Fig. 3and Online Material 3).
In Languedoc, the coastal area is of importance for sev-
eral reasons: most of the growing number of inhabitants are
concentrated along the coast where there is a high density
of economic activities, particularly tourism. At the same
time, lagoons and coastal natural habitats are recognized
as hotspots for biodiversity conservation, leading to a high
concentration of conservation measures. This area is also
particularly sensitive to climate change. Historically, the
main challenge in coastal management was the equilibrium
between development and conservation issues, which are
unequally distributed along the coastline. In the 1960s, the
State promoted the economic development of the region
through tourism development and the preservation of the
coastline in a logic of spatial segregation. As a legacy of
this policy, the study area in the east around the Camargue
is dominated by several conservation measures (nature re-
serves and a regional nature park) and has remained fairly
Fig. 2 A robustness diagram forthe land-use planning example. Land is a
resource (RS) that is managed in several adaptation situations that can be
overlapping (flood risk management, land-use planning, biodiversity
conservation), in a horizontal (several municipalities) or vertical
interplay (municipalities and intercommunalities). The main issue is in
the coordination between these adaptation situations, and more
specifically between multiple users (RU), infrastructure providers (PIP),
and infrastructures (PI) that can be hard (HI) or soft (SI). Thick arrows
represent the most important interactions in the system. The numbers
alongside the arrows fit the robustness framework classification
(Anderies et al. 2004) and are detailed in Online Resource 3
Challenges for local adaptation when governance scales overlap. Evidence from Languedoc, France

protected from damaging practices such as artificialization.
Conversely, the western part is dominated by seaside re-
sorts concentrating important tourism and residential is-
sues, separated by coastal natural habitats and protected
from erosion by hard infrastructures such as groynes and
breakwaters. Mass tourism along the beaches and transport
infrastructures in the middle of the thin dune ridge that
separates the sea from the lagoon are strongly reducing
the buffering capacity of the remaining coastal natural hab-
itats. This situation has come under increasing scrutiny in
recent years for several reasons: (i) the unsustainability of
the management model due to tourism’s impact on the en-
vironment (link 1 of RU on RS) and the risk of reduced
attractiveness of the coast; (ii) growing environmental
and sustainability concerns in the management of erosion
(e.g., through the European Integrated Coastal Zone
Management Directive, link 8 on PIP) and its transposition into
French national policy (e.g., national strategy for integrated
coastline management); (iii) a growing recognition of the ad-
verse effects associated with hard infrastructure defenses
against coastal risks, especially their impact on transit in sedi-
ment cells that alter the adaptive capacity to future sea level rise
(link4ofPIonRS); (iv) a decentralization and local empower-
ment process (link8onPIPandRU)thathasledtoan
increase in individual and local level decision-making re-
sponsibility; and (v) the exacerbation of already existing
risks and pressures on resources and infrastructures due to
climate change (link 7 on PI and RS).
Fig. 3 A robustness diagram for the coastal management example: a
initial state (1960–1970) and btoday (from ~ 2000). The resource
system (RS) is the coastal area, shared and managed by several users
(RU) and infrastructure providers (PIP) through infrastructures (PI) that
can be hard (HI), soft (SI), or natural (NI). Regarding adaptation in coastal
management, two issues emerge: (1) the definition of which strategy to
adopt, and which type of infrastructure to mobilize; (2) the question of
responsibility and coordination among multiple users and/or different
types of infrastructure providers. Thicker arrows represent the most
important interactions in the system, bold text represents the most
important components in the system, and dotted arrows represent the
less important interactions in the system. The numbers alongside the
arrows fit the robustness framework classification (Anderies et al. 2004)
and are detailed in Online Resource 3
C. Therville et al.

These changes are pushing towards a paradigmatic shift,
from a command and control approach (Fig. 3a) to an inte-
grated and flexible approach (Fig. 3b) which blurs the bound-
aries between development and conservation areas, and be-
tween the coastline and the interior lands. The historical ap-
proach of coastal risk management using hard human-made
infrastructures (link 4 of PI on RS) is called into question. The
degradation of dune ridges due to overcrowding as well as the
renewed vulnerability ofhard protection infrastructures due to
increasing erosion and submersion risks is leading a growing
number of national and regional authorities to call for invest-
ment in adaptation policies. Depending on the local setting,
proposed adaptation responses include the development of
urbanization rules to preserve the coastline (link 5 of PI on
link 1 between RU-RS), beaches, or dune systems maintenance
or restoration and revegetation projects to promote sand-
trapping capability and resilience of flexible natural infrastruc-
tures (link 4 of PI on RS), or relocation policies in the most
critical cases (link5and6ofPIonRU-RSandonRU). These
options are presented by regional authorities as more adaptive
than hard human-made infrastructures, and their maintenance
represents a way to preserve the ecological integrity of the
environment and a way to respond to economic and safety
issues while coping with climate change. These management
options introduce new cross-scale interactions and governance
challenges. For example, supplying sand for beach mainte-
nance raises questions about its long-term sustainability, and
the potential impact of such activity on the sea bed and marine
environments. Relocation policies raise the issue of where to
relocate the population, and the condition of land reserves
away from the coast. Coastal municipalities without land re-
serves will be highly dependent on neighboring interior
municipalities:
‘It is very difficult for municipalities with small terri-
tories, which do not have any possibility for retreat on
their territory. They are squeezed (…), especially for the
municipalities on the shoreline where there is a pond,
and which do not have land beyond. They are in a very
difficult situation in terms of local development’
(Languedoc Region, 2014)
This situation creates new interactions between munici-
palities and requires adapted soft infrastructure to enable
coordination between the interior municipalities and the
coastal municipalities. But at the same time, the coastal
governance is challenged by two changes: (1) decentral-
ization and neo-liberalism are affecting the distribution
of governance responsibility and funding availability
(link 8 on PIP and RU); (2) the context of climate
change (uncertainty, long-term process) is raising diffi-
culties in terms of decision-making. Historically, the
State played a key role in implementing risk policies;
however, now, this responsibility lies within the compe-
tence of intercommunalities which are experiencing a
budgetary crisis. As a representative of the Languedoc
regional council explained about adaptation policies: ‘It
will be expensive, it will be difficult to support, we risk
to lose some feathers. So it is complicated. If there is a
problem, we will be responsible if we fund this policy.
So we consider the State is responsible, but that is not
necessarily the case’. Some adaptation strategies also in-
volve responsibility devolution to the users themselves
(evolution of link 2 between PIP and RU), for example
by modifying insurance arrangements: ‘People who are
buying houses just along the seafront, I think they should
be responsible for it. We need to make people more
responsible’. Moreover, most of the institutional repre-
sentatives at the regional level recognize climate change
denial among residents and local decision-makers,
trapped in short-term temporalities: ‘Local elected offi-
cials are here for 5 years! Here we talk about land-use
planning on a longer term (…) So it is difficult, we talk
about a 50-60 years’time period…It is not their deci-
sion scale, it is difficult to take a decision for something
that will happen in 50 years (…) and maybe it will never
happen!’. They wonder whether this resistance to change
can be overcome by devolving the responsibility across
scales and infrastructure providers: should a regulatory
framework be imposed by the State (top-down perspec-
tive)? Or should individuals and local decision-makers be
encouraged to take responsibility and assume the conse-
quences (both human and financial) of their choices?
As summarized in Online Resource 3, this fuzziness in
the devolution of responsibility among different users and
infrastructure providers (link 2) reveals uncertainties and
power issues about who is in charge of what, and who will
take the responsibility to manage coastal risks through in-
frastructure implementation (links 3 and 6). Considering
the diversity of local settings along the Languedoc coast-
line, as well as the diverse representations of best ways to
manage coastal risks, it seems that various strategies will
be adopted. The main issue to consider is how the choices
made in particular adaptation situations will involve new
cross-scale interactions and affect the options of others
along the coast or in the interior lands.
Discussion
Analysis of cross-scale interactions
with the robustness framework
The examples of land-use planning and coastal manage-
ment in Languedoc demonstrate the usefulness of the ro-
bustness framework to analyze the dynamic linkages
Challenges for local adaptation when governance scales overlap. Evidence from Languedoc, France

between the pieces of the SES puzzle in the face of mul-
tiple changes. The fact that governance scales overlap
raised some concerns in using the robustness framework,
which had not been originally designed to represent inter-
actions among multiple inter-related adaptation situations,
each one being characterized by a specific set of re-
sources, actors and infrastructures. Associating the robust-
ness framework with the NAAS (McGinnis 2011), as fea-
turedinFig.2, allowed us to grasp the propagation of
consequences of changes in mental frames, as well as
the allocation of responsibilities in the entire feedback
loops that ensure robustness of these complex coastal sys-
tems. Identification of key resources or infrastructures that
bridge SES and connect feedback loops identified through
the robustness framework provided a means to delineate
the system meaningfully from a resource or infrastructure
point of view. In Fig. 3, we connect two robustness dia-
grams to illustrate significant changes across time, espe-
cially in terms of renewed cross-scale interactions. This
adaptation of the robustness diagrams entails the represen-
tation of evolution of a coastal system which is compul-
sory in the context of multiple changes and adaptation to
these. External changes such as in link 8 have direct con-
sequences for infrastructure providers or users, but also
indirect consequences through link 2 concerning the rela-
tions between users and providers, as well as on link 3
and the capacity of providers to implement infrastructures,
or their choice between several types of infrastructures.
Hence, second-order indirect consequences will concern
the interaction between these renewed infrastructures and
their target, either users, resources, or the interaction be-
tween the two (links 4, 5, and 6). Similar patterns can be
drawn from the example of link 7. Through an identifica-
tion of these major changes in the system and the repre-
sentation of separated robustness diagrams, we are able to
better identify the cascade of changes and consequences
due to local adaptation patterns.
The use of coupled and evolving robustness diagrams
also revealed contradictory policies and hidden fragilities,
as well as the need to redefine the boundaries of adaptation
situations and their coordination. These fragilities can be
explained by cross-scale interactions and trade-offs be-
tween interlinked adaptation situations (Oberlack 2017)
and allow us to discuss factors that make it harder to plan
and implement adaptation actions, or adaptation con-
straints (Klein et al. 2014).Therearemultipleco-
occurring and reinforcing constraints acknowledged in
the literature (Moser and Ekstrom 2010; Eisenack et al.
2014). Our study discusses ‘how and why’some of these
constraints emerge and reinforce each other (Biesbroek
et al. 2013), and particularly: miscoordination, competing
planning agendas, unclear responsibility distribution, mis-
match in time scales, and path dependency.
Miscoordination when adaptation relies on a shared
resource
Miscoordination traps, a frequent institutional barrier, are
explained by institutional fragmentation and a lack of co-
ordination due to a spatial mismatch between institutions
and the stimuli, or by a silo effect (Oberlack 2017). It has
been recognized that if the system of concern extends
across multiple jurisdictions, adaptation requires coordina-
tion and collaboration across jurisdictions (Moser and
Ekstrom 2010). The land-use planning example illustrates
how multiple actors, organized in multiple jurisdictions,
facing diverse changes and pursuing multiple objectives
rely on the same resource (land) to face short-term chal-
lenges and to adapt in the long run. They try to control
land by implementing infrastructures, especially land-use
plans, in adaptation situations that can be overlapping
(same space, diverse sectorial interests), or related through
horizontal or vertical interplay (same sectoral interest, dif-
ferent jurisdictional, and spatial levels). Coordination
mechanisms among these situations have limited efficien-
cy because of power relationships (Adger et al. 2005b)
among actors defending competing values and interests
(Klein et al. 2014), disregard of the effects of their policy
implementations on other situations, and lack of long-term
projections on the availability of land resources.
First, some soft infrastructures leave room for interpre-
tation and flexibility which can lead to negotiations
constrained by power relationships. Although municipal
land-use plans are framed by intercommunal masterplans,
intercommunal guidance is ambiguous and malleable
leaving room for interpretation: some regulations have
to be strictly applied (e.g., riskpreventionplans),where-
as others just have to be considered (e.g., the ecological
network regional plan). This enables opportunistic munic-
ipal land-use plans that seek to increase local revenues
through new urbanization projects, but contribute to a
greater vulnerability at the intercommunal level. Second,
with the building of additional hard infrastructures for
flood management (dikes, hill reservoirs) and the devel-
opment of ‘resilient’houses that are adapted to flooding,
short-term trade-offs facilitate access to land in flood
plains or other sensitive areas that were previously con-
sidered too risky to develop. In the long run, doing so
may contribute to greater local vulnerability to severe
weather events and fail to address the unsustainability
of the Languedoc economic development model. Yet,
we know that sustainable economic development is a
critical foundation for the creation of adaptation opportu-
nities (Klein et al. 2014). This illustrates the reinforcing
interaction between path dependency, historical and unre-
solved conflicts between the involved actors’goals and
miscoordination (Eisenack et al. 2014), thus reducing the
C. Therville et al.

capacity of Languedoc to switch from one model of develop-
ment to another. The current situation may have been consid-
ered acceptable when resources were available, infrastructures
adapted, and extreme events were limited; however, this is no
longer the case given the pressure and growing interactions
imposed by multiple changes.
Renewed boundaries and responsibilities
The coastal example illustrates a possible shifting pathway
from one management strategy (command and control or-
dered by the State) to another (flexibility, live with change,
local responsibilities). This shift calls for a renewal of the
scale where adaptation is implemented, the actors respon-
sible for its implementation, the needed resources and the
related cross-scale trade-offs. It echoes well-known con-
straints such as fragmented and unclear responsibilities,
or temporal and spatial mismatch (Eisenack et al. 2014;
Oberlack 2017). Some proposed adaptations are not
implementable at the scale of the concerned adaptation
situation, such as relocation policies in coastal municipal-
ities that lack land reserves and that must design relocation
at a larger spatial scale, including municipalities that are
not located along the coast. Other adaptations rely on new
external resources, such as sand extraction for beach nour-
ishment to face erosion and submersion along coastlines.
This option requires the enhancement of knowledge of a
new interlinked environment, the seabed, and of the poten-
tial consequences of sand extraction on marine environ-
ments. In both cases, these options question the boundaries
of the current adaptation situations and involve future
trade-offs that will have to be considered during the
decision-making process. These situations correspond to
a spatial mismatch since the authority or jurisdiction of
the management institution is not coterminous with the prob-
lem. Resolving this type of mismatch requires reinforced co-
ordination and responsibility sharing (Cash et al. 2006).
However, these resolutions are constrained by the direct im-
pact of ongoing changes in environmental governance (e.g.,
decentralization) and by indirect impacts linked to the spe-
cifics of climate change (e.g., uncertainty and temporal mis-
match). We illustrated in the results section how multiple
changes are leading to a fuzziness in responsibility distribu-
tion among several infrastructure providers and users. Despite
tendencies that favor a changing devolution of responsibility
from the State to the local level, Languedoc is trapped in a
path dependence where French citizens are accustomed to the
national government being the main provider of many local
services. Moreover, in a context of budgetary crisis, authority
is transferred to the local level without the necessary financial
support to take on such responsibility. Decentralization imple-
mentation efforts are hampered by confusion as to who has
authority to take what action locally, and who will assume the
cost of infrastructures. As a result, an institutional frame-
work that likely was intended to transfer power to citizens
and local policymakers in order to create more adaptive
governance structures and to reduce costs at the national
scale, appears as a disruptive factor, marred by power
struggles, thus greatly reducing the possibility to imple-
ment adaptation responses. Lastly, taking on the responsi-
bility of coastal risk management in the face of uncertain
and long-term climate changes is not an attractive option
for many local decision-makers. This temporal mismatch,
when short-term electoral cycles conflict with long-term
planning needs, is described in the literature as a major
adaptation constraint which is specific to climate change
(Cash et al. 2006; Eisenack et al. 2014).
Conclusion
Addressing the robustness of coastal systems in the face of
multiple changes raises the issue of analyzing cross-scale
interactions in multi-functional SES characterized by over-
lapping and inter-related decisional contexts. Applying the
robustness framework to the Languedoc case, we demon-
strate that the presence of multiple and interacting changes
and local adaptation to these are critically impacting coast-
al systems, leading to growing pressures upon resources
and infrastructures, and to a redefinition of social organi-
zation. This situation increases cross-scale interactions and
cascade effects among multiple adaptation situations, blur-
ring their frontiers as well as the relevance of pre-existing
infrastructures and policies, and raising the issue of respon-
sibility devolution and of coordination between multiple
users and infrastructure providers. As a consequence, the
main collective action problem in the study area is to de-
fine adaptation situations and their coordination with re-
gard to the growing interactions created by multiple chang-
es. In our case study, one strength is the trend towards
integrative management, sharing responsibilities, and
shifting paradigms that promote sustainable management
practices. However constraints exist in practice, including
a cultural and institutional inertia related to path dependen-
cy, power struggles between participants, and a network of
adjacent adaptation situations that are more and more in-
terrelated and not adequately coordinated. In this context,
the lack of efficient coordination rules is a serious concern
for the long-term sustainable management of coastal areas.
To conclude, the use of the robustness framework associ-
ated with the concept of networks of adjacent action situ-
ations as we have done in this work provides tools to elu-
cidate the cascading effects of adaptation patterns and
bring them into the debate provided that suitable arenas
exist to organize them.
Challenges for local adaptation when governance scales overlap. Evidence from Languedoc, France

Funding information Financial support for this work was conducted dur-
ing the MAGIC project (Multi-scale Adaptations to Global changes In
Coastlines: ANR-13-JCLI-0005) under Belmont Forum and G8
International Opportunities Fund (IOF).
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C. Therville et al.

Affiliations
Clara Therville
1,2,3,4
&Ute Brady
5
&Olivier Barreteau
2
&François Bousquet
3,4
&Raphael Mathevet
1
&
Sandrine Dhenain
2
&Frédéric Grelot
2
&Pauline Brémond
2
1
CEFE, CNRS, Université de Montpellier, Université Paul Valéry
Montpellier 3, EPHE, IRD, 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier
Cedex 5, France
2
G-EAU, AgroParisTech, CIRAD, IRD, IRSTEA, Montpellier
SupAgro, Université de Montpellier, 361 rue Jean-François Breton,
BP 5095, 34196 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
3
CIRAD, UPR GREEN, 34398 Montpellier cedex 5, France
4
GREEN, Université de Montpellier, 34398 Montpellier cedex 5,
France
5
School of Human Evolution and Social Change; Center for Behavior,
Institutions, and the Environment, Arizona State University,
Tempe, A Z, USA
Challenges for local adaptation when governance scales overlap. Evidence from Languedoc, France