Research impact and findings | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

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Twelve apostles coastline

Research impact and findings

Featured publications

Final project report

Read the final project report, summarising the results of the research and presenting recommendations to provide the enabling conditions for transformational change in coastal governance.

Project publications
Title Year Journal Summary Link

Governance innovations in the coastal zone: Towards social-ecological resilience

2024 Environmental Science and Policy Explores innovation in rapidly changing coastal communities. Finds that despite high levels of individual capacity and good-practice policy, most innovations are limited in scale and insufficient for transformative change.

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Is hope helpful or a hindrance? Implications for coastal governance

2024 Ocean and Coastal Management In this commentary we ask whether hopefulness as expressed by coastal managers is misplaced and a barrier to change, or whether hope remains a necessary precursor to transformative action. 

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The Anthropocene Obscene: Poetic inquiry and evocative evidence of inequality 2023 The Geographical Journal Poetic inquiry is used to highlight contrasting lived experiences of vulnerability and worsening socio‐ecological outcomes among Australia's fastest growing coastal communities.

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Third-generation adaptive capacity assessment

2023 Climate and Development Argues that addressing shortcomings in adaptive capacity assessment is contingent upon a next (third) generation of adaptive capacity, which incorporates the transfer of capacity.

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What influences the adaptive capacity of coastal critical infrastructure providers?

2023 Urban Climate Examines perceptions of adaptive capacity held by critical infrastructure providers who have assets with assets at risk to coastal hazards in Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand. 

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Threats to Australia's oceans and coasts

2023 Ocean and Coastal Management Threats to Australia's oceans and coasts are systematically reviewed and described, drawing on academic literature from 2010 to 2020.

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Impacts of tourism on coastal areas

2023 Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures Coastal tourism is often seen as an important part of an economic development strategy.
However, most highly cited papers suggest that economic benefits are unequally distributed
between tourism investors and resident communities.

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Current information provision rarely helps coastal households adapt to climate change

2022 Sustainability Governments provide information to households to help them adapt. However, there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of this strategy. This study examined the types of information guiding household response to climate risks.

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The influence of international agreements on disaster risk reduction

2022 International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction This article explores the influence of global disaster risk reduction and sustainability frameworks on flood and drought risk management in Canada and Australia, from the perspective of government practitioners.

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Understanding preferences for coastal climate change adaptation: A systematic literature review

2022 Sustainability Reports on the findings of a systematic literature review conducted to understand preferences for coastal adaptation options and the factors influencing these preferences.

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Disaster risk reduction and climate policy implementation challenges in Canada and Australia

 2022  Climate Policy This article examines the policy context for disaster risk reduction in Canada and Australia and investigates the state of flood and drought planning and preparedness.

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Problem framing for Australian coastal management

2022 Environmental Science and Policy This paper explores how coastal problems and solutions are framed in Australia.

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Policy is rarely intentional or substantial for coastal issues in Australia 2022 Ocean and Coastal Management

This paper analyses the intent and substance of 92 institutional instruments with a role in coastal management in Australia.

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Towards adaptive coastal management law: Lessons from Australia and Brazil

 2022 Ocean and Coastal Management This article provides an analysis of adaptive management in two jurisdictions struggling with coastal erosion in the context of their legal arrangements for coastal management (Byron Bay Australia and Florianópolis Brazil.

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The tragedy of climate change science

2021 Climate and Development Science has demonstrated the climate is changing, governments agree the science is settled, yet concerted action to mitigate and adapt to climate change is lacking. This study brought a spotlight to this conundrum, arguing for a change in scientific practice that might lead to concerted climate action.

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Path Dependency and Future Adaptation of Coastal Cities: Examples From the Asia-Pacific

2021 Frontiers Environmental Sciences Explores coastal hazards, adaptation, capacity and path dependencies in coastal Asia-Pacific cities characterised by differing geographical settings and cultural contexts

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Crisis management: Regional app roaches to geopolitical
crises and natural hazards
2021 Geographical Research This paper critiques crisis management approaches in the Sunshine Coast, Australia and Gotland, Sweden

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Legal barriers to adaptive coastal management at a coastal erosion hotspot in Florianópolis, Brazil 2021 Marine Policy Drawing on the management experience of Armação Beach, Brazil, this paper: (a) analyses how adaptive management has been used for coastal management and its applicable legal framework; and (b) identifies legal barriers to adaptive coastal management.

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Linking disaster risk reduction and human development 2021 Climate Risk Management This paper explores government practitioners’ views on an integration of disaster risk reduction and human development in the context of floods and droughts in Canada and Australia.

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Pre-disaster planning and preparedness for floods and droughts: A systematic review 2019 International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction This paper systematically reviews 147 articles on pre-disaster planning and preparedness for floods and droughts in developed countries, critiquing governance approaches.

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Towards adaptive coastal management: Lessons from a “legal storm” in Byron Shire, Australia 2019 Ocean and Coastal Management This article explores how adaptive management can be better operationalised in the context of coastal management, using Byron Bay as a case example.

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The relationship between adaptive management and law: a systematic literature review 2018 Ecology and Society Law is often seen as a barrier to adaptive management although there has been no synthesis on the challenges of legal constraints or how to overcome them. This study fills this knowledge gap by providing a systematic review on the relationship between adaptive management and law in social-ecological systems.

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Adaptation or manipulation? Unpacking climate change response 2012 Ecology and Society It could be argued that manipulative behaviours are a subset of a broader suite of adaptive behaviours; however, this paper suggests that manipulative behaviours have fundamentally different intentions and outcomes.

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Research insights

We have put together this series of research insight resources to promote key findings from our sustainability research. Each key research insight explores a major theme and a downloadable PDF resource is available.