The role of the community and voluntary sector in adapting to climate change in Irish coastal areas

Abstract

The extensive coastline of Ireland is particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change and this has created significant vulnerabilities for coastal properties, infrastructure, habitats and coastal amenities. With increasing numbers of people in coastal communities exposed to a range of the negative effects that arise from more frequent and extreme weather events, coastal erosion and flooding, more strenuous attempts are being made by national and local government to engage with these communities in order to devise and implement suitable adaptation responses. This approach is further enabled by a desire to deliver a just transition to a more climate resilient future for all citizens and a preference for ‘place based’ adaptation responses that are focussed on ‘low risk, no regret’ measures - the implementation (and monitoring) of which suits community led initiatives. The efforts to achieve more meaningful engagement are demonstrated by the adoption of more supportive policies (at national and local level), an expansion of capacity at local level (through the recruitment of additional staff and training) and higher levels of funding for community led climate action projects.

However, there are a range of issues which hinder effective coastal management in Ireland and this creates difficulties for many of the stakeholders (that include coastal communities) who participate in it. Despite its vulnerability to climate change effects, there is no national coastal management strategy in Ireland and this is considered to be a significant weakness as it ensures that no strategic approach is set out for its future management and development. In addition, the existence of overlapping coastal responsibilities by multiple government departments, state agencies and local authorities cause further complications – particularly in relation to the cross cutting issue of climate adaptation that has ramifications for a wide range of sectors and all levels of government. As a result of these weaknesses, Irish coastal management must take place within a broad policy framework that is influenced by marine plans, sectoral plans and adaptation and spatial plans that can be found at multiple levels of governance. An analysis of how these plans influence both coastal adaptation and coastal communities has revealed that the broad policy framework cannot provide a clear strategic approach on coastal adaptation due to a lack of policy integration and coherence.

This study, which identified and investigated six case studies of community led adaptation projects in Irish coastal areas, revealed a number of findings on the motivation, activities completed and the interactions of the community and voluntary groups involved. The study confirms that Local Authorities play a key role in local level adaptation as all groups collaborated with their local Councils. NGOs (notably An Taisce) were also significant and property ownership served as a strong motivation for engagement for almost all groups. In all cases, the adaptation responses were focused on ‘low risk, no impact’ measures and all of the groups included in the study proved to be amenable and capable of undertaking a range of the necessary tasks that were required to implement and monitor the responses over time. The findings also demonstrated that the aims of the projects under investigation were largely met and a majority of the groups expressed satisfaction with the outcomes that were achieved. However, there was limited evidence that the projects influenced other policies in other areas (such as spatial planning) at a local level and half of the groups drew attention to the ineffectiveness of the governance mechanisms that are used to involve community based stakeholders in adaptation planning. Overall, the findings reveal that communities can play a significant role to adaptation in coastal areas. However, to fully harness the contributions of community led coastal adaptation responses, barriers in the form of a top-down governance model, the lack of a national coastal management strategy and the unclear allocation of coastal management responsibilities will need to be addressed.

Thesis is embargoed until 30 September 2027

Date of Award	Oct 2025
Original language	English
Supervisor	Derek Jackson (Supervisor) & Andrew Cooper (Supervisor)