ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Environmental Management 88 (2008) 15801592

www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Scenario-based stakeholder engagement: Incorporating stakeholders

preferences into coastal planning for climate change
Emma L. Tompkinsa,b,,1, Roger Fewa,c, Katrina Browna,c
a
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK
b
Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Oxford University, UK
c
School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK
Received 14 June 2006; received in revised form 13 July 2007; accepted 31 July 2007
Available online 17 October 2007

Abstract

Climate change poses many challenges for ecosystem and resource management. In particular, coastal planners are struggling to nd
ways to prepare for the potential impacts of future climate change while dealing with immediate pressures. Decisions on how to respond
to future risks are complicated by the long time horizons and the uncertainty associated with the distribution of impacts. Existing coastal
zone management approaches in the UK either do not adequately incorporate changing stakeholder preferences, or effectively ensure
that stakeholders are aware of the trade-offs inherent in any coastal management decision.
Using a novel method, scenario-based stakeholder engagement, which brings together stakeholder analysis, climate change
management scenarios and deliberative techniques, the necessary trade-offs associated with long term coastal planning are explored. The
method is applied to two case studies of coastal planning in Christchurch Bay on the south coast of England and the Orkney Islands off
the north coast of Scotland. A range of conicting preferences exist on the ideal governance structure to manage the coast under different
climate change scenarios. In addition, the results show that public understanding of the trade-offs that have to be made is critical in
gaining some degree of public support for long term coastal decision-making. We conclude that scenario-based stakeholder engagement
is a useful tool to facilitate coastal management planning that takes into account the complexities and challenges of climate change, and
could be used in conjunction with existing approaches such as the Shoreline Management Planning process.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Coast; Decision support; Climate change; UK; Stakeholder; Method

1. Introduction severe climate change futures as described by Toth and

The complexity of the climate change problem and the
uncertainty about the timing, severity, magnitude and type
of impacts makes planning for climate change a challenge.
Debate is on-going as to whether existing decision support
tools are adequate to cope with the long time frames for
evaluation, the cascading levels of uncertainty in scientic
and socio-economic models, and the potentially cata-
strophic changes as projected under some of the more
Corresponding author. Environmental Change Institute, Oxford
University Centre for the Environment, Dyson Perrins Building, South
Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK. Tel: +44 1865 275855;
fax: +44 1865 275850.
E-mail address: emma.tompkins@ouce.ox.ac.uk (E.L. Tompkins).
1
James Martin 21st Century School Fellow.
Mwandosya (2001) and Arnell et al. (2005). Specic
challenges relate to trade-offs between the risks faced and
the costs experienced, such as: the valuation of low-
probability but catastrophic impacts; how non-market
goods and services are valued; the appropriate discount
rate, and the decision-making criteria (Azar, 1998;
Schneider and Azar, 2001; Azar and Schneider, 2002;
Tol, 2003; Lempert et al., 2004). These are technically
challenging and intellectually complex issues.
Signicant empirical work exists to show that unsup-
ported coastal management decisions are unlikely to be
successfully implemented (Olsen, 1993; Cheung, 1994;
Ticco, 1995; Alder, 1996; Lock, 1997; Luttinger, 1997;
Tacconi, 1997; Sudara, 1999; Tompkins et al., 2002).
Most recent advances in coastal zone management have

0301-4797/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2007.07.025
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E.L. Tompkins et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 88 (2008) 15801592
recommended stakeholder inclusion within an integrated
decision-making process to ensure that there is buy-in and
support from those affected by decisions. Examples can be
found in the UK Shoreline Management Plans (see for
example ORiordan and Ward, 1997; Potts, 1999) and the
literature on marine parks (Alder, 1996; Hodgson, 1997;
White et al., 1997).
Making long term decisions about the coast now
involves consideration of both the climate change uncer-
tainties and complexities and levels of stakeholder support.
It is also known that the more effective decision support
tools avoid cognitive complexity for the decision maker
(Joubert et al., 1997) and are more transparent (Hobbs
et al., 1992). Without these features decision support tools
are unlikely to be useful in practical situations (Olson et al.,
2000).
Given the perceived inability of current coastal
planning processes to cope with long term change or
rare events, this paper explores the challenges of decision
support for coastal management in the context of
climate change. Alternative forms of governance are
considered and a method to evaluate the implications of
the various governance options is developed. This is
achieved by focussing on the normative questions of:
who should be making decisions about the coast, how
should those decisions be made, and who should be
paying for potentially high-cost adaptations to climate
change?
To identify coastal stakeholder preferences about how
the coast should be managed we devised and tested a
novel approach scenario-based stakeholder engagement
(SBSE). This approach involved a combination of stake-
holder identication and engagement techniques, scenarios
of alternative decision-making strategies, and providing
spaces in which coastal stakeholders could deliberate upon
the alternatives they face. While the results of this research
project cannot be assumed to represent the preferences
of entire communities the value of the research is in
the development of the approach. The approach can be
used to explore, with wider groups of stakeholders,
appropriate governance systems that would receive stake-
holder support.
In this paper, Section 2 reviews decision support tools
and highlights the issues associated with incorporating
stakeholder preferences in decision support tools. Section 3
describes the methodology and the evolution of the new
approach to decision support for complex environmental
problems (SBSE). Section 4 gives context to the two case
studies in the Orkney Islands and Christchurch Bay in the
UK. The implications for coastal planning are discussed in
Section 5. The paper concludes that SBSE can assist the
communication of complex scientic information to
stakeholders as well as reveal stakeholder willingness to
support various courses of action. SBSE and other
combination decision support tools could be used to
facilitate stakeholder engagement in future coastal plan-
ning processes.
1581
2. Including stakeholder preferences in decision-making
Decision support tools fall into one of four categories:
information management (involving gathering, storage,
retrieval, and organisation of knowledge, e.g. databases,
spreadsheets); representation aids (tools that aid visualisa-
tion of data, e.g. maps, GIS); choice tools (tools to narrow
the eld of choice, e.g. goal programming); and outcome
models (tools that predict or describe impacts/outcomes
under different decisions, e.g. costbenet analysis, multi-
attribute decision-making). This latter group is of interest
in this paper, as it is this group of tools which is most often
demanded by decision makers to resolve the challenge of
resource allocation for climate change and coastal manage-
ment. In the context of coastal zone management in the
UK, the decision support tools most often applied, have
involved experts generating a limited set of coastal defence
options for stakeholders to select among. Fundamental
decisions have thus often been made by experts rather than
stakeholders (Treby and Clark, 2004).
In general most outcome models adopt a similar
approach to problem solving: identify the objective;
identify the alternative options under consideration;
identify criteria to evaluate these options; display the
impacts of scenarios on the evaluation criteria; generate
preference weights and produce a rank order of the
options. Many outcome models were developed in the
1970s and 1980s and were applied in a variety of policy
contexts in order to make environmental decision-making
more transparent and objective (see for example, Funto-
wicz et al., 1990; Georgiou et al., 1997; Joubert et al., 1997;
Brouwer et al., 1999; Brown et al., 2001). There are,
however, many methodological and theoretical limitations
to these models. The main challenges are to identify and
elicit changing stakeholder preferences and then aggregate
them to provide useful information for decision makers.
Preference identication has been the subject of sig-
nicant research both for use in general decision support,
see for example, Keeney and Raiffa (1993), and for use in
coastal management decision support, see for example,
Davos (1998) and Davos and Lajano (2001). Do people
know what they want? Are preferences stable over time? If
people know what they want, can they express their
preferences? Research in the 1980s and 1990s indicated that
preferences are constructed, i.e. individuals learn through
information and discussion, and through this process
develop their preferences (Tversky et al., 1988; Gregory
and Keeney, 1994; Norton et al., 1998; Sagoff, 1998;
Fischhoff, 2000). Consideration of the concept of acquired
taste, the demand for newly invented products and the
issue of preference reversal (see Grether and Plott, 1979) all
reinforce the argument that peoples preferences are not
xed but are context and information dependent, see for
example, Gregory and Slovic (1997). Therefore when
stakeholder preferences are required as an input into an
outcome model (for example in shaping a decision support
tool, identifying criteria and weighting alternatives, as in
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Brown et al., 2001; Treby and Clark, 2004), stakeholder
deliberation is an important part of the preference
construction process.
Facilitating and managing stakeholder deliberation
presents many challenges. Formal preference elicitation
models exist (such as Regan et al., 2006), although when
preferences are elicited from groups rather than indivi-
duals, other problems arise (Morgan and Krueger, 1993;
Morgan, 1997, 1998; Cooke and Kothari, 2001). Fischhoff
(2000) summarises these into four main problems. First,
some individuals preferences may not be reected by the
group consensus. Second, some individuals preferences
may not be heard within the group as power relations
could lead to some individuals playing a more dominant
role. Third, some individuals may not be able to articulate
their preferences in a group setting due to lack of
condence, lack of trust in the group or poor group
management by the moderator. Fourth, irrespective of
whether or not a group can incorporate and reect the
views and values of all those in the group, the process of
deliberation can lead to the construction of new group
preferences (Sagoff, 1998).
These well-recognised issues unfortunately remain outside
the consideration of many of those involved in stakeholder
engagement processes. The challenge is then, how can
decisions be made about complex environmental problems,
such as long term coastal planning, that incorporate
stakeholder preferences. To address this we consider the
governance structures in which decisions are taken.
3. The scenario-based stakeholder engagement method
To understand how coastal decisions should be made in
anticipation of climate change, the views and opinions of
coastal stakeholders, both about how the decision should
be made and the implications of the resulting governance
structure, were sought. A new approach was adopted,
SBSE. This contained ve key elements, some of which
occurred concurrently: identifying stakeholders; impact
scoping; deliberative development of evaluation criteria
and future scenarios; opening deliberative spaces to explore
preferences; and identifying a range of priorities, see Fig. 1.
Understanding preferred forms of coastal governance is
needed to underpin existing work on coastal management.
Research exists that describes management actions for the
coast (Bijlsma et al., 1996; Weaver and Green, 1998; Klein
et al., 2001; Hawkes et al., 2003; Myatt et al., 2003; Ledoux
et al., 2005); the use of stakeholder preferences in selecting
options (Lim et al., 1995; Davos, 1998; Jentoft, 2000;
Davos and Lajano, 2001; Treby and Clark, 2004); yet little
exists on how climate change can be incorporated into
decision-making processes.
3.1. Identifying and engaging stakeholders
For many coastal management approaches, understand-
ing and eliciting stakeholder preferences is critical. Hence
Deliberation on Deliberative exploration
scenarios and criteria of the implications of the
scenarios and criteria
Stakeholder
identification
and engagement Stakeholder weighting
of scenarios and
Expert-led preference elicitation
creation of
scenarios and
criteria
Impact scoping
Fig. 1. Scenario-based stakeholder engagement. Notes: Bold line boxes
reect activities taken or led by the project team. Dotted line Light boxes
reect periods of sharing, learning or transformation. Straight lines reect
direct inuence of one component of SBSE on another. Flexible lines
reect learning processes within SBSE.
the project commenced with a stakeholder identication
process, to assess both those who would be affected by or
who could inuence long term coastal management, and
their interests in the coast. Stakeholder identication is an
iterative process. It commenced with a review of grey and
academic literature, this was followed by discussions with
the local councils about key stakeholders, and site visits by
the research team. Existing contacts were then used to
identify other stakeholders. The selection criteria included
either: a direct personal stake in coastal impacts
(residents, businesses, users of coastal resources), or a role
in governance of coastal resources/coastal zone. No
incentives were used to engage participants, we relied on
goodwill and interest in the subject.
Once identied, the project team made contact with each
individual stakeholder or group by telephone. This was
followed by one or two personal visits by the research
team and further phone calls and e-mails were used
where necessary. Though there were different degrees
of engagement, peoples response to the project was
generally positive. The majority of participants stayed
engaged over the research period, and there was no obvious
attrition of interest. Only one local authority department
became sensitive over the contentious nature of the issue
and after the initial interaction refused to become further
involved.
Although we do not claim that the stakeholders engaged
were fully representative of the wider community, care was
given to ensure that a range of stakeholders from the
national, regional and local groups were identied and
engaged. For wider application of this method correct
identication and engagement of stakeholders is critical to
ensure all sectors and interests are represented; see Keeney
et al. (1990), Grimble and Chan (1995), ODA (1995),
Brugha and Varnasovszky, (2000), and Varnasovszky and
Brugha (2000).
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3.2. Impact scoping
Concurrently with the stakeholder identication process,
impact scoping was undertaken. Generic climate data from
the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP, 2003), and
impact data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (McCarthy et al., 2001) were used to describe the
expected general impacts of climate change on the coast.
The unique pressures from climate change on the two
United Kingdom case study sites (the Orkney Islands off
the north coast of Scotland and Christchurch Bay in the
south coast of England, see Fig. 2) were described utilising
site-specic data sources from Halcrow (1999), Kerr et al.
(1999), SCOPAC (2001), Hulme et al. (2002), Hadley
Centre (2003) and Evans et al. (2004). The key potential
impacts for each site are summarised in Table 1.
3.3. Deliberative development of evaluation criteria and
future scenarios
The potential impacts from climate change were
discussed with the stakeholders in a series of pre-workshop
meetings. Initial contact meetings introduced the project
and involved a relatively unstructured discussion of
stakeholder concerns about coastal management. Subse-
quent interviews were semi-structured, based on, but not
restricted to, a question schedule tailored to each inter-
viewees role, interests, and expertise. Most were one-to-
one meetings (occasionally two people were interviewed
together). Meeting formats and venues were designed to be
convenient for stakeholders. Triangulation of methods and
sources helped ensure that the main concerns were
identied accurately. Repeated meetings were held with
different stakeholders until no new issues were raised. This
standard social science research method provided con-
dence in the ndings.
In both case study locations three main concerns were
voiced by stakeholders: how to minimise the risks of future
damage from climate change; how to keep the costs to local
residents of responding to climate change low; and how to
ensure that local development and conservation priorities
are reected in decisions. Each concern was discussed in
further stakeholder meetings to help the groups consider
some of the trade-offs between these concerns that have to
be made when thinking about long term coastal decision-
making.
The future management scenarios were developed from
existing typologies of adaptation to climate change which
were consulted and modied to suit the context and
purpose of the study, notably Klein and Maciver (1999),

Orkney
Islands

SCOTLAND
0 100
Km

ENGLAND

WALES

Christchurch Bay

Fig. 2. Location of the case study sites in the UK: Orkney Islands and Christchurch Bay.
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Table 1
Potential pressures generated by climate change in the Orkney Islands and Christchurch Bay

Pressure Impact on Orkney Islands Impact on Christchurch Bay

Fluvial and coastal ood risk
Erosion, deposition and sediment
movement
Sea level rise/land inundation
Sea state: roughness of the sea
Tidal range: changes in water
level height through the tidal
cycle
Wind speed and direction
Low-lying roads and causeways more likely to
ood, meaning potentiallyy89 access routes at
greater risk
Erosion of coastal archaeological sites
More lost shing days, for longer periods at a
time; livestock export halted for several days
during peak storm season;
more frequent and longer periods of downtime at
freight terminals
Possible disruption to external & inter-isle
ferriesmost piers have 1 m clearance above HSW
level, long term sea level rise greater than 0.5 m
could affect many piers
Possible disruption to ights by high winds, fog, or
low cloud
Overtopping of sea and river defences leading to
ooding
Erosion of beaches and soft cliffs
Erosion and undercutting of coastal defences
Loss of salt-marsh, grasslands and associated
ecosystems
Breach of coastal defences
Higher tidal range, less sediment to marshes,
indirect effects on local nature reserves and bird
populations
Urban ooding in low-lying coastal areas

Centralised

Central anticipatory Central reactive

Top-down action in advance No action inadvance
Effective protection, if funded Potentially severe damage
Mostly centrally funded Reliance on external aid
High cost spread over decades Potential high emergency cost

Anticipatory Reactive

Local anticipatory Local reactive

Bottom-up action in advance Local emergency response only
Effective protection Potentially severe damage
Mostly locally funded Self-reliance
High cost spread over decades Potential high emergency cost

Localised

Fig. 3. Future coastal management options.

Smit et al. (2000), and McCarthy et al. (2001). The
concepts of centralised and local decision-making, and
anticipatory and reactive decision-making were used to
frame four main types of management decision-making
styles, shown in Fig. 3. We refer to these as: central
anticipatory, central reactive, local anticipatory and
local reactive.
The four strategies reect the broad spectrum of
decision-making styles available rather than four discrete
options. Each management option reects a different
composition of risks that might be experienced, costs to
local residents, and levels of local participation in decision-
making. The central anticipatory scenario describes
management decisions being taken centrally and sooner
rather than later. In this group of options, risks are spread
according to central government planning principles rather
than local issues; costs are spread over the population
through taxation and actions are implemented centrally in
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anticipation of major changes in climate or the coast.
Examples of this type of management already exist, for
example, the UK Government Shoreline Management
Planning Process (Bray et al., 1997; Potts, 1999).
The local anticipatory scenario describes options which
require local stakeholders to take action themselves in
anticipation of impacts being experienced. Local views are
central to this process, risks are minimised as far as
possible and the ability of local stakeholders to raise funds
for adaptation is the limiting condition. An example of this
type of management scenario can be seen in the Cayman
Islands through public and private investment in the
National Hurricane Committee, a voluntary group who
have actively promoted hurricane preparedness over the
past 20 years, see Tompkins (2005).
The central reactive scenario describes options that rely
on decisions being made centrally, however, these are made
in response to impacts, instead of in advance of impacts.
Recovery costs are potentially very high. An example of
this type of management is the UK response to the Easter
oods in April 1998, where a combination of unusual
weather events led to large areas of ooding. Five lives
were lost; an estimated 4500 domestic properties, 522
industrial premises, 2000 caravans and numerous cars were
damaged, and the total cost of the ood was approximately
300 m (Johnson et al., 2004).
The local reactive scenario describes a locally driven
response to coastal management that is developed in
reaction to coastal changes as they occur. In this situation
the costs are potentially very high, the focus is on
responding to immediate threats and reducing their impact.
Ensuring that local voices are heard and included in the
decision-making process is critical, especially in ensuring
that local needs are addressed according to local priorities.
Jessamy and Turner (2003) identied the importance of this
type of post-hurricane response capacity as part of the
national disasterrecovery strategy in Grenada.
3.4. Using workshops as deliberative spaces to explore
preferences
The workshops were designed to encourage participants
to consider how to balance some of the fundamental trade-
offs between minimising costs, minimising risks and
ensuring acceptable levels of participation in the decision-
making process. The workshops provided a space for
stakeholders to articulate their preferences about coastal
management and to consider their ideas about what
climate change might mean for their coast. In the Orkney
case study, of the 35 people contacted between May 2003
and March 2004, 13 attended the workshop (plus six
workshop team members). Participants included members
of community groups, non-governmental organisations,
local businesses, public authorities and academic institutes.
The sectors represented by participants comprised: trans-
port and infrastructure (4); public administration (4); local
development (4); business (2); environmental and coastal
1585
science (5). Several participants had linkages with more
than one sector. In the Christchurch Bay site, of the 38
people contacted between January and June 2003, 18 and
two observers attended the meeting (plus four project team
members). Participants included representatives of local
organisations, local businesses, local authorities, and
regional agencies. The sectors formally represented by
participants comprised: coast/ood protection (4); spatial
planning (2); conservation (5); environmental education
(1); residence/ownership (4); harbour use (2). As in the
Orkney case, some participants had linkages with more
than one sectormany were also residents of the harbour
area. Workshop participants were not always the same
people who were initially contactedsome were replace-
ments for individuals not able to attend. The workshops
were deliberately kept to a manageable size to facilitate
interaction. Representation of the initial groups was
therefore not perfect, but we interpreted results with this
in mindand cross-referred ndings with the interview
material.
The workshops were intended to facilitate discussion and
exploration of stakeholder views and preferences, hence
standard methods were used to ensure that stakeholders
would participate, see Morgan (1997, 1998), and applied in
a similar context by Hanson et al. (2006). Methods used
included: targeting the right audience to make sure that
those with interests in the coast and climate change would
be invited and would be most likely to attend; structuring
the programme to ensure the discussions stayed focussed;
providing stakeholders with the opportunity to express
their views; using small groups to facilitate deliberation;
avoiding jargon and communicating science in clear
concise language. The amount of speaking by the project
team was kept to a minimum and the room was organised
to ensure that small groups would sit together. Research
assistants transcribed proceedings from each small group,
although each group nominated their own spokesperson to
feedback to the larger group.
At the start and at the end of the workshops all
stakeholders were asked to participate in a ranking
exercise to encourage them to recognise the explicit
trade-offs between the three concerns that had been raised
in both case studies, i.e. reducing the risks of climate
change impacts from occurring (referred to as risk);
keeping the response costs to local residents low (referred
to as cost); and ensuring that local opinions are
included in the decision-making process (referred to as
local views). Workshop participants were asked to both
rank and score these three concerns, to reect the
concerns of greatest salience to them. Participants were
asked to rank the concern which they felt should
be prioritised as 1, and the concern which should
receive the least priority as 3. Once this was complete,
participants were asked to allocate 10 votes between
the three concerns, to reect the issue that they felt was
most important, where a high number of votes indicated
a higher level of concern. This exercise was used to
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reveal shifts in individual preference, not to reveal group with the distribution of costs, responsibility for decision-
preferences. making and acceptability of risks formed the basis of the
During the ensuing facilitated discussions the extent of discussions.
uncertainty about the distribution of impacts, the scale of To better understand stakeholder preferences for differ-
impacts and the timing of the impacts were highlighted. To ent forms of governance, stakeholders were asked to
ensure that the discussions covered the topics raised in the trace a locus of governance processes from the current
earlier meetings, a set of scripted questions were used, see situation to ideal. Copies of Fig. 3 (with the four
Table 2. These questions, which mapped closely onto the characterisations removed) were distributed to the small
ideas of Adger et al. (2003), encouraged participants to randomly allocated groups at each workshop. Groups were
consider equity issues, the legitimacy of process and the asked to mark the gure to show how they perceived
cost efciency of any approach adopted, as well as the decisions were currently being made, and then show how
implications for their own risk, cost they might incur and they would like them to be made. After the deliberations
local participation. Discussions in both locations revealed stakeholders were asked to rank the three concerns again in
deeper concerns about how the coast was managed in the order to identify if their preferences had changed after
short and longer term. deliberation.
In discussing the questions described in Table 2, the The SBSE process allowed stakeholders to assess the
trade-offs between risks, costs and local participation in degree to which they wanted to be involved in a decision-
decision-making were explored. The relative importance making process. The workshop allowed stakeholders to
of these concerns to the stakeholders were discussed, deliberate upon who should be making decisions and when
as were opinions about who should pay for adaptation, decisions should be taken about the coast, bearing in mind
and how the costs should be shared between local and the risks and costs of anticipatory or reactive action, and
national actors and the public and private sectors. The the costs and local participation implications under
acceptability of risks was discussed at length, specically: centralised or local decision-making.
are some risksto people, public or private property,
public infrastructureunacceptable, and what kinds of 4. SBSE in the Orkney Islands and Christchurch Bay
change are acceptable? These three concerns associated
UK coastal management has changed signicantly
over recent years. Until the 1980s there was a piecemeal
approach, where each coastal defence scheme for a town or
Table 2
Research questions regarding how the coast is managed
management area was assessed only in relation to the costs
and benets of the specic project. After 1985, when
Issue Key question Stakeholder concerns coastal defence was moved from the Department of the
Environment to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Cost Who bears the costs of How should costs be shared
adaptation? between local and national Food (MAFF), a more strategic approach was adopted. In
scales, or between public and 1993, the Strategy for Coastal Defence in England and
private bodies? Wales was released which focussed on reducing risks to
Timing When is action taken? Should we act in anticipation of people, specically prioritising safeguarding lives. In 1995,
impacts? Always? What
the rst generation of non-statutory shoreline management
happens if we take measures
which may turn out to be plans were produced by various co-operative groups,
unnecessary? comprising operating authorities in partnership with local
Power Who makes the Should national or local views organisations. By 1999, 39 Shoreline Management Plans
decisions? prevail? had been produced (DEFRA, 2001). A review of these
Responsibility Who takes action? Is it up to individuals to act, or
plans in 2001 led to more detailed and updated guidance,
communities, or government?
requiring coastal authorities to involve the public more
Equity How are dangerous Are some risksto people, actively and to better incorporate information on coastal
risks managed? public or private property,
processes (DEFRA, 2006). There remains signicant
public infrastructure
unacceptable? criticism of the shoreline management planning processes.
Effectiveness How are irreversible Is it always justiable to invest With the exception of the few selected consultees,
impacts considered? in adaptation? Is it acceptable many individuals and communities have found that they
to lose habitats or species where are still without a voice early enough in the planning
adaptation is at high cost in
process (see for example, Treby and Clark, 2004; Milligan
relation to the population
served? et al., 2006). As a result many coastal stakeholders do
Acceptability What kinds of change Is the abandonment of not support the recommendations from some of the
are acceptable? settlement acceptable? shoreline management plans and they are contesting the
How much modication of governments, right to impose them (ORiordan and
landscape is desirable or
Milligan, 2006). It was in this context, the scenario-based
acceptable?
stakeholder engagement process was applied in two case
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E.L. Tompkins et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 88 (2008) 15801592 1587

study areas in the UK: Christchurch Bay in the south coast with climate change prior to the deliberative process. These
of England, and the Orkney Islands off the north coast of preferences were expressed even more strongly after the
Scotland, see Fig. 2. deliberations, see Table 4.
The stakeholder identication process yielded a range of Stakeholders desire to minimise risk appeared to be
stakeholders and interests that reected the complexity of driven by altruism i.e. participants felt that care for
life in coastal Britain, see Table 3. Various district, city and future generations is the responsibility of current genera-
county councils were contacted and engaged (especially tions, coupled with fear that there may not be adequate
Orkney Islands Council, Christchurch Borough Council resources in the future to cope with the impacts of
and New Forest District Council). climate change. It was recognised that the UK approach
To reect the different pressures and impacts, the focus to coastal management has been largely reactive,
in the Christchurch Bay area was on future coastal defence with the 1953 ooding in the East of England given
and managing coastal erosion. In the Orkney Islands, the as an example of reactive decision-making. Some
focus was on transport which affects livelihoods and can argued in favour of more reactive decision-making,
affect island survival due to depopulation. mostly due to their uncertainty about the distribution,
magnitude and effects of the impacts of climate change
4.1. Dialogue emerging from Christchurch Bay case study and the effect of spending money on preparing for these
events instead of other short term priorities. Many
The Christchurch Bay workshop revealed strong pre- participants wanted to clearly identify the pressures
ferences by the participants to minimise risks associated associated with climate change before deciding on a line
of action, to avoid making inappropriate decisions. Having
Table 3
the exibility to reverse or alter decisions was considered
Principal stakeholder groups affected by climate impacts on the coast in important if decisions were taken in anticipation of
the Orkney Islands and Christchurch Bay impacts.
After debating the merits of the timing of decision-
Scale of Orkney Islands Christchurch Bay
making, the discussions turned to who should be taking the
stakeholder
decisions about coastal management under climate change
National/ futures. In the Christchurch Bay group the majority
regional preferred a more centralised approach, see Table 5. The
Scottish Executive DEFRA
justication for more centralised decision-making was
SEPA Environment Agency
Scottish Natural Heritage English Nature supported by arguments about: inadequate knowledge at
Historic Scotland English Heritage the local level to make decisions; potentially high costs
Local associated with local decision-making and the lack of local
Orkney Islands Council County councils community spirit to implement actions.
(Hampshire/Dorset)
Many of those in favour of the centralised decision-
Orkney Enterprise Ltd Local councils (New
Forest District, making structure thought that the current structure works
Christchurch Borough, well, whereby policies are made centrally, funding is
Bournemouth Borough) provided to support policy implementation locally on the
Orkney Environment Coastal management basis of need, and implementation is shaped around local
Partnership groups (SCOPAC, DCF)
considerations. Ideas were proposed as to how such a
Freight/transport Coastal businesses (hotels,
companies boatyards etc) centralised system could operate, for example through the
Primary sector workers Tourism sector workers creation of a national or regional fund for disaster
(shers, farmers) compensation. The few in favour of more localised
Inter-island commuters Private members clubs decision-making tended to justify this preference on the
(angling, sailing)
basis of cost savings and the importance of local knowl-
Property owners/residents Property owners/residents
edge, see Table 6.

Table 4
Percentage of Christchurch Bay stakeholders who ranked the main concerns as top priority (1st), second most important priority (2nd), and lowest priority
(3rd) before and after deliberations

Main concerns Preliminary ranking (in order of concern) Ranking after deliberation (in order of
concern)

1st (%) 2nd (%) 3rd (%) 1st (%) 2nd (%) 3rd (%)

Minimise risks locally 67 28 6 78 17 6

Minimise costs locally 6 11 83 6 22 72
Ensure local participation in decision-making 28 61 11 17 61 22
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1588 E.L. Tompkins et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 88 (2008) 15801592
Table 5
Reasons expressed for more centralised decision-making (Christchurch
Bay)
Reason Example
Strategic planning best Strategic decisions are best taken at national
undertaken centrally or regional level: decision-making on locally
contentious issues is difcult for a local
authority and will always be contested.
A degree of centralisation is needed for
coordination.
Insufcient local The public does not have sufcient
knowledge knowledge or long-term perspective to make
these decisions.
Insufcient local A large percentage of incomers in the
community will population means many people have no long
term memory of the locality.
Community spirit is hampered by the
number of second homes in the area: housing
policy is a critical issue.
Local consultation processes are difcult for
local authorities: insufcient people may
attend and/or they can be dominated by
certain interest groups or localities.
High costs associated The system has to be centralised, as now,
with local responses because local people would not be prepared to
cover the costs required.
Table 6
Reasons expressed for more localised decision-making (Christchurch Bay)
Reason Example
Need for local Central government planners may lack key
knowledge in planning local knowledge.
Consultation without genuine decision-
making input is not sufcient public
involvement. There needs to be community-
level planning.
Lower costs The cheapest approach is for people to put
their own defences in place, because people
will nd the cheapest solution for themselves.
Reality on the ground Market forces may determine actions
anyway e.g. via insurance/mortgage
limitations on house occupancy in risk-prone
areas.
The importance of providing local information on
impacts was identied. It was also suggested that if local
people have to contribute to costs of preparing they may be
motivated to gain a better understanding of the issues and
become more involved in decisions.
Broadly the dialogue and criteria ranking in the
Christchurch Bay case study revealed a preference for
more centralised decision-making, based on the assump-
tion that decision makers had a better understanding of the
issues and risks and hence were better placed to make
decisions. There was less strength of preference towards the
timing of the decision. Most participants thought that
central decision makers would be best placed to decide this.
4.2. Dialogue emerging from Orkney Islands case study
The Orkney Islands case study presented a very different
set of ndings. This was clear from both the stakeholder
rankings (see Table 7) as well as from the dialogue that
followed.
The Orkney Islanders appeared to have a much greater
level of trust in local institutions to make good decisions on
behalf of local people, as one participant noted: Non-party
politics in Orkney means authorities are better able to take
[a] long-term outlook. Many of the participants expressed
concern that climate change impacts were already being felt
in the Orkney Islands and that long term planning coupled
with investment in contingency planning would lead to long
term cost savings. This led many people to prioritise and
support anticipatory decision-making.
These arguments were tempered by awareness that
investment in preparedness was important, but not if
actions were being taken without proof. As in Christch-
urch Bay it was recognised that if decisions could be made
that were exible, such as designing breakwater structures
to incorporate future sea level rise this would be the
best option. There was little discussion of the costs
associated with exible decision-making. Some perceived
the need for both anticipatory and reactive management, in
part because government is perceived to be poor at
budgeting in advance; so it was assumed that some action
will inevitably be reactive. The justications made for
reactive decision-making were the same as those made by
the Christchurch Bay participants, namely avoiding the
possibility of mal-adaptation and the uncertainty over the
distribution and likelihood of impacts.
The discussion about who should be making the
decisions about climate change and coastal management
generally favoured local decision makers. The sole reason
given for why decision-making should be centralised
related to the sources of funding. The participants felt
that they relied on the Scottish Executive for funding for
infrastructure at present, and potentially they could be
more reliant in the future. Comments from the participants
included:
The reality is we depend on central funding and so at
some point there has to be centralised decisions no
matter how much we want local decisions.
Orkney cannot do transport adaptation itself: transport
is already hugely subsidised.
Central funding is essential for anticipatory action.
These largely negative justications for relying on central
government were countered by suggestions that central
government could pay for the implementation, but decisions
could still be made locally. This suggested a shift in the
process. In the Christchurch Bay case, the stakeholders were
more willing to rely on the government to make the
decisions and to allocate resources to undertake the actions.
The majority of Orkney stakeholders at the workshop,
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E.L. Tompkins et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 88 (2008) 15801592
Table 7
Percentage of Orkney Island stakeholders who ranked the main concerns as top priority (1st), second most important priority (2nd), and lowest priority
(3rd) before and after deliberations
Main concerns Preliminary ranking
st
1 (%) 2nd (%)
Minimise risks locally 38 46
Minimise costs locally 8 8
Ensure local participation in decision-making 54 46
Table 8
Reasons expressed for more localised decision-making (Orkney Islands)
Reason Example
Local knowledge is Local people know best how to manage the
important in planning islands.
Local issues would not It cannot be assumed that Orkney will be a
be taken into account priority for central government: we have to
centrally ght our corner.
Prioritising representation of local views in
decision-making is vital to ensure that actions
promote the maintenance of viable
communities on the islands.
however, felt that decisions should still be made locally, and
then funding could be requested from government to pay
(see Table 8). This was reinforced by ideas that central
government does not have the knowledge of local situations.
This theme was also reected in the reasons given for
localised decision-making, i.e. because the Orkney Islands
may not be taken into account by central government. This
theme of perceived remoteness and isolation from the centre
seemed to have a strong bearing on the shaping of the
Orkney dialogue.
The levels of willingness to participate in community
activities to prepare for climate change seemed high. For
example individuals talked about the possibility of creating
a local cooperative to build or raise piers. A local levy on
air and ferry fares for advance adaptation was considered
feasible with better information, education and a robust
argument. Another suggestion for nding funding locally
was to develop a nest egg for future local adaptation
drawn from major economic projects in Orkney. This was
reected in the nal ranking of priorities at the end of the
workshop, where 92% of participants expressed the
preference that being able to participate in the decision-
making process about climate change and the coast was
more important to them than minimising the risk or
keeping costs to themselves as low as possible.
4.3. Conclusions from the two workshops
The two communities were not in agreement about the
ideal governance structure to manage the coast. In the
1589
Ranking after deliberation
3rd (%) 1st (%) 2nd (%) 3rd (%)
15 8 77 15
85 0 15 85
0 92 8 0
Christchurch Bay case study there was less desire overall to
engage in the process and there was strong preference
among some stakeholders to leave decisions to trained
professionals in the elds of climate change and coastal
management. This preference reected both a desire to
abdicate responsibility due to a lack of desire to participate
in the decision-making process, and a fear of making
wrong decisions. Hence a centralised approach to long
term coastal planning was broadly preferred. Even though
it was recognised that many factors can mitigate against
long term planning, such as: current political and institu-
tional structures, such as the electoral cycle; project
planning mechanisms, and cultural practices. The Orkney
Islands case study in contrast reected a desire to engage
more actively in shaping the decisions made, for fear that
without their active participation, inappropriate decisions
would be made.
5. Analysing coastal planning realities
Stakeholders in both Christchurch Bay and the Orkney
Islands were more than capable of grappling with the
complexities of climate change, the uncertainty associated
with its impacts and the core trade-offs that had to be
made. In both locations, there was a very clear under-
standing of the need to balance future risks of disruption,
with spending to reduce these risks to local people, and
local participation in the decision-making process. This
reconrms that local stakeholders are competent to engage
in decisions about how the coast is managed.
The application of the SBSE method has also shown that
individuals do not need precise scientic information upon
which to make decisions about complex, long term and
uncertain phenomena. The stakeholders in both locations
were able to work with an envelope of possibilities. This
suggests that there is no need to wait for additional climate
change impact information before decisions are taken to
prepare for changes in climate. Critically, decisions taken
need to be exible in order to incorporate additional
scientic information as it becomes available. Adaptive and
learning-based management approaches are already well
known by coastal managers, see for example: Walters
(1986, 1997), Olsen et al. (1997), Carpenter et al. (2001),
Olsson and Folke (2001), Berkes and Jolly (2002), Clark
(2002), Folke et al. (2002), and Tompkins and Adger
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1590 E.L. Tompkins et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 88 (2008) 15801592
(2004). In practice, this may mean taking decisions that can
be reversed or built upon in 1020 years, rather than taking
decisions to which we are committed for the next 100 years.
In terms of how the coast should be managed, there was
no consensus from the SBSE process. Hence we cannot
claim that either a centralised decision-making approach
that minimises risk, or a decentralised approach that
maximises participation in decision-making is optimal for
the entire UK. The application of SBSE did make it
possible to identify the factors that inuence stakeholders
preferences for how the coast is managed. These appear to
include: community level factors inuencing their approach
to problem solving; the availability of information on
climate change on which to base decisions; the status and
progress of other planning processes that are running
simultaneously; perceived access to resources; perceived
ability to cope with the consequences of climate change
(adaptation); perceived ability to reduce the impacts of
climate change (mitigation); and individuals perceptions of
their own vulnerability. In the two case studies the science
available was the same, as were the resources. What differs
is the local context and the perceived and actual adaptive
capacity. Therefore, to better understand how coastal
stakeholders want their coast managed we need to have a
clearer insight into the opportunities and constraints that
exist to action at the local level and also the components of
adaptive capacity. On the other hand, if the government
continues to implement coastal management decisions
centrally, it may have to address community needs to
avoid further conict associated with coastal management
in the UK.
6. Conclusions
Making decisions about the coast and taking climate
change into consideration when making those decisions
poses risks for the decision maker. What if the decision
made leads to outcomes that are unexpectedly bad, either
because risks are over-emphasised and costs are unneces-
sarily high, or risks are under-estimated and damaging
impacts are experienced? In such a context decision makers
may be prone to delaying decision-making, or handing
over responsibility for those decisions.
For many years coastal zone managers have recognised
that when making decisions about the coast in the absence
of full information about coastal processes, adaptive
management is vital. This involves factoring new informa-
tion into the management strategy as it becomes available.
Finding ways to include new information is difcult,
particularly with the more traditional outcome-based
models of decision support, where a model is produced,
outcomes are generated and stakeholder preferences on the
outcomes elicited. Decision support tools which offer
envelopes of possibilities rather than a single outcome
may be better for adaptive management. This realisation
comes at a time when there is a changing attitude to
decision support tools. A greater recognition is now given
to the importance of factoring subjectivity into decision-
making. Roy (1990) argued that it is virtually impossible
for decision support tools that include stakeholder
preferences to be truly scientic. More recently Owens
and colleagues (2004) suggest that most objective decision
support tools are inherently subjective as they include
implicit assumptions about human preferences. With a
greater appreciation of the less-than-objective nature of
decision-making, there has been a greater acceptance of
solution sets, which present a range of acceptable decisions
rather than a single good or optimal decision. As a
result, it is more apparent that there are many ways in
which the coast can be managed, and many forms of
governance which can deliver these management strategies.
Unlike traditional outcome tools such as costbenet
analysis or multi-criteria analysis, the SBSE approach did
not aim to formulate an optimal solution or option. As
such there was no need to aggregate individual stakeholder
preferences. The discussion groups, the ranking exercises
and the active deliberation sessions all effectively revealed
the range of preferences that exist.
Given the current coastal management impasse in the
UK, where some communities in East Anglia have rejected
their Shoreline Management Plans, the need for new forms
of governance is obvious. Guidelines for the UK Shoreline
Management Plans describe the importance of taking into
account the longer time frame and peoples preferences
when developing these plans. The SBSE approach could be
introduced at any time alongside the Shoreline Manage-
ment Planning process as an effective means of opening up
the consultation process and engaging a range of stake-
holders in the difcult process of making trade-offs
between risks, costs and participation. The SBSE approach
is essentially an adaptive, learning-based management
approach which encourages coastal stakeholders to reect
on how decisions are made (shaped by the timing of the
decisions and the responsibility for decision-making) and
the implications of the decisions, in terms of their impacts
on risks, costs, and participation in decision-making. It can
be used to ascertain the level of support for new forms of
coastal governance, and with further development
renement and extensionwe suggest it could become an
important decision-support tool to facilitate coastal plan-
ning in the UK.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Tyndall Centre for
Climate Change Research for funding this research and
colleagues for their assistance, specically Mikis Tsimplis,
Tarja Sortti, Kate Delaney, Sandy Kerr, Johanna Wolf and
John Coll. We are grateful to all the participants in the
research process from the Orkney Islands and Christchurch
Bay. We very much appreciate the detailed comments from
two anonymous reviewers which have contributed sub-
stantially to the paper, however, any remaining errors are
the authors own.
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