Managed retreat in practice: mechanisms and challenges for implementation

Abstract

Managed retreat is a deliberate strategy to remedy unsustainable land use patterns that expose people, ecosystems, and assets to significant natural (and socio-natural) hazard and climate induced risks. The term is all-encompassing, broadly capturing planned relocation in the fields of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, as well as managed retreat or realignment in coastal management and environmental planning practice. Managed retreat helps to ensure that people and the resources they value are no longer exposed to extreme events and to the adverse impacts of slow-onset environmental change.

Distinct from migration and displacement, managed retreat is the strategically planned withdrawal from development in risky spaces. It can be applied at a range of spatial scales, in an anticipatory, staged, or reactive manner. Unlike traditional risk management alternatives, managed retreat affords space to natural processes and minimizes long-term maintenance and emergency management costs. While it has great promise as a sustainable disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation strategy, there are a number of socio-political-cultural, environmental, economic, and institutional barriers affecting its implementation, particularly in contexts with extensive existing development. There may also be significant challenges in integrating relocated and receiving communities. In practice, people are deeply connected to, and reliant upon, the security, networks and cultural values of their lands, homes, communities, and livelihoods. To realize the long-term benefits, managed retreat needs to be considered as an integrated approach that uses information, regulation, and various financial levers in a strategic manner, and recognizes the need to work alongside communities in a fair, transparent, and inclusive way.