Perceptions of Gulf of St. Lawrence coastal communities confronting environmental change: Hazards and adaptation, Québec, Canada

Abstract

1. IntroductionOver the past decade, the erosion that has been accelerating incertain sectors of the St. Lawrence maritime estuary and gulf hasbecome more common on the Canadian province of Quebec’smaritime coast [5]. Change in environmental conditions caused byclimate warming and anthropogenic disturbance is in large partresponsible for the increase in coastal erosion [7]. Certain types ofenvironmentalchange,suchassedimentarydeficit,reductioninicecover and relative sea level rise, increase the sensitivity of theshoreline to coastal hazards. Moreover, the considerable concen-tration of population along Quebec’s shoreline raises questionsabout the vulnerability of the population itself as well as its infra-structures. Because of climate warming, recent research hasfocused on evaluating the vulnerability of communities in variousregions around the world [1,2,23]. The adaptive capacity of thesecommunities varies geographically and depends on various social,cultural, economic and political factors [41,12]. Since suchcommunities are the first ones affected by these hazards and thesetting up of adaptive solutions, it is essential to integrate theirknowledge and their points of view to improve their adaptivecapacity.Ithasbeenshownthatagapbetweengeosciencedataandthe perceptions of individuals concerning environmental changecan reduce the resilience of these individuals [3], even to a pointwhere no adaptation strategy is implemented. However, quanti-fying communities’ resilience to natural risks is still a challengingtask [12]. In a coastal zone, a resident’s or a community’s level ofresilience to natural hazards can be evaluated by examining theeffectiveness of the adaptation measures put in place in relation tothe type and the dynamics of the given coastal system. Certainmethods not appropriate to the type of coast can lead to erosion ofthecoastalsystem,reducecoastalsystemresilienceandamplifythecoastal risk [20]. Whether or not there is a perceived need to adaptto coastal hazards depends on people’s perceptions of risk and theprocesses that condition that risk [20,35].With the exception of a few studies [9,31,34,35,39], residents’perceptions are rarely taken into consideration in the coastal riskand adaptation analysis. Studies focusing on communities’perceptions generallyexplain them by reference to socio-economicand demographic factors [29,36,37,45]. The couplingof perceptionsand the environmental context in which populations live is hardlyever achieved in studies that seek to evaluate and understand thenature of such perceptions. Yet certain authors have shown thatgeographic factors influence residents’ perceptions [9,10,17] andsuch factors can be decisive when it comes to residents’ level ofknowledge of coastal risks [11].In the context of a project focusing on the sensitivity of coastsand the vulnerability of communities on the Gulf of St. Lawrence tothe impacts of climate change [7,40], we put forward an approachto evaluate the resilience of residents to coastal hazards based ona spatial analysis of their perceptions and the environmentalcharacteristics of their living environment. This study has thefollowing objectives: 1) to analyze the perceptions of differentcoastal communities with respect to coastal geohazards and envi-ronmental change, and to compare the results with the geosciencedatatoevaluatethelevelofconcordance;2)toidentifywhethertheadaptive measures put in place by residents and governments todeal with coastal hazards and those envisaged for the future byresidents, are appropriate with respect to the type and thedynamics of the coastal system.2. Location of study sitesThe five sites of the studyarelocatedon the Gulf of St. LawrenceineasternCanada.Morespecifically,thesitesarethePerceandBaiedes Chaleurs regions in Gaspesie, the Magdalen Islands, as well asthe Sept-Iles and Mingan regions on the North Shore of the St.Lawrence (Fig.1).