Understanding relocation in flood-prone coastal communities through the lens of place attachment

Abstract

Place attachment has been acknowledged as an important factor in mobility decision-making. However, it has not yet been explored in the context of permanent relocation in coastal communities due to accelerated flooding. The literature shows that people may be more committed to staying in place versus moving elsewhere in response to stressors if they have a stronger place attachment. Such sentiments may deter residents from considering relocation regardless of the effectiveness of this strategy in addressing the flood risk. This paper aims to develop a new approach for the spatial assessment of coastal locations based on their place attachment characteristics that will help indicate how different places may respond to the possibility of flood-driven relocation. We first conducted a structured literature review to identify the appropriate indicators of place attachment in the context of coastal flooding and population mobility. Next, we evaluated the literature's content to identify study characteristics such as methodological approach, geographic focus and attributes deemed important determinants of place attachment. Based on this analysis, we developed a coastal relocation place attachment index consisting of sixteen indicators and applied it to six coastal rural and urban locations in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The indicators were aggregated and mapped to show the spatial distribution of the relocation place attachment index in the case study locations. The results show a significant variation in place attachment attributes between rural and urban locations, with rural locations having an overall higher place attachment than urban areas.