Hazard experiences, concerns and responses in coastal municipalities and communities: insights from Nova Scotia, Canada

The number of global disasters per year is projected to increase 40% by 2030. In part, this increase can be tied to climate change which is exasperating existing hazards and contributing to new hazards. The specific type of hazard response that communities employ varies, dependent on demographics such as location, socioeconomic statis, governance quality, risk perception, and infrastructure, leading to a need to understand how specific communities, with their unique characteristics, respond to hazards. The main objective of this paper was to highlight hazards of concern to small coastal communities, and to determine what actions can be taken to alleviate concern. This study incorporates a hazard survey conducted across 20 coastal communities in Nova Scotia, Canada. For each community, municipal documents (bylaws/policies/plans) were compared with the lived experience of community representatives. Overall, four key insights were observed: (1) There was a general tendency that the more experience a community has had with a given hazard, the greater the concern, and the more likely the municipality was to have developed corresponding plans, policies or bylaws; (2) there were exceptions to the links between experience with hazards, concerns about them, and governmental response; (3) significant uncertainties and gaps in awareness need to be addressed in order for hazards to be dealt with effectively at community and municipal levels; (4) while municipalities engage in a certain level of responses to some specific hazards, there is a clear tendency to adopt a multi-hazard approach.