Tatiana Filatova (p)

Anna Lis

Coastal cities are at the forefronts of adaptation to climate change, both due to the increase in adversities of one-set hazards like floods as well as gradual pressures of sea level rise. Agglomeration forces have been at the core of dynamics shaping goods, labor and property markets in coastal towns for centuries. Yet, the currently economic trade-offs are shifting as the regional coastal economies face accelerating risks due to climate change and as our investments in infrastructure lock in developments into long-term pathways that might undermine climate resilience. This study explores coastal housing market dynamics in the presence of accelerating floods while accounting for urban amenities, hazard risks as well as subjective dynamic risk perceptions of households searching for a house to live. To this end, we employ spatial evolutionary economic agent-based modeling that accounts for behavioral biases, social influences affecting people’s location choices, and eventual evolution of property markets as the market sentiments change. By incorporating adaptive expectations and evolution of individual risk perceptions, such computational models are suited to explore the emergence of systemic changes in coastal towns driven by climate change. The talk discusses the results from the coastal property market dynamics in the USA, and scenarios when under the pressure of repetitive floods this dynamics leads to climate gentrification.

Stefania Fiorentino (p), Maria Abreu, Laurence Fredricks

Tatiana Filatova

The economic and social difficulties faced by coastal towns in England are a longstanding issue of concern in the economic history of the country. Many coastal areas score have high levels of material deprivation, and as such form part of the so-called “geography of discontent” in the UK. However, there are many different types of coastal towns, ranging from more to the less successful, and with wildly different economic histories, i.e., former Victorian seaside resorts, industrial port towns, fishing villages, and more recently, rapidly expanding wealthy towns in areas of significant natural beauty. Some of these towns are still trying to address the legacy of a long process of de-industrialisation that started during the 1970s. Across the coast, socio-economic inequalities and economic stagnation also overlap with additional social and environmental challenges coming from the physical location: low accessibility, low educational attainments and poor health or rising sea levels, flooding risk, coastal erosion, and climate change. In this article we develop a taxonomy of the coastal towns using a principal components analysis approach, using a wide range of demographic, economic, social, and other contextual indicators such as local governance structure. We illustrate our taxonomy with a series of case-study towns, and complement the analysis with a series of primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and residents. Our aim is to identify the generalisable elements of the typology of towns represented in our taxonomy, and formulate a framework for the regeneration of coastal towns that are “left-behind”.

Mina Akhavan (p)

Stefania Fiorentino

Port-city interface characterises the land-sea interaction, where ‘spaces of flows’ are developed and affected by maritime activities. This interface is ‘an area in transition’ that connects the port infrastructure and city through a threefold dimension of changes: spatial, economic and ecological. Abundant discipline-oriented literature already exists on port geography and port-city development. Within the framework of the EU-funded project ‘RePortFlows’ (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101066680), this paper seeks a twofold aim: to provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art knowledge of European port cities with a focus on conceptualising the interaction between global maritime flows, the hinterland and region affected by the port; to frame a research agenda for sustainable development of the ‘spaces of flows’ affected by maritime activities in the European Region. A systematic literature review is based on the methodological approach of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). By applying the PRISMA checklist, this study reviews cross-studies published between 1960-2023, considering three main clusters: (i) socio-economic and environmental effects of maritime activities, (ii) type of spaces created by and for maritime flows and port-related activities, (iii) governance and management (including urban and port planning systems). From a theoretical perspective, on the one hand, this systematic approach can integrate studies from various disciplines and shed light on European port cities as important laboratories for sustainable development. On the other hand, the findings highlight the key role of the range of stakeholders and policymakers in determining the nature of land-sea interactions.

Marcello Graziano (p), Maurizio Fiaschetti

Mina Akhavan

The Blue Economy (BE) has powerfully emerged as one of the main regional development paradigms for global coastal regions. Some of the coastal and water uses embraced by the BE - such as aquaculture and offshore energy - modify the visual characteristics of coastal land and waterscapes. These visual transformations affect the welfare of coastal communities in different ways. Policy frameworks have emerged to manage waterscapes (e.g. Marine Spatial Planning-MSP) but have struggled to incorporate human perceptions and ecosystem services effectively into management of coastal areas. This can greatly affect the ways in which coastal regions decide to embrace the Blue Economy, and has often impaired the full development of sustainable industries in coastal zones. In this work, we combine two unique datasets for quantifying the effects that blue economy industries (i.e. aquaculture, ecological conservation, offshore energy, ports, fossil extraction/transport) have on housing prices. We focus on the two Scottish council areas of Argyll & Bute and the Highlands. Both these regions have a well-developed tourist industry, and major BE plans. The first dataset is 10by10m, 3D viewshed dataset of all buildings in the UK based on the work of O’Higgins et al. (2018). The second dataset is the ESRC-Zoopla database of all housing transactions in the UK in 2012-2018. The target dataset includes features along the entire West Coast of Scotland of all Blue Economy uses of the ocean. These datasets are then analyzed using a hedonic approach. Our results show no effect of most Blue Economy industries throughout the period under consideration, with the exception of a negative effect from fossil-related uses (e.g. oil rigs and oil and gas facilities). Our results are a first attempt to quantify the supposed negative effects on residents and coastal users captured via revealed preferences. These results are useful for informing local communities, policymakers, and developers of the lack of negative spillovers that BE developments have in a highly tourist-oriented marine region.