Coastal Resilience Education & Outreach
| Sponsor: | Nantucket Natural Resources Department |  |
| Sponsor Liaison: | Leah Hill, Vincent Murphy | |
| Student Team: | Carter Alday, Jackson Bonnen, Carthene McTague | |
| Abstract: | The Nantucket Natural Resources Department (NNRD) and the Coastal Resiliency Advisory Committee (CRAC) are responsible for increasing coastal resiliency on Nantucket through education and outreach. Through analysis of an island-wide survey and interviews with experts and homeowners, we identified effective outreach strategies and developed materials to inform homeowners of the options available to them in responding to coastal hazards such as erosion and flooding. Based on our findings we created recommendations on how the NNRD can increase the impact and reach of future outreach campaigns. | |
| Link: |
Final report: https://wp.wpi.edu/nantucket/files/2024/12/B24-Nantucket-Coastal-Resiliency-Education-and-Outreach.pdf Final presentation: https://wp.wpi.edu/nantucket/files/2024/12/Coastal_Resilience_Final_Presentation.pptx Draft erosion brochure: https://wp.wpi.edu/nantucket/files/2024/12/Outside-1.png https://wp.wpi.edu/nantucket/files/2024/12/Inside-1.png Draft flooding brochure: |
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Executive Summary
Global sea level rise is a concern in coastal communities around the world, even more so in Nantucket, where the rate of sea level rise has exceeded the global average by about 20% over the last 70 years (NNRD, 2021, p. 62). “Over the next 50 years, with sea level rise, coastal flooding and erosion are expected to cause over $3.4 Billion in cumulative damages across the island” (NNRD, 2021, p. 74). Recognizing these risks, Nantucket’s Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee (CRAC) and the Nantucket Natural Resources Department (NNRD) prepared an extensive Coastal Resilience Plan (CRP), that lays out a long-term strategy to improve the island’s resilience to coastal hazards. A current focus of the NNRD is to explore effective outreach options for property owners to encourage them to take individual and collective actions to improve the resilience of their individual houses and the collective resilience of the communities in which they live.
The goal of this project was to develop strategies and materials the Nantucket Natural Resources Department can use to educate Nantucket property owners on the best practices to enhance resilience against coastal hazards. We identified three main objectives necessary to accomplish this goal:
- Characterize Nantucket homeowner’s concerns, attitudes, and opinions about coastal resilience
- Evaluate current and best educational practices used to promote resilience to coastal hazards in coastal communities in Massachusetts
- Create outreach strategy recommendations and prototype educational materials for the NNRD to use in promoting resiliency on Nantucket
Background
Coastal flooding is the most pervasive of the hazards faced by Nantucket, resulting in significant damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure, and local ecosystems. With just one inch of flooding, a structure’s flooring can be destroyed along with its walls, foundations, and electrical equipment, rendering that structure unlivable for an extended period of time (NNRD, 2021, p. 58). As seen in Figure A, most coastal flooding on Nantucket occurs on the western side of the island. Flooding impacts are predicted to expand inland as sea levels rise through 2070 (represented by the lighter blue sections in Figure A), resulting in a large increase in the number of structures, miles of roadway, and areas of protected land affected over the same period
Nantucket experiences coastal erosion along its entire coastline, with significant impact along the southern coast and Great Point barrier beach. Storm surges can cause significant changes through “episodic erosion.” The erosion of Nantucket’s shores has been accelerated by sea level rise, as well as the increased frequency and intensity of storms due to climate change such that portions of Nantucket, particularly on the southern coast, have eroded over 100 ft inland in just the last ten years (NNRD, 2021, p. 58). As seen in Figure B, this acceleration is only going to continue, with a significant amount of coastline being eroded by 2100.
Figure A – Depicts the Risk and Extent of Coastal Flooding Through 2070 (NNRD, 2021, p. 59)
Figure B – Depicts the Predicted Coastline Recession Through 2100 (NNRD, 2021, p. 71)
The effective communication of coastal hazard risks and mitigation strategies requires overcoming significant barriers, including the complexity of research and public mistrust in government-led outreach (Altinay et al., 2023). This section outlines key strategies for improving education and outreach, with particular emphasis on framing, content delivery methods, and personal engagement.
Framing is a technique for presenting information that significantly impacts public perception and behavior. Two major framing methods are ‘risk’ and ‘gain’ framing. Risk-framed messages can induce fear and disengagement, whereas gain-framed messages emphasize the benefits of action and foster hope, certainty, and action. Risk framing has been the standard framing device for decades; however, it is being phased out due to indications that gain-based framing is preferable (Hine et al., 2016).
Having effective materials is an important factor in ensuring that messages reach their audience. There are three main types of educational material styles. ‘Passive materials’ such as brochures, newsletters, and broadcasts, are informative but rarely drive long-term action (Becker, J.S et al, 2012). ‘Experiential events’ such as town halls and interactive presentations, are more engaging but require repeated exposure to change perceptions (Becker, J.S et al, 2012). ‘Anecdotal lessons’ stemming from lived experiences were seen to significantly shape behavior, but often lead to reactive coping strategies rather than proactive adaptation. Blending passive and experiential approaches, created with a basis in the values and experiences of the community, offers the best opportunity to move communities from reactive responses to proactive adaptation (Elrick-Barr & Smith, 2022).
Effective education and outreach require personal engagement to build trust and address community-specific needs. Extension agents play a crucial role as public-facing representatives who provide tailored, one-on-one assistance while acting as bridges between government agencies, non-government organizations (NGOs), and local communities. Failing to understand the community can alienate audiences, limiting behavioral changes. Extension agents assist in keeping outreach campaigns aligned with community values.
By tailoring efforts to community needs and emphasizing collective, locally focused solutions, education programs can build trust, drive engagement, and inspire meaningful action to mitigate coastal hazards.
Methods
The Nantucket Natural Resources Department (NNRD) conducted an island-wide survey of homeowners to gauge public concerns about coastal hazards, determine current homeowner mitigation strategies, and assess how the NNRD might best help homeowners in the future. The survey had a total of 522 respondents. Out of those we focused on the Madaket supergroup (Madaket, Smiths Point, and Fishers Landing, n=77). Additionally, the team interviewed 13 homeowners (including three couples) from the Madaket area, both in person and virtually, to further understand community-specific attitudes and mitigation efforts. We interviewed 16 experts from 11 organizations across Massachusetts and Nantucket. These organizations were either non-government conservation organizations, non-government coastal resiliency-focused organizations, or government agencies concerned with coastal resiliency planning.
Findings
Interviews with homeowners, as well as survey data, suggested that a sizable portion of the population of Madaket and Nantucket are concerned about coastal hazards. However, 22% of all survey respondents and 36% of the respondents from Madaket, as well as 8 of our 13 homeowner interviewees, were taking no action. From our interviews, we gleaned this may be, in part, because some believed they were too far inland for coastal hazards to affect them. Others indicated they were confused about what was legally permissible for them to do to address coastal hazards affecting their properties.
In both our interviews with experts and homeowners as well as our survey analysis, we found that in-person events were the most successful outreach format. Experiential events were conducted by all conservation NGOs we interviewed. The purpose of experiential events is to develop a personal connection with the audience and form a deeper understanding of the work an organization conducts than is provided by passive outreach.
The organizations we interviewed used two main types of physical materials: newsletters and brochures. Brochures are physical materials primarily utilized as supplements to larger events on similar topic areas. Due to their smaller size, brochures are significantly limited in either the depth or breadth of information that can be contained within them. Newsletters are long-form physical materials primarily formatted as a collection of smaller articles. Every organization we interviewed has a newsletter of some kind. Newsletters differ in release cycles from monthly or weekly release cycles, to quarterly, biannual, or annual, and some organizations run short and long cycles simultaneously.
Conducting effective outreach campaigns entails a significant investment in staff time and resources. Our expert interviewees informed us that having an outreach coordinator was essential to their outreach efforts, all eleven organizations we interviewed have at a minimum one full-time staff member whose role is to manage public communications.
Recommendations
Considering that the NNRD needed immediately implementable materials to inform homeowners and that one of the top three most preferred options in the homeowner survey was a “best practices brochure for your home” we therefore created a brochure to convey homeowner options for adapting to coastal hazards. While our findings and background show that passive materials such as these are not as successful as other forms of outreach, particularly when used alone, they were found to be particularly useful in combination with experiential events. Brochures are important supplemental materials and can be used at open houses and tours that the NNRD already hold. Additionally, because the team received feedback from homeowners that the permitting process was complex and unclear, the team designed a permitting flow chart to guide homeowners through the process.
Forming partnerships with other organizations on and off the island would permit the distribution of work in planning an event, increasing the viability. Additionally, partnering with organizations the public already trusts will help bring more trust to the NNRD and increase visibility to the membership of the audience of those organizations.
While the recommendations noted here would significantly bolster the outreach performed by the NNRD, there are presently scarce resources to implement any of these recommendations, as they largely fall outside the purview of any of the NNRD’s current positions. The Coastal Resilience Coordinator at the NNRD is presently operating at her limit generating educational materials as well as organizing open houses.