Premium
Legal geography and coastal climate change adaptation: the Vaughan litigation
Author(s) -
O'Donnell Tayanah
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geographical research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.695
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1745-5871
pISSN - 1745-5863
DOI - 10.1111/1745-5871.12170
Subject(s) - climate change , context (archaeology) , coastal flood , geography , flooding (psychology) , storm , storm surge , constitution , coastal erosion , environmental planning , sea level rise , environmental resource management , law , political science , erosion , meteorology , oceanography , environmental science , archaeology , psychology , paleontology , geology , psychotherapist , biology
The impacts on the Australian coast of a changing climate include environmental and property damage arising from increased frequency and severity of coastal weather events, storm surge, coastal erosion, and coastal flooding. Coastal management policies and planning laws are often relied upon to manage both the impacts and competing interests in the coast. The existence of these policies and laws, and their interpretation by the courts, bears a weight of expectation upon them to deliver in the face of climate change which merits further consideration. Indeed, a rich field is open from which to consider the constitution and construction of law in and across different places, in the context of climate change adaptation. The Australian coast is a unique and locally specific context from which to explore the relationship between law and place as performed in the Vaughan litigation, and this paper considers such important potential as it gains expression in the Vaughan litigation. © 2016 Institute of Australian Geographers