Local values for fairer adaptation to sea-level rise: A typology of residents and their lived values in Lakes Entrance,Australia

Understanding the values and socio-economic characteristics of people at risk from climate change will inform how people feel about the likely distribution of impacts, as well as adaptation responses. This knowledge is necessary if adaptation is to achieve distributive fairness now and into the future. This study advances methods and analyses used in values-based adaptation research by using segmentation to explain the diversity of values that exist within a community, and on this basis identify particular groups at risk. A telephone survey was conducted with residents of Lakes Entrance, Australia—a coastal community already adapting to projected sea-level rise. The purpose was to determine the priorities residents place on a range of lived values—valuations that individuals make about what is important in their lives and the places they live. The telephone survey data was then analysed using cluster analysis to develop a lived values typology of residents. The analysis revealed that there are at least eight types of residents living in Lakes Entrance and that each group of residents has a unique set of lived values that will be differentially affected by sea-level rise and adaptation. The findings indicate that if sea-level rise adaptation policy is to be distributively fair it needs to develop a suite of adaptation responses that ensure that the lived values of each group of residents, and thus a diversity of values, are maintained or enhanced.