The changing landscape of land use legal regimes under sea level rise

Keywords: legal geography, coastal land use, zoning,
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Coastal cities around the world are faced with fast-changing coastal landscapes, local development pressures, and floodplain management tensions. The relatively rapid pace of climate change, along with its related extreme weather events, challenge the ability (and desirability) of land use and zoning regulations to provide predictability and stability in response to a non-stationary environment. While most research focuses on case studies in single legal systems, this research seeks to look at how different governance regimes and legal systems – for instance, centralized, civil law systems (i.e., Taiwan) and federalist, common law systems (i.e., the United States) – utilize legal tools to cope with the dilemma of coastal floodplain development under sea level rise. The research first discusses common features and differences between the Taiwanese land use legal system and the United States’ common law land use legal system on issues such as the classical questions of balancing public interest and private property rights and professionalism and public participation in planning and zoning processes. Then it examines how these similarities and differences affect current coastal land use on the ground. While the context may vary, the research shows striking similarities in the struggles and challenges of land use and planning legal regimes and climate change governance. It also presents opportunities for shaping the future legal landscape of land use and planning legal regimes in both centralized, civil law and federalist, common law systems.