Community Engagement in Climate Adaptation Planning for Coastal Resilience: A Case Study of Gangneung

ORCID

Han: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5466-9549; Lee: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8485-6943

MSU Affiliation

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design

Creation Date

2026-06-01

Abstract

This study uses the example of Gangneung in South Korea to reveal critical gaps in the government’s climate adaptation planning and policies and identifies ways that improved community engagement and site-specific strategies can improve climate adaptation planning and coastal resilience in overlooked coastal cities. Despite substantial global and national investment, disaster mitigation efforts have often failed to consider local conditions, inadvertently heightening community vulnerability. Through interviews with 54 individuals, including government officials, researchers, and local residents, and three rounds of field studies conducted over 2 years, this study investigates the challenges of and issues with the current governmental top–down approach and supports the necessity of integrating community-driven planning processes to seek site-specific strategies. Despite experiencing similar natural hazards such as typhoons, wildfires, and floods, two neighboring communities in Gangneung—urbanized Gyungpo and rural Okgye—have exhibited significant differences in the scale, frequency, and nature of damage, due to government policies that are disconnected from the local context. In particular, both communities have suffered more severe impacts from flooding and coastal pollution as a result of poorly planned governmental interventions. This study found that local residents demonstrated deeper insight into both the causes of these disasters and potential solutions, highlighting the value of community knowledge in climate adaptation planning. This comparison underscores the diverse impacts of climate change across different community types and the need for tailored adaptation strategies. The key findings illustrate how increasingly marginalized coastal cities can better protect their vulnerable communities from future climate threats by integrating engineering solutions with site-specific and nature-based strategies, an essential approach to building coastal resilience. This study offers an effective case study that emphasizes the importance of incorporating local knowledge and place-based conditions into national and local policies to enhance resilience and safeguard vulnerable coastal populations against future climate impacts.

Publication Date

9-4-2025

Publication Title

Landscape and Ecological Engineering

Publisher

Springer

First Page

921

Last Page

935

Rights

© Springer Nature

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11355-025-00683-4