Historical adaptation pathways: The case of Folly Beach, South Carolina

A better understanding of how a community has adapted to changing risk levels in the past can lead to more optimal decisions. Assessing Historical Adaptation Pathways (HAP) helps communities identify drivers and constraints of adaptation as well as any path dependencies or institutional blocks. This paper utilizes a qualitative HAP approach that relies on interviews and an in-depth literature review to identify how Folly Beach, South Carolina has adapted to changing coastal risk. The study's results highlight three key adaptation pathways occurring regarding coastal risk across scales: exogenous actions, development, and coastal adaptation. The main pathway of interest is coastal adaptation, which is found to focus primarily on beach nourishment. Still, it became apparent that pathways occurring at both the federal and state level were driving local decisions. In addition, decisions concerning development over the years directly affected the island's coastal risk in terms of exposure levels. Planners may consider changing risk levels in terms of increased probability of a hazard or how infrastructure investments may reduce exposure. However, it is necessary to reflect on the sensitivity of other aspects of exposure as well, such as how political factors can impact development. In addition, it was found that not all pathways are linear – some may be cyclical in nature. Therefore, we could begin to consider at what point in a cycle decision makers would have the best chance of altering the pathway to create a more sustainable trajectory. In summary, by gathering historical and contextual information about how adaptation has occurred in the past, we can improve our understanding of the underlying pathways and dependencies present, thereby optimizing the decision process.