Community Involvement in Coastal Management : A Case Study of Citizen Science and Public Participation in North West England

Earl, Joseph and Ilic, Suzana and Gormally-Sutton, Alexandra and James, Michael (2025) Community Involvement in Coastal Management : A Case Study of Citizen Science and Public Participation in North West England. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

Coastlines face anthropogenic challenges including climate-related flooding and erosion, and marine litter. Managing these challenges requires a transformational shift towards collaboration with the communities whose livelihoods and place-connections depend on coastal spaces. Approaches including citizen science—the active involvement of people in research—and public participation in decision-making could help coastal communities engage in understanding, monitoring, and managing these challenges. However, the design of such approaches often overlooks people, leaving them without a meaningful role in research or decision-making. This thesis aims to engage a community in a participant-focused citizen science project called Coast Watchers in North West England that builds people’s understanding and ability to participate in resilience-based coastal management. Through a mixed-methods, place-based case study, the work undertakes several phases to engage people in collaboratively designing, conducting, and evaluating Coast Watchers. Crucially, the work examines how coastal communities can move beyond citizen science monitoring to actively participate in coastal management decisions. Findings suggest that people hold deep attachments to coastal space, although factors such as marine litter can provoke negative experiences. Accounting for people’s coastal values and concerns is crucial when collaboratively designing a citizen science project to ensure it provides meaningful impact. Evaluating people’s experiences from a year of marine litter citizen science surveying indicates that such work offers experiential learning opportunities. However, whist citizen science can support positive learning outcomes and foster heightened environmental awareness, it does not offer participants a route into coastal management decision-making. This is because, outside of consultation-based involvement, there are few opportunities for people’s voices to be heard in decision-making, with several challenges at the root of this. Overall, the thesis provides an important contribution to the growing field of participatory coastal management, highlighting the urgent need for resources to support coastal communities to become empowered agents in managing current and future challenges.