What is slowing progress on climate change adaptation? Evaluating barriers to planning for sea level rise in Florida

Sea level rise (SLR) adaptation can be difficult for planners and public managers to plan for and to implement. Planners face a number of barriers to SLR adaptation including funding and staffing, knowledge and information uncertainty, political pushback, lack of public support, and institutional boundaries. However, few studies determine which barriers are the strongest impediments to planning and implementation processes based upon municipal characteristics. Through a survey of planners and public managers across the State of Florida, this paper ranks barriers to sea level rise adaptation and correlates municipal characteristics to assess what characteristics augment or soften barriers. Our work shows that while resources remain the strongest barrier across the board, it is most challenging in municipalities of lower socioeconomic status. We also find that regional entities may help in working through barriers such as information and coordination needs, while climate politics seem to be less important a barrier to SLR adaptation in Florida than other studies have suggested.