Patricia Manuel

• Dalhousie University

Nature‐based coastal adaptation is a subset of nature‐based solutions that has to this point focused on the materiality of managing coastal risks: what our coastal protections are made of or where we put things that are in the way of harm. In our collaborative interdisciplinary work, we have been reimagining nature‐based coastal adaptation to start...

Marine and coastal environments are diverse and dynamic, supporting competing human interests and demands. As society seeks to balance contested uses of space, more holistic planning processes have emerged, which consider social, economic, and ecological factors. One approach that considers social factors, and more specifically social acceptance, i...

Sea levels are rising faster than ever, limiting the effectiveness of hard infrastructure-based coastal protection. Scientists and policymakers are exploring alternative adaptation approaches that use nature's capacity to buffer flooding and erosion – a strategy we refer to as nature-based coastal adaption (NbCA). They involve changes from site-lev...

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is critiqued for inadequate stakeholder engagement practices, particularly for determining community-level interests. Community engagement is foundational to community planning, a local-level process in terrestrial planning. This study compared the community engagement experiences of practitioners in local and national...

An introduction from the guest editors

In 2005 the Canadian federal government initiated a New Deal for Cities and Communities. The program, which involved bilateral agreements with provincial governments, promised substantial funding to municipalities to promote integrated community sustainability through capacity building and infrastructure renewal. We evaluate the content of sustaina...

In light of the global, unprecedented and enduring phenomenon of population ageing, cities and communities across the world have committed themselves to establishing and implementing age friendly community designs, programs, services and practices. In Canada, there has been a particular interest in promoting ‘age friendliness’ in rural and remote c...

Coastal climate change is challenging communities to adapt. More frequent and extreme weather events leading to coastal area flooding and other hazards can present a risk for residents and the infrastructure and services they rely on. This is particularly the case for vulnerable populations such as seniors. Nova Scotia is experiencing this confluen...

Coastal climate change in the form of rising sea levels and more frequent and extreme weather events can threaten community assets, residences, and infrastructure. This presents a particular concern for vulnerable residents - such as seniors aged 75 years and older. Our spatial study combines census area cohort population model projections, communi...

To identify factors which limit the ability of local governments to make appropriate investments in the built environment to promote youth health and reduce obesity outcomes in Atlantic Canada. Policy-makers and professionals participated in focus groups to discuss the receptiveness of local governments to introducing health considerations into dec...

Urban wetlands, despite their imperfections, provide natural and aesthetic landscape diversity in the built environment. We are beginning to understand and document the ecological significance of this diversity and the management challenges presented by the urban context. The cultural significance of urban wetlands has not received similar attentio...

Wild nature occupies an increasingly smaller space in urban and suburban neighborhoods. The demise of urban wild I and is unfortunate because wild spaces offer a nature experience not replicated by cultivated environments. Including wild nature in our home places is essential if we wish to support environmental citizenship and the human habitat div...

The authors present a normative vision and planning framework for protecting landscapes and ecosystems. They suggest that good planning of residential environments requires that planners re-examine priorities and regulations from the point of view of sustaining landscape processes and functions. The health and prosperity of communities over the lon...

A studio-based approach to planning education provides opportunities for employing a peer resource model whereby students facilitate each other's learning. This paper describes the experience of coordinating undergraduate studio classes from different levels of study as students worked on a series of related projects. The authors suggest that a pee...