Responsibility attribution and community support of coastal adaptation to climate change: Evidence from a choice experiment in the Maldives

Community support for climate change adaptation projects markedly benefits effective protection. A relevant driver of community support is the perceived attribution of responsibility to individuals. If individuals attribute responsibility for adaptation to others, e.g. public authorities, this reduces the adaptation efforts of the individual, might induce preference uncertainty, and can lead to maladaptation. We study individuals' perceptions of personal responsibility and preferences for coastal protection in a setting in which individuals have little formal responsibility. To do so, we collect data from the Maldives, a small island development state with significant risks of seaborne hazards where responsibility for coastal protection formally rests with the central government without significant involvement of local communities. Using survey measures and a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE), we investigate respondents' sense of personal responsibility and their preferences for climate change adaptation distinguishing between preferences for hard, man-made structures and soft, working-with-nature protection approaches. The results show that responsibility perception plays an important role for stated willingness to support protective measures. However, they further show a mismatch between formally assigned and perceived responsibility for protection with a majority of respondents having a strong sense of personal responsibility for protection. In addition, the DCE results indicate a misalignment of people's preferences and the measures implemented by the government. While the latter belong to the group of hard protection measures, the majority of respondents show a clear preference for soft protection. We discuss the implications of these findings and highlight the importance of a better understanding of drivers of responsibility perceptions.