Rising Strong in a Drowning Land: Women’s Leadership at the Helm of Transformative Coastal Resilience and Inclusive Climate Governance

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-565-2_6How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Climate Governance; Coastal Resilience; Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI); Livelihood Vulnerability Index; Women's Leadership

Abstract

Coastal regions in Indonesia are undergoing profound biophysical and social transformations driven by land subsidence, tidal flooding, and accelerated shoreline loss. Sriwulan Village in Demak Regency exemplifies a “drowning landscape,” where permanent inundation converges with entrenched social and gender inequalities. This study presents one of the first empirically grounded coastal resilience frameworks to position women’s leadership not as a complementary social component, but as a central institutional and governance mechanism for Nature-Based Solutions and climate adaptation. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines household surveys, focus group discussions, spatial and remote-sensing analysis, Livelihood Vulnerability Index assessment, and gender-focused analysis guided by the Gender Analysis Pathway and the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion framework, the research identifies persistent gaps in access, mobility, participation, and disaster information. Simultaneously, it documents strong yet largely informal leadership roles held by women in community preparedness, early warning, and environmental stewardship. The study delivers a gender- responsive Coastal Resilience Master Plan that integrates Nature-Based Solutions, a women-centered early warning system, and institutional arrangements that formalize women’s leadership within local climate governance. The findings demonstrate that embedding women’s leadership at the core of adaptation systems enhances adaptive capacity, strengthens governance effectiveness, and enables transformative pathways toward equitable and resilient coastal futures.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Rr. M. I. Retno Susilorini
AU  - Iskhaq Iskandar
AU  - Jamilla Kautsary
AU  - Desiana Vidayanti
AU  - Afiyati Afiyati
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/04/30
TI  - Rising Strong in a Drowning Land: Women’s Leadership at the Helm of Transformative Coastal Resilience and Inclusive Climate Governance
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Social Environment Diversity (ICOSEND 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 33
EP  - 50
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-565-2_6
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-565-2_6
ID  - Susilorini2026
ER  -