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Adaptive management has long been promulgated as an appropriate approach to address the complexity and dynamics of coastal social-ecological systems. However, examples of successful implementation of this approach are still scarce. Law may be a factor hindering adaptive management, particularly when legal provisions are too rigid to enable change. Drawing on the management experience of Armaca similar to o Beach (a coastal erosion hotspot in the Municipality of Florian ' opolis, State of Santa Catarina, Brazil), this paper: (a) analyses how adaptive management has been used for coastal management in the selected study area and its applicable legal framework; and (b) identifies legal barriers to adaptive coastal management. Document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 27 participants were undertaken. An inductive thematic coding strategy was adopted to analyse interview data. Interpretation of results shows that coastal management in Florian ' opolis is yet to follow the structured and iterative learning process of adaptive management. Vague, imprecise, and generic legal provisions have contributed to reactive coastal management. In the context of open-ended legislation, government entities have used their legal discretion to avoid making coastal management plans, and short-term defence strategies to manage coastal erosion have proliferated in response to crisis situations. The paper highlights the importance of seeking the right balance between legal certainty and legal flexibility, providing an entry point to further research and legal reform discussions in the field of adaptive coastal management.

Adaptive management has been considered a valuable approach for managing social-ecological systems involving high levels of complexity and uncertainty. However, many obstacles still hamper its implementation. Law is often seen as a barrier for moving adaptive management beyond theory, although there has been no synthesis on the challenges of legal constraints or how to overcome them. We contribute to filling this knowledge gap by providing a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on the relationship between adaptive management and law in relation to social-ecological systems. We analyze how the scholarship defines the concept of adaptive management, identifies the legal barriers to adaptive management, and the legal strategies suggested for enabling this approach. Research efforts in this domain are still highly geographically concentrated in the United States of America, unveiling gaps concerning the analysis of other legal jurisdictions. Overall, our results show that more flexible legal frameworks can allow for adaptive management without undermining the role of law in providing stability to social interactions. Achieving this balance will likely require the reform of existing laws, regulations, and other legal instruments. Legal reforms can facilitate the emergence of adaptive governance, with the potential to support not only adaptive management implementation but also to make law itself more adaptive.