I denna studie genomfördes en översvämningskartering och -analys som utgick från fyra

extrema vattennivåer i Vänern. Baserat på höjddata från den Nya Nationella Höjdmodellen

(NNH) generades utbredningspolygoner med hjälp av GIS för de fyra översvämningsnivåerna.

Överlagringsanalyser gjordes sedan med kartskikt för väg, mark och byggnader

samt för vissa kommuner även befolkning för att urskilja vägsträckor, markområden,

byggnader och boende inom översvämningsutbredningen vid de fyra nivåerna.

Översvämningskartor togs fram i pdf-format och Google Earth-format. GIS-analysen har

genererat kvantitativa data för översvämmade vägsträckor, markytor antal byggnader etc.

Vidare har en objektsbaserad analys genomförts utifrån kartmaterial och kommunala data

över sårbara anläggningar och funktioner. Resultaten har sammanställts kommunvis och

för Vänerområdet i sin helhet i form av text, tabeller och diagram.

Det som drabbas först vid en översvämning i Vänern är dels objekt som utifrån sina

funktioner ligger vattennära t.ex. fritidsanläggningar, men även viktiga vägar som E18 och

E45. Järnvägsträckan Göteborg-Karlstad-Stockholm översvämmas redan vid 100-årsnivån.

Med stigande vattennivå drabbas allt fler objekt och samhällsviktiga funktioner. De städer

som påverkas mest är Karlstad, Kristinehamn, Mariestad, Lidköping och Vänersborg.

De direkta skadekostnaderna för en 100-årsnivå i Vänern har beräknats till 100-240 Mkr,

där en möjlig vindeffekt kan ge ytterligare upp till 120 Mkr i skadekostnader. För en

dimensionerande nivå skulle skadekostnaderna bli av en helt annan storleksordning och

uppgå till ca 9,8 miljarder kr. Vid denna nivå skulle stora indirekta skador uppstå som vi

inte har haft möjlighet att värdera ekonomiskt. De största kostnaderna kan kopplas till

översvämmade byggnader.

I en absolut jämförelse med Mälaren av kvantitativa data för översvämmade vägar,

markområden och antal byggnader är konsekvenserna vid Vänern något lägre.

Studien genomfördes på uppdrag av och i samarbete med

Vänerkommunerna i samverkan om

Vänerns reglering.

Natural events such as floods and landslides can have severe consequences. The risks are expected to increase, both as a consequence of climate change and due to increased vulnerabilities, especially in urban areas. Although preventive measures are often cost-effective, some measures are beneficial to certain values, while some may have negative impacts on other values. The aim of the study presented here was to investigate two frameworks used for assessing the effectiveness and sustainability of physical and nonphysical flood and landslide risk reduction measures. The study is based on literature, available information from authorities and municipalities, expert knowledge and experience, and stakeholder views and values. The results indicate that the risks for suboptimization or maladaptation are reduced if many aspects are included and a broad spectrum of stakeholders are involved. The sustainability assessment tools applied here can contribute to a more transparent and sustainable risk management process by assessing strategies and interventions with respect to both short- and long-term perspectives, including local impacts and wider environmental impacts caused by climate change, for example. The tools can also cover social and economic aspects. The assessment tools provide checklists that can support decision processes, thus allowing for more transparent decisions.

The urban environment is a complex structure with interlinked social, ecological and technical structures. Global warming is expected to have a broad variety of impacts, which will add to the complexity. Climate changes will force adaptation, to reduce climate-related risks. Adaptation measures can address one aspect at the time, or aim for a holistic approach to avoid maladaptation. This paper presents a systematic, integrated approach for assessing alternatives for reducing the risks of heat waves, flooding and air pollution in urban settings, with the aim of reducing the risk of maladaptation. The study includes strategies covering different spatial scales, and both the current climate situation and the climate predicted under climate change scenarios. The adaptation strategies investigated included increasing vegetation; selecting density, height and colour of buildings; and retreat or resist (defend) against sea-level rise. Their effectiveness was assessed with regard to not only flooding, heat stress and air quality but also with regard to resource use, emissions to air (incl. GHG), soil and water, and people’s perceptions and vulnerability. The effectiveness of the strategies were ranked on a common scale (from -3 to 3) in an integrated assessment. Integrated assessments are recommended, as they help identify the most sustainable solutions, but to reduce the risk of maladaptation they require experts from a variety of disciplines. The most generally applicable recommendation, derived from the integrated assessment here, taking into account both expertise from different municipal departments, literature surveys, life cycle assessments and publics perceptions, is to increase the urban greenery, as it contributes to several positive aspects such as heat stress mitigation, air quality improvement, effective storm-water and flood-risk management, and it has several positive social impacts. The most favourable alternative was compact, mid-rise, light coloured building design with large parks/green areas and trees near buildings. © 2015 The Authors.

Crisis preparedness is of great importance to many actors in society. Maintaining crisis preparedness is an arduous task that requires frequent exercises. However, many actors have trouble accomplishing this because planning and conducting exercises are time consuming and involve high costs. Digitalization of crisis training has been suggested as a way to partly overcome these obstacles. In this paper, we present the results of a pilot study on an exercise in a digital crisis training tool. Trainees were interviewed and a content analysis was performed on the data. The analytical categories consisted of requirements for a crisis training tool, developed in our previous work. The results of the analysis show that the pace of an exercise, the number of trainees and the number of asynchronous and synchronous modules are all related to boundaries of digital crisis training. These boundaries need to be further explored.

Inledning: I Sverige kan vintrar medföra långa perioder av is och snö som i sin tur leder till en ökning av fallolyckor på grund av halkan. Seniorer drabbas mest av denna fenomen, vilket leder till ett stort lidande för den enskilde och enorma samhällskostnader för samhället. Sveriges kommuner implementerar preventiva säkerhetsåtgärder på många olika sätt för att bl.a. motverka och reducera fallolyckor under vinterhalvåret. En del kommuner har valt att införa utdelning av gratis halkskydd i form av broddar för kommunens invånare. En del andra kommuner har valt att inte införa denna typ av insats av olika skäl. Kommuners olika beslutsfattande kan bero på en skillnad i vilka problem som finns och vilka mål som ska uppnås. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka orsaker till varför det skiljer sig med utdelningsprogram av halkskydd i form av broddar, mellan kommuner runt om i Sverige. Denna studie har utgått från beslutsteorin och den sociotekniska modellen, för att möjliggöra en ökad förståelse för kommuners beslutsprocess. 

Metod: Denna studie har genomfört en kvalitativ textanalys, för att kunna studera och analysera kommuners resonemang och beslutsprocess. 

Resultat: Beslutsprocesser och implementering av förebyggande åtgärder hos Sveriges kommuner, skiljer sig på olika sätt. Eftersom kommuner är självstyrda, finns det inga tydliga svar på varför det ser ut som det gör. I samtliga beslutsprocesser finns en stor variation på vilka aktörer som är inblandade, var förslagen kommer ifrån och på vilket sätt förslaget lämnats in och/eller besvarats. 

Slutsats: Kommuners beslutsprocess och resonemang för beslut varierar sinsemellan. Kommuner som implementerat broddutdelningsprogram har varit mer engagerade i frågan, utrett mer samt motiverats och inspirerats av andra kommuner som genomfört insatsen. Kommuner som inte implementerat broddutdelningsprogram har bl.a. motiverat det med att det går emot kommunallagen, att det saknas ekonomiska resurser och vetenskaplig evidens. Det har också motiverats med att kommuner redan implementerat andra förebyggande åtgärder mot fallolyckor. Det anses även vara den enskildes ansvar att införskaffa halkskydd och skydda sig utomhus.

I Sverige inträffar många skyfall och intensiva regn under sommarmånaderna. Det finns inga uppenbara geografiska mönster, vilket är en skillnad gentemot älv- eller sjööversvämningar där det vanligtvis är känt vilka områden som kan komma att översvämmas vid en viss vattennivå eller ett visst vattenflöde. För individer och samhällsaktörer innebär en skyfallshändelse i många fall en stor överraskning då skyfall utvecklas snabbt och dagens meteorologiska prognossystem i stort inte lyckas att prognosticera extrema regn korrekt med avseende på mängd, tid och plats. Vädervarningar kommer med kort varsel eller uteblir helt. Konsekvenserna av intensiv nederbörd och skyfall är främst översvämningar och erosionsskador på byggnader och infrastruktur, men även störningar och avbrott i olika samhällsfunktioner som kan påverka samhället och individer utanför det drabbade området.

I denna avhandling har 15 år av försäkringsskadedata använts för att undersöka samband mellan nederbördsintensitet och skyfallsskador. Även påverkan av andra faktorer som topografi, bebyggelse och socioekonomiska aspekter har undersökts. Resultaten visar att regnintensitet under ett 60 minuters intervall i kombination med korta perioder av extrem intensitet, tillsammans med topografiska faktorer spelar en betydande roll vid uppkomsten av skador.

This paper investigates causal factors leading to pluvial flood damages, beside rainfall amount and intensity, in two Swedish cities. Observed flood damage data from a Swedish insurance database, collected under 13 years, and a set of spatial data, describing topography, demography, land cover and building type were analyzed through principal component analysis (PCA). The topographic wetness index (TWI) is the only investigated variable that indicates a significant relationship with to the number and amount of insurance damage. The Pearson correlation coefficient is 0.68 for the number of insurance damages and 0.63 for amount of insurance damages. With a linear regression model TWI explained 41% of the variance of the number of insurance flood damages and 34% of variance of amount of insurance flood damage.

Future studies on this topic should consider implementing TWI as a potential measure in urban flood risk analyses.

While a major part of previous research in the field of flood damage has focused on water depth as the most important causal factor, little attention has been paid to the role of rainfall intensity. As a test, this paper used correlation and regression analyses to investigate rainfall intensity as a factor affecting flood damage. For a time period of 15 years, the relationship between insurance losses caused by floods and rainfall intensity data from rain gauges were examined in two Swedish cities. Another objective was to find an approach for damage functions based on rainfall intensity as explanatory variable. Using linear regression, two approaches with considerable high degrees of explanation were found – one based on an exponential function and one on a power function. Using a lower limit for rainfall intensity, the approaches reached degrees of explanation between 30 and 78 %. From this study it was concluded that rainfall intensity during the summer months and the occurrence of insurance damages per day caused by floods were correlated and further that rainfall intensity has a great potential to explain urban flood damages. In the future, additional studies are needed to validate the proposed methods and integrate other flood damage affecting factors in the approach.

Climate change (CC) is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity and it is of great importance that education enables students with the knowledge and skills needed for making informed and evidence-based decisions. In this pilot study we examine teachers methods and views of teaching CC. A survey included questions about the teachers’ experience of teaching the topic of climate change and their views on teaching this specific content was distributed to 84 secondary teachers. 28% of the teachers consider geography to be the subject most responsible for teaching CC, 77% report that the aim is to teach the pupils an environmentally friendly behavior. The most used teaching methods are teachers lecturing (used by 89% of the teachers), group discussions (87%) and teacher moderated whole class debates (55%). 44% reported that they have sufficient knowledge for teaching CC, 26% feel that they have enough knowledge about howto teach CC but only 12% believe they have enough time for their teaching. Although CC is perceived as an interdisciplinary issue, relatively few of the teachers reportedly use interdisciplinary work. Both the high level of lecturing and lack of interdisciplinary work can be an consequence of a (over) loaded curriculum. To cooperate with other subjects can be difficult, often the subjects are not only separated by time (different schedules) but also in space (different classrooms). We conclude by giving examples of innovative ways of facing the challenge of teaching CC using innovative pedagogical tools.

Education plays a key role in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and in creating resilient societies worldwide by disseminating information about risks and in improving people’s risk awareness. This, in turn, helps them to prepare, cope with and recover from possible disaster events, hence making the societies more resilient. This paper shortly presents the theoretical background and the rules of the game Riskville where the participants get to experience in a hands-on manner the connections and conflicts between urban planning, different interests and climate related risks. We conclude that Riskville promotes discussions on different perspectives on disaster risk and resilience and approaches in including them into urban planning.

Mankind is facing major challenges with climate change. Heatwaves are one of the biggest climate risks in Sweden in the future, in terms of how serious the consequences will be and the probability that it will occur. Heatwaves can affect all individuals, but mainly affects different risk groups like young children. To reduce children's vulnerability to climate risks, adults like preschool educators assumes to take responsibility and protect children. The purpose of the study is to investigate the educators' risk perception regarding heatwaves and whether adaptation measures is used to reduce vulnerabilities with heatwaves in preschools.To investigate this, a questionnaire study with open and closed questions was used, and answered by educators working in Forshaga Municipality. The results shows that the respondents have a good knowledge, the majority believe that the risk is likely to occur in pre-schools within 5 years and in a ranking with other climate-related risks, heatwaves is the highest risk. A few differences in risk perception have been identified. But there is a consensus about the risk among the respondents. Vulnerabilities exist in preschools due to exposure to the risk, sensitivity arises through increased workload and lack of recovery and adaptability is deficient. A few minor adaptation measures are available, but the results show that adaptions are partly or completely missing. An example is that there is no organizational readiness and there is a great potential for improvement within adaptation measures, so that preschools in Forshaga Municipality will be able to handle heatwaves in the future

This paper presents case studies where disasters provided a window of opportunity for change that included social action with (potentially) positive effects on the environment. The research literature was screened for empirical cases in support of societal changes with a focus on environmental issues, and a more in-depth case study of the extensive tree felling after the storm Gudrun in Sweden 2005 was also conducted. The case study is explored through available research as well as “grey” literature to identify societal actions taken after the storm that had – or not – an effect on environmental conditions. With the help of the framework presented by Birkmann et al. (2010), the study aims to characterise the nature of these anthropic changes. The framework was modified to focus specifically on societal actions implemented because of an “open window”, and the environmental effects of the actions. This enabled identifying changes with a positive/negative and intended/unintended effect on the environment, as well as determining if a change was based on formal or informal decisions. Several cases identified in the literature provide empirical support for the theory that disasters can generate a window of opportunity for positive environmental change. However, open windows are not always exploited, as is apparent in the case of the storm Gudrun.

Due to a tsunami being a rapid event (minutes or hours), it is necessary to have disaster risk reduction measures in place well in advance. TEWS is a warning system for reducing the consequences of a tsunami. A successful TEWS requires that i) people are aware of the risk, ii) people are prepared to evacuate and iii) the TEWS is working properly. This study aims to develop a framework with key quality indicators for technical, social, and governance maintenance of a TEWS, emphasizing the chain of activities from tsunami detection to evacuation. The framework is extended to novel indicators involving memory keeping and evacuation signage. The TEWS etsablished in Patong, following the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster 2004, is used as a pilot case study to test the framework related to technical and social maintenance by conducting a retrospective long-term analysis years 2005-2022. Data is collected from research and news articles 2005-2022, as well as field observations of Patong in 2022. The result shows that during these years there have been several events and actions that highlight both problems and positive developments related to technical and social maintenance of the TEWS. Because tsunamis are fast occurrences, dependable TEWS are vital.

The importance of natural disturbances for biodiversity is well-documented in the disturbance ecology literature. Natural disturbances such as fire, wind, and flooding strongly influence ecosystems by creating short and long-term ecological processes. Conservation management of protected areas should consider the importance of natural disturbances since natural shifts in ecosystems are, in a long-term perspective, necessary to maintain high biodiversity. The purpose of this study is to explore how and if natural disturbances are incorporated in the management of Swedish national parks and to identify possible examples of barriers for this incorporation. The design of the study is a multiple comparative case study based on a document study and completed with qualitative interviews. The cases consist of propositions and management plans for 15 Swedish national parks established between 1962 and 2018. The document analysis generated four main categories: historic/future and positive/negative perceptions of natural disturbances. The results indicate that there are positive perceptions concerning the inclusion of disturbance ecology in the management of national parks. However, there are also obstacles and challenges around natural disturbances within Swedish national parks. These obstacles are, in some cases, explained by practical implications such as the closeness to surrounding societies and in others explained by paradoxes such as visitors’ perceptions of national parks and the wilderness. 

There is still a need for catchment hydrological and transport models that properly integrate the effects of preferential flows while accounting for differences in velocities and celerities. A modeling methodology is presented here which uses particle tracking methods to simulate both flow and transport in multiple pathways in a single consistent solution. Water fluxes and storages are determined by the volume and density of particles and transport is attained by labeling the particles with information that may be tracked throughout the lifetime of that particle in the catchment. The methodology allows representation of preferential flows through the use of particle velocity distributions, and mixing between pathways can be achieved with pathway transition probabilities. A transferable 3-D modeling methodology is presented for the first time and applied to a unique step-shift isotope experiment that was carried out at the 0.63 ha G1 catchment in Gårdsjön, Sweden. This application highlights the importance of combining flow and transport in hydrological representations, and the importance of pathway velocity distributions and interactions in obtaining a satisfactory representation of the observations.

Risk management, justice (i.e. equity, fairness), and sustainability are tightly interconnected. This literature review investigates how and why justice is considered in flood risk management. 20 scientific documents published between 2015 and 2020 are analyzed in depth. The results show a distinction between distributive and procedural justice and a complicated judgment of fairness based on different philosophies that vary depending on the country, the type of flood, and the type of strategy studied. Equity is found to be an under-discussed topic compared to its importance. Justice in flood risk management matters because (i) the impacts of floods affect different people unevenly, (ii) the interest in equity evinced by public authorities influences societal transformation, and (iii) the perception of fairness matters at both individual and collective levels. This paper analyzes the link between justice considerations and sustainability in relation to four dimensions: social, ecological, spatial, and temporal. Social and spatial issues are the most commonly studied in the literature, while ecological and temporal ones have generally been overlooked, creating a research gap. The results are discussed in terms of their diversities of justice concepts, places of investigation, and types of strategies. Various justice frameworks are used, but since none of them focus specifically on the contribution of flood risk management to sustainability through justice considerations, a flood risk justice framework is developed, which translates into theoretical and practical tools. It is based on the considerations of both humans and non-humans into different spatio-temporal scales.

Large rivers are particularly under pressure due to multiple uses which often have severe impacts on ecosystems, or water quality and flow. Conflicting aims and a lack of integration and cooperation in planning and management are not beneficial to sustainable management. Important elements of integrated river basin management (IRBM) include both water quality aspects and floodplain and flood risk management. On the other hand, land use and land use planning are also both of great importance for sustainable river management. However, water management and land use planning are generally treated as two distinct issues in planning procedures and decision-making processes. Even water quality and flood risk issues are often handled by different authorities. Integrated management of transnational river basins is even more complicated and difficult. In Europe, there is a range of relevant Directives such as the Water Framework Directive, Floods Directive and Habitat Directive. This paper illustrates how these legal and planning instruments influence the IRBM of large rivers. It analyses the potential synergies of the goals outlined in the directives and various related measures. Coherent but also inconsistent aspects of IRBM are identified against six different dimensions: political intention, legal, geographical, management, socio-economic and sustainability. The analysis shows potentials for synergies but also potential inconsistencies. We show that directives must be carefully coordinated to ensure coherent management and that synergies and site-specific goals, such as target areas, are important for sustainable management. Possible methodologies are described. IRBM can be considered as one possible approach towards sustainable development by coordinating different policies.

Flood Risk Management (FRM) is a topic of growing importance. This is signiicantly illustrated by the European Directive on Flood Risk Management, which entered into force in 2007. FRM in general but also the Directive require integrated and interdisciplinary approaches and skills. Against this background the International Master Course "Integrated lood risk management" was developed and implemented under the EU project "Strategic Alliance for Water Management Actions" (SAWA). Six universities and 12 non-academic partners from ive European countries participated in the course. The paper describes the background and requirements of such an education ofer as well as its content and its pedagogical and organizational format. Furthermore, the implementation of the course and evaluation results are presented.

In Sweden there is a emergency planning zone and an indication zone that extends 12-15 and about 50 kilometers around the nuclear power plants. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority has proposed new emergency planning zones around the nuclear power plants. The Authority's proposal is that there should be a precautionary action zone and an urgent protective action planning zone extending approximately five and 25 kilometers around the nuclear power plants. The emergency planning zones are to have planning in place for evacuation, sheltering and iodine thyroid blocking. Furthermore, information and iodine thyroid blocking should be distributed in advance and warnings to the public should be pre-planned. The authority also proposes an extended planning distance of 100 kilometers around the nuclear power plants. Within the extended planning distance planning should be in place for relocation based on input from measurements of ground deposition, sheltering, and limited distribution of iodine thyroid blocking.

As it is proposed that there should be a plan for sheltering as far as 100 kilometers around the nuclear power plants, the proposed emergency planning zones will imply that a larger proportion of people than before will be affected by the authorities' preparatory work. The fact that there must be a plan for sheltering means that people who live in the area in question need to know that the security measure is applyed and what the benefits of it are. Sheltering is an important protective measure to keep people safe, but at the same time it is a voluntary measure, people in Sweden have the freedom to go outside even if authorities recommend otherwise during a nuclear power plant emergency. The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitude to a recommendation of sheltering in people living outside the current emergency planning zone but within the planned zones around the nuclear power plant in Forsmark. Questions that the study intends to answer is what it is that can cause people to break the recommendation and what authorities need to do to induce people to stay indoors.

The study has been carried out with a qualitative method with inductive approach. Data has been collected in spring 2019 through interviews with a focus group and a couple. The data material thus consisted of people's thoughts, assumptions and experience of how they would react and act in the situations that were dealt with during the interviews. The texts from the transcribed interviews have undergone qualitative content analysis and been interpreted through systematic categorization of themes and patterns in which both the manifest and the latent content have been taken into account.

The result of the study shows that people's attitude to a recommendation on shelter in place at a latent level is about managing uncertainty. At a specific level, it is the categories of government trust, knowledge and also Preparation and respons that affect the attitude to sheltering.

Research and policy into climate change adaptation responses has expanded from the technological, financial and institutional realms into the social realms. There is a growing interest in, and awareness of, political aspects of adaptation policy and planning. This paper considers three aspects of this development and the broad issue of how contemporary political values influences adaptation responses. Firstly, a case is presented for identifying the political values in climate change adaptation policies, plans and programmes. Secondly, a range of political values and ideologies associated with public sector and NGO climate change adaptation measures are identified from contemporary scholarship. Thirdly, a number of implications of adaptation policy stemming from these political values are identified.

This book examines the political themes and policy perspectives related to, and influencing, climate change adaptation. It provides an informed primer on the politics of adaptation, a topic largely overlooked in the current scholarship and literature, and addresses questions such as why these politics are so important, what they mean, and what their implications are. The book also reviews various political texts on adaptation. 

An emerging component of the adaptation discourse, embracing theory, practice and review, is that of the negative assessment of adaptation, namely, maladaptation. Political theories and concepts have been applied as one of these assessment tools, giving rise to a political critique of maladaptation. Such a critique contrasts with the more conventional scientific and technical assessments of adaptation policies, programs and practices. Key political themes in studies of maladaptation include resource management and allocations, decision making processes, equity and fairness, gender, power and influence, and Nature and ecology. Within the scholarship on the politics of maladaptation, overlapping frameworks can be identified. Critiques of adaptation have been applied to the preconditions of adaptation, adaptation decision making processes and institutions, and to adaptation outcomes. There are a number of conceptual challenges in undertaking political analyses of adaptation. In this article, we outline the origins of the adaptation and maladaptation concepts, we describe the key political issues, we identify the application of politics in the maladaptation discourse and identify the major political perspectives. Finally, we draw conclusions on the state of the maladaptation discourse.

Quick clay landslides are a special feature of Norwegian and Swedish geologies. Vibrations or small initial landslides can cause a quick clay layer to collapse and liquefy, resulting in rapid landslides with little or no time for evacuation, making them a real threat to human life. Research concentrating on damages due to landslides is scarce, and analyses of loss of human lives caused by quick clay landslides in the scientific literature are, to our knowledge, non-existing. Fatality quantification can complement landslide risk assessments and serves as guidance for policy choices when evaluating efficient risk-reducing measures. The objectives of this study were to assess and analyze available damage information in an existing data set of 66 historical landslide events that occurred in Norway and Sweden between 1848 and 2009, and access its applicability for quantifying loss of human life caused by quick clay landslides. Fatality curves were estimated as functions of the number of exposed persons per landslide. Monte Carlo simulations were used to account for the uncertainties in the number of people actually exposed. The results of the study imply that the quick clay fatality curves are non-linear, indicating that the probability of losing lives increases exponentially when the number of exposed persons increases. Potential factors affecting human susceptibility to landslides (e.g., landslide-, area-, or individual-specific characteristics) could not be satisfyingly quantified based on available historical records. Future research should concentrate on quantifying susceptibility factors that can further explain human vulnerability to quick clay landslides.

This study applies the protection motivation theory (PMT) in analysing homeowners’ flood risk perception and their risk reduction behaviour. A survey was completed by 1143 households in flood-prone residential areas in Sweden. Respondents were asked about their flood experience, their beliefs about their future private flood risk, their trust in public risk reduction and their perception of how responsibility for flood risk reduction is divided between different governmental and private institutions. This study finds that homeowners that have implemented private flood risk reduction (FRR) had to a larger extent been exposed to floods in the past and they considered public FRR to be insufficient. They also had a greater sense of responsibility and believed they had considerable knowledge on how to reduce their private flood risk. Respondents were also asked about their preferences for performing 15 specific private risk reducing measures. The most frequent answer given by homeowners was (1) they do not have the knowledge needed to evaluate the measures. (2) They have evaluated the measures and deemed that the measures will not be able to effectively reduce their private flood risk. To facilitate and exploit the flood risk reduction potential of households, this study identifies the following four areas of flood risk management that need to be better communicated to residents in vulnerable residential areas: Objective flood risk, response efficacy regarding private and public FRR measures, skills that can increase homeowners’ self-efficacy, and the actual responsibility distribution by law concerning private property flood risk reduction.

This study analyses empirical data on the direct damage impact of lake floods using insurance claims for 195 private buildings. A relationship between lake water levels and insurance payments is established, but the estimated economic effects are small. Building damage also occurs in fringe areas that are not reached by surface water, which indicates a complex interplay between several factors influencing the degree of damage. Large lake floods occur over an extended time span (months). Their duration, as well as possible wind effects, should be taken into account in flood risk assessment. The slow onset of lake floods facilitates implementation of private damage-reducing measures in addition to public mitigation efforts. Private damage-reducing measures decrease the risk of structural damage to buildings, easing recovery for homeowners and society as a whole. Insurance companies can gain from investing in public flood awareness programmes and by providing information to their insurance holders on how to reduce property vulnerability in emergency situations.

This study uses insurance claims as a proxy for property damage to analyse flood damage in Sweden between the years 1987 and 2013. The number of compensated insurance claims per year has risen rapidly during this period. As much as 70% of the claims are caused by flood damage occurring during the summer months June, July, and August, when intense rain with low predictability is common. To explore the damage trend a time series cross sectional analysis using four different fixed effect models was applied to the data set. Due to data scarcity, the time series had to be limited to 16years and contain a total of 304 damage observations. The potentially explanatory climate related factor extreme rain, defined as >6 mm/15min, and the socioeconomic factors gross regional product (GRP) per capita and housing stock were tested as explanatory factors. The GRP per capita and housing stock were found to be significant in two regression models. The estimated effect of extreme rainfall events exceeded the effects of GRP per capita and housing stock in the models. Extreme rain was robust to model specification and was found to have a highly significant impact on Swedish flood damage.

Denna rapport är slutrapporten från forskningsprojektet “Minskadeklimatrisker i framtidens bebyggelse och boende lärande från tidigarehändelser och samhällsplanering” som genomförts på Centrum förklimat och säkerhet mellan 2014 – 2018 och finansierats av StiftelsenLänsförsäkringsgruppens Forsknings- och Utvecklingsfond.Projektet har bestått av fem delstudier kring klimatriskhantering ochklimatanpassning i flera olika geografiska kontexter runt om i Sverige.Den studie av Göteborgsregionen som presenteras i denna rapport ärett sätt att skapa en syntes av de olika teoretiska och empiriskaingångarna i detta projekt genom en studie av den aktuellaproblematiken på en specifik plats.

Mikael Granberg som står som redaktör för rapporten är professor istatsvetenskap och föreståndare för Centrum för klimat och säkerhet.

Policy and practice at the local level is central in relating global standards and knowledge, national and regional climate change scenarios and policy decisions into particular climate action in a specific context (Bulkeley and Betsill, 2003; Elander et al., 2003; Lundqvist and Biel, 2007; Storbjörk, 2007; Storbjörk, 2010; Castán Broto and Bulkeley, 2012; van den Berg and Coenen, 2012; Romero-Lankao, 2012; Bulkeley et al., 2015). This means that cities, and their local governments, are central to understanding the implementation of international agreements (regimes), national and regional climate change policy. It needs to be stressed, however, that local governments are not just implementers of policy decision taken at higher levels of government. Local governments can, and perhaps have to, be forerunners in climate change policy and practice, as the sources and impacts of climate change are always local, national policy and international negotiations are not always successful, and national governments are not necessarily taking the lead (Gore and Robinson, 2009; Bulkeley et al., 2015; Bulkeley and Betsill, 2003). Local government action on climate change takes place in a specific local setting. It also takes place in a policy environment characterized by cross-cutting issues and cross pressure from government actors on international, national and regional levels, unfolding public sector reform, continuous policy development, and demands from businesses and citizens (Granberg et al., 2016). Accordingly, why and how cities act on climate change challenges is by no means a straightforward matter (Bulkeley et al., 2015) but, certainly, one that warrants critical research. This chapter focuses on local government low carbon action within the field of alternative energy production, zooming in on the organizational modes and on intermediary functions and actors in efforts aiming at low carbon transitions (cf. Bulkeley and Betsill, 2013; Hodson et al., 2013). In the Swedish context, low carbon transitions are of course connected to the ecological need to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, mitigating future risks and impacts. But they are also increasingly connected to the more economic arguments connected to the concept of a carbon or fossil bubble (Schoenmaker et al., 2015; Rubin, 2015). That is, the idea that any investments made in fossil fuel-based companies are investments that will add to GHC emissions and, perhaps even more important from this perspective, fail to produce any long-term economic profits. According to this perspective, all viable investments need to be directed towards no-carbon solutions, businesses and markets or there will be serious negative economic impacts when the carbon bubble eventually bursts. The central questions of this chapter are how capacity-building for low carbon transitions evolves at the interface between state and market and what specific role local governments take in this interface. As already indicated above, this perspective is guided by the concept of intermediation through institutional experimentation (cf. Luque-Ayala et al., Chapter 2, this volume; also, Hodson and Marvin, 2009, 2012; Hodson et al., 2013). Intermediaries here are defined as entities that connect, translate and facilitate flows between different parties. The focus of the chapter is, more precisely, on systemic intermediation on a network level involving more than two parties (Hodson and Marvin, 2009). The intermediary role can be divided into facilitating, configuring and brokering (Stewart and Hyysalo, 2008). Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to study local government efforts to build low carbon capacity by describing, critically examining and analysing local government climate action. In the case studied here, we can see the local government organization intermediating indirectly by trying to facilitate flows of both experience and capital between public and private actors but also directly as a market actor through a boundary hybrid organization facilitating connections between local government and market actors. A hybrid organization (cf. Koppell, 2006) is an organization that mixes value systems and logics of various spheres such as the state and the market (cf. Erlingsson et al., 2014; Montin, 2016). More precisely, the local government uses a 'green' investment fund, facilitating public-private networking and a municipal company in their efforts to advance a low carbon transition. The case studied follows the development of local government climate change action over the last decade in the Swedish city of Örebro. The city profiles itself as a forerunner in environmental issues and has formulated ambitious reduction targets. Sweden is often considered a pioneer in environmental governance (Lidskog and Elander, 2012), combining high ambitions at a national level, strong local government and robust policy guided by ecological modernization (Lundqvist, 2000; Zannakis, 2015). It has been stated that if Sweden still holds on to a leading international position in environmental governance it is probably due to activities at the local level (Granberg and Elander, 2007; Uggla and Elander, 2009; Hjerpe et al., 2014). Accordingly, Sweden provides an interesting context for studies of local government climate change action via market mechanisms, given its combination of strong local government with high (national and local) environmental ambitions. Arguably, drawing from this, if Sweden is to be perceived as a 'least likely' case for utilizing market mechanisms due to its strong and resourceful local government (cf. Flyvbjerg, 2006), then local government action in Sweden becomes a critical case worthy of critical inquiry. In the sections that follow, this chapter elaborates aspects integral to the case studied. First, it briefiy presents the Swedish local government system and its development, highlighting the presence of strong local governments and their central role in the Swedish government system. This is followed by a presentation of Swedish policy development within the fields of climate change, energy generation and GHG mitigation, again highlighting the central role given to Swedish local government. The chapter ends with a set of conclusions aimed at an integrated analysis of the Swedish government system, national policy developments and the local component of the case study showing how these three components are, in fact, one integrated multilevel case. It is clear that the local government uses a form of institutional experimentation that mixes value systems and logics of both state and market in its strive to becoming a 'climate smart' city.

Denna rapport utgör en delrapportering inom projektet ”Samhällsresiliens i Sverige: Styrning, Sociala nätverk och lärande” finansierat av Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap (MSB) och koordinerat av Risk and crisis research centre (RCR) vid Mittuniversitetet. Syftet med rapporten är att skapa förståelse för relationen mellan begreppen klimatanpassning och resiliens samt att ge en bild av hur det lokala klimatanpassningsarbetet hanteras i svenska kommuner (primärt i samhällsplaneringen) ur ett resiliensperspektiv. Denna text är en av fem inom forskningsprojektet där de andra fyra fokuserar på begreppen resiliens, community och ”community resilience”; resiliens i praktiken; flyktingskap och migration; samt terrorism och våldsbejakande extremism utifrån ett resiliensperspektiv.

This paper examines Australia's national policies for adapting to climate change impacts. Recent developments in research funding, institutional capacities and extreme events have resulted in a greater interest and level of activity in adaptation policy. Based on a historical review of national policy, adaptation policy is considered within a political frame and political values, especially the values of neoliberalism, within adaptation policy are identified. Of interest are the implications of these values for the outcomes of adaptation policy, with attention given to the problem of maladaptation.

This book analyzes climate change from a societal risk perspective, considering IPCC data, harm reduction, and global impact. Climate change is a globalised agent of social disruption whose impacts will worsen societal inequities and inequalities around the world. For some unfortunate societies already precariously exposed, climate change will tip them into societal collapse. Devastation will also occur to many ecological values in which all societies are embedded. But effective social action can limit the extent of these costs and losses. Ultimately, only social transformation can limit the social and environmental harms of climate change. But what does this mean? To what extent is society at risk? Are such risks particularized and restricted to specific segments and localities? Or is society at risk in a more universal way? Climate risks are re-shaping the practices of households, communities, governments and businesses. In this way, climate risks are a dynamic element in social change and social processes. Risk holds a mirror to society, revealing who and what is prioritized, recognized and valued. It also provides a reckoning of our perceived strengths, vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This volume examines how we understand the societal risks of contemporary and forecast climate change impacts—and those risks inherent in dealing with these impacts. We know that society is fashioning a new global climate—but climate change is also re-fashioning society; this book explores this dynamic process and considers its implications for future society.

Cities are increasingly impacted by climate change, driving the need for adaptation and sustainable development. Local and global economic and socio-cultural influence are also driving city redevelopment. This, fundamentally political, development highlights issues of who pays and who gains, who decides and how, and who/what is to be valued. Climate change adaptation has primarily been informed by science, but the adaptation discourse has widened to include the social sciences, subjecting adaptation practices to political analysis and critique. In this article, we critically discuss the just city concept in a climate adaptation context. We develop the just city concept by describing and discussing key theoretical themes in a politically and justice-oriented analysis of climate change adaptation in cities. We illustrate our arguments by looking at recent case studies of climate change adaptation in three very different city contexts: Port Vila, Baltimore City, and Karlstad. We conclude that the social context with its power asymmetries must be given a central position in understanding the distribution of climate risks and vulnerabilities when studying climate change adaptation in cities from a climate justice perspective.

To understand the situation of climate risk management we need to understand the priorities and politics of the wider policy context. The framing of potentially incompatible policy issues is important to take into account when analysing policy processes. In this article, we focus on two policy issues aiming at local adaptation to global forces: facilitating city competiveness and adapting to the impacts of global climate change. Global climate change always manifests itself in the local arena, which thus becomes a crucial site for adaptation to the risks connected to climate change. Adaptation has to correspond with the city policy agenda to build the attractive city through waterfront housing as a means to strengthen its competitiveness in a globalised economy. This article focuses on the relationship between pursuing competitiveness through waterfront housing and the needs to adapt to climate change in terms of contemporary and future flood risks.

Including stakeholders in environmental model building and analysis is an increasingly popular approach to understanding ecological change. This is because stakeholders often hold valuable knowledge about socio-environmental dynamics and collaborative forms of modeling produce important boundary objects used to collectively reason about environmental problems. Although the number of participatory modeling (PM) case studies and the number of researchers adopting these approaches has grown in recent years, the lack of standardized reporting and limited reproducibility have prevented PM's establishment and advancement as a cohesive field of study. We suggest a four-dimensional framework (4P) that includes reporting on dimensions of (1) the Purpose for selecting a PM approach (the why); (2) the Process by which the public was involved in model building or evaluation (the how); (3) the Partnerships formed (the who); and (4) the Products that resulted from these efforts (the what). We highlight four case studies that use common PM software-based approaches (fuzzy cognitive mapping, agent-based modeling, system dynamics, and participatory geospatial modeling) to understand human-environment interactions and the consequences of ecological changes, including bushmeat hunting in Tanzania and Cameroon, agricultural production and deforestation in Zambia, and groundwater management in India. We demonstrate how standardizing communication about PM case studies can lead to innovation and new insights about model-based reasoning in support of ecological policy development. We suggest that our 4P framework and reporting approach provides a way for new hypotheses to be identified and tested in the growing field of PM.

Our changing climate foretells a future with continued large forest fires and extreme weather events, such as devastating storms, heavy rainfall, flooding, heat and drought. This project focuses on preparedness for this kind of events taking place while large, spread-out, and often uncertain, numbers of visitors are roaming the Swedish countryside – not seldom voluntarily or involuntarily of the grid. The conditions for crisis communication is changing with social media, apps and digitalization of information. Obstacles and possibilities for digitalization in the tourism sector in relation to the specific conditions of nature-based tourism needs more attention.

Tourists are a vulnerable group in crisis situations, since they are not acquainted with neither the place nor how to find information about the crisis and how to keep themselves safe. In parallel, the Swedish tourism sector is constantly growing, with new trends as ”vacation at home” and increasing numbers of international tourists visiting Swedish nature, and nature-based tourism is believed to see a significant increase in post-pandemic travel, as more visitors seek uncrowded destinations. A crisis can be devastating in nature tourist areas. Despite this, the tourism sector is often viewed as peripheral and is in some cases not even included in crisis preparedness planning.  

The aim of this study is to generate new knowledge and methods for incorporating the Swedish countryside tourism sector in crisis management and communication. Crisis management and risk preparedness and awareness, and collaborations and relations between the tourism sector and other crisis management actors (municipalities and public authorities) are in focus, as well as the nature tourists themselves.

Rainfall-induced natural disasters rank first among all natural disasters in Central America. Due to the geographical conditions of the Central American region, it is common that two or more countries are struck by the same rainfall event, for example Hurricane Mitch in 1998 affected the entire Central American region, killing more than 18000 people. As a consequence, Central American countries have started to promote regional policies and programs that aim for better preparation and response to these events, including disaster management cooperation. However, cooperation poses several challenges that may hinder its goals. In order to analyse these challenges, we present analysis in this paper of the current policy and legal institutions as well as the main challenges that may hinder international disaster management cooperation in Central America.

Denna rapport, som redovisar del 2 av projektet Social sårbarhet för klimatrelaterade hot, syftar till att ta fram ett generellt sårbarhetsindex för Sverige, men också specifika index för tre olika naturhot: översvämning (älv respektive kust), skogsbrand och ras/skred/erosion. För dessa specifika index har sårbarheten kombinerats med en bedömd exponering för de tre olika hoten. Analysen är gjord på kommun- och RegSO-nivå.

How can the concrete meaning of the ambiguous and theoretical concept of sustainable development (SD) be defined and implemented, without losing sight of its fundamental principles? This study introduces a theoretical framework that supports studies of SD implementation in the context of strategic disaster risk management, by defining what SD implies with regard to planning procedures. The framework is based on the procedural SD principles of participation and integration. It was originally developed for, and has shown great value in, the field of water resource management. In-depth interviews with senior risk management researchers indicate that the framework is also applicable to and valuable for disaster risk management studies. To illustrate the application of the framework, a study of the EU Floods Directive in Sweden is summarized with the framework as the basis for the analysis.

Stakeholder participation is considered a key principle for sustainable development in the context of natural resource and disaster risk management. Participatory modelling (PM) is an interactive and iterative process in which stakeholder involvement is supported by modelling and communication tools. Planning and decision making for sustainable development (SD)integrate three substantive dimensions social, ecological and economic. The procedural dimension of SD, however, is equally important, and here we see great potential for PM. In this study, we evaluate five PM research projects against criteria for the procedural dimension of SD. This provides a basis for identifying key issues and needs for further research into PM for SD. While the cases show great potential, especially for supporting knowledge integration, learning and transparent handling of values and perspectives, they indicate a particular need to develop PM in respect of organizational integration. This issue is closely connected to the possibility of effectively implementing PM in practice.

Introduction: Injuries due to accidents are an underlying cause for a large proportion of the number of health care visits in Sweden every year. According to statistics from the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden (socialstyrelsen.se) between 1308,25 and 1405,66 health care visits per 100.000 residents are generated each year for the period 2001-2014 due to accidents, and falling is the largest underlying category. Falling can in turn be studied through a number of subcategories, where fall from equipment on playground is one of them, and this is the subcategory studied in this paper. Statistics from the National Board of Health and Welfare show an increase of the number of health care visits per 100.000 residents in Sweden due to this category during the period 2001-2014, despite the fact that since 1999 there are European standards with the purpose of raising the safety of playgrounds. The statistics also show that in Sweden there are large regional differences in injury prevalence for this category of accidents, which is the reason why this became the focus of this study.

One of the reasons this is an important area for injury prevention work is that it’s a shared societal responsibility, another reason is that the studied population has the largest statistical life expectancy left, so injuries that affect their health can also affect the future wellbeing of the society.  The municipalities’ work regarding this area is dictated by European Standards to ensure the safety of playgrounds. Beyond the specifications for the equipment itself, the standards dictate that a series of inspections of varying degrees are preformed throughout the year to ensure the standards are met.

Aim: The aim of this study is to examine if there are any identifiable and differing factors in the way that municipalities work with playgrounds and playground safety, both practically and theoretically, based on if they are located in a region with high injury prevalence or in a region with low injury prevalence of this type of injury.

Method: The study was designed as a qualitative interview study where representatives of 11 different municipalities were interviewed with the purpose to map out how they worked with playgrounds and playground safety within their municipality. The data collected was then analysed using thematically/ phenomenological content analysis to see if any differing factors between the two groups could be detected.

Results: No major unambiguous differences were discovered between the two compared groups included in the study, but certain tendencies could be found in the material. Four themes were uncovered, enabling factors for the practical work, hindering factors for the practical work, enabling factors for the theoretical work and hindering factors for the theoretical work. These themes in turn produce a number of categories and subcategories. The results show a wider range of both hindering and enabling factors of both the practical and theoretical work in the municipalities from regions with high injury prevalence, compared to the municipalities from regions with low injury prevalence.

Conclusion: The result indicates that there are differences in how the municipalities from regions with low injury prevalence work regarding playground safety compared to municipalities from regions with high injury prevalence. However, further research will be required to fully uncover and explore which these factors are.