In recent years, effort has been put into developing various forms of climate visualization to create opportunities for people to explore and learn about local climate change risks and adaptation options. However, how target audiences make sense of such climate visualization has rarely been studied from a communication perspective. This paper analyses how Nordic homeowners made sense of a specific climate visualization tool, the VisAdapt™ tool. Involving 35 homeowners from three cities in 15 group test sessions, this study analyses the interpretive strategies participants applied to make sense of and assess the relevance of the visualized data. The study demonstrates that participants employed a set of interpretive strategies relating to personal experience and well-known places to make sense of the information presented, and that critical negotiation of content played an important role in how participants interpreted the content.

Climate change impacts, ageing infrastructure and the increasing imperviousness of cities all raise enormous challenges to and call for new ways of planning for sustainable urban stormwater management. Especially, closer collaboration among a diverse set of actors involved has been pointed to as critical to enable the development of holistic and flexible approaches. However, the shift towards inclusive forms of planning has been slow, and characterized by technical and institutional lock-ins. Against this background, this study scrutinizes the challenges and developments perceived as central for improving stormwater planning, and analyzes how formal and informal institutional change could contribute to enhancing sustainability in this sector. Building on an analysis of data from workshops, interviews and a survey with Swedish planners and water managers, we suggest new strategies for integrating stormwater concerns into planning processes, overcoming silo structures, fostering cocreation cultures, and securing the continuation and implementation of stormwater management through various planning stages.

Visual Water (http//visualwater.se) är en interaktiv webbaserad visualiseringsplattform som syftar till att stötta svenska kommuner i arbetet för en hållbar dagvatten- och skyfallshantering. Plattformen är utformad för att svara mot centrala utmaningar som lyfts av svenska dagvattenaktörer som befinner sig i skiftet bort från de rörbundna nätverksidealen för avledning av dagvatten och strävar efter en högre grad av grön-blå och öppna lösningar i stadsmiljön.

This essay discusses the concept of usefulness of research for climate change adaptation. Based on prior research and stakeholder interactions with policymakers and practitioners in the Nordic countries, we contend that critical issues related to the usefulness of adaptation research seem less associated with content (i.e. research outputs), but rather centre around the efforts made to design and communicate research, that is, to put research at the service of society and make the case for adaptation on the political agenda. This, we argue, to some extent mirrors the situation and political context in the Nordic countries, where adaptation in many locations still is an issue in its infancy, not firmly established on the political agendas, and where working procedures are not yet institutionally settled. In this context, science is considered and sometimes used as a discursive tool to make the case for adaptation. Based on the calls for research that inspires, raises hope and helps to raise the issue of adaptation on the political agendas, we elaborate the role of honest issue advocates for researchers in the field of adaptation science.

This briefing informs on ongoing research within the project “Increasing Nordic homeowners adaptive capacity to climate change: research of opinions and development of a web-based tool” (In hac Vita) financed by Nordforsk. The project is subordinated the Nordic Centre of Excellence for Strategic Adaptation Research (NORD-STAR) which aims at bridging the gaps between adaptation science, practice and policy, and at helping public and private stakeholders at all levels to improve strategy development and decision-making. Since this is ongoing research, results and discussions presented in this text should be seen as preliminary.

Involving stakeholder perspectives in research driven climate change vulnerability assessments are important to improve their usefulness in adaptation planning. However, facilitating interaction among heterogeneous actors requires that divergent viewpoints, interests and knowledge claims can be negotiated. This study aims at building an understanding of how participatory vulnerability assessments can be improved by discussing facilitating factors for co-production of knowledge identified within a Swedish research project. The project, conducted between 2007 and 2012, involved participants from various municipal departments, national agencies and research and aimed at assessing vulnerability of two case municipalities. Participants’ perceptions of the co-production process and the project design were collected via stakeholder dialogues, qualitative individual and group interviews and evaluations throughout the project. Results were analysed with help of evaluative criteria on two levels. The study identified following facilitating factors for co-production; develop common goals for all stakeholder interaction, include expectations from all participants in the process planning, unite around what project outcomes are realistic, meet all participants individually before any group processes, hold the co-production process active, focus the discussions around relevant local cases, relate identified local vulnerabilities to practical examples, create a unifying form for group discussions, and be flexible and adjust discussion formats after what stimulates participants interests. Considering these facilitating factors when designing participatory vulnerability assessments can improve the process.

Förväntade konsekvenser av klimatförändringar såsom översvämningar, jordskred och biodiversitetsförluster har utvecklats till viktiga klimatpolitiska frågor. Förståelsen av hur hantering av klimateffekter kan organiseras är dock begränsad. Kunskapsluckor existerar även kring hinder och möjligheter för implementering av klimatanpassning. Därför har få anpassningsåtgärder hittills realiserats. Denna studie syftar till att bidra med kunskap för att fylla ovanstående luckor, genom att analysera hur hantering av klimatsårbarhet och anpassning är integrerade i andra frågor, sektorer och nivåer i svensk offentlig policy. Analysen stöds av två sammanlänkande delstudier. Den första kartlägger genom dokumentanalyser, hur anpassning institutionaliserats på nationell och lokal nivå. Den andra analyserar praktiska tillvägagångssätt till, och åsikter om, hantering av anpassning i två svenska kommuner. I den senare delstudien har kvalitativa intervjuer och intressentdialoger genomförts med kommuntjänstemän från olika sektorsförvaltningar. Studien visar att anpassningsfrågan är undermåligt integrerad i svensk offentlig policy. Hinder för horisontell integrering på det lokala planet inkluderar en brist på tvärsektoriell koordinering och kunskapsuppbyggnad, ett svalt lokalpolitiskt intresse och olika möjligheter för sektorsförvaltningar att påverka beslutsfattande. Detta får till följd att klimatsårbarhet övervägs sent i kommunal och regional strategisk planering. Det försvårar också möjligheten att finna övergripande kommunala mål. På den nationella nivån påverkas den horisontella integreringen negativt av en avsaknad av statliga riktlinjer och fördelning av ansvar. Hinder för vertikal integrering inkluderar en brist på matchning mellan nationell och lokal policynivå på grund av en upplevd avsaknad av nationella mål, riktlinjer, finansiering och kunskapsunderlag. Detta gör det svårt att prioritera bland åtgärder, och att utvärdera framsteg. Analysen av policyintegrering ger även insyn i mer generella faktorer som antingen hindrar eller främjar implementering av klimatanpassning. De få statliga och regionala riktlinjer som hittills utvecklats i Sverige, har främjat horisontell och vertikal integrering av anpassning. Detta indikerar att nationell styrning är viktigt för att underlätta implementering av klimatanpassning. För att stärka policyintegreringen föreslås därför att nationella anpassningsmål utvecklas, att en nationell anpassningsfond instiftas, att en tjänst inom kommuner för att koordinera klimatanpassning etableras och att en större vikt ges till klimatsårbarhet och anpassning i proaktiv ekonomisk planering.

The need to develop sustainable stormwater management is intensifying due to climate impacts and urban densification. Such complex planning processes require insights into disparate issues, connecting heterogeneous actors. While many decision-support tools are developed to facilitate such planning, research assessing their usefulness is requested. This study introduces and assesses one such ICT-tool; the Visual Water platform, aiming to support sustainable stormwater planning in Swedish municipalities. The study aims to identify critical points to consider for developers of related decision-support tools and to detangle requirements and tradeoffs in making them relevant and user-friendly, building on test-sessions with Swedish practitioners. Results show that the platform responds to challenges within municipal planning as outlined by Swedish practitioners. However, though the platform content is considered relevant, its application in real-world planning is perceived as somewhat unclear. The paper discusses ideas for how sustainability-related decision-support tools better can respond to user demands.

Climate change communication on anticipated impacts and adaptive responses is frequently presentedas an effective means to facilitate implementation of adaptation to mitigate risks to residential buildings.However, it requires that communication is developed in a way that resonates with the context of thetarget audience, provides intelligible information and addresses perceived barriers to adaptation. In thispaper we reflect upon criteria for useful climate change communication gained over a three year developmentprocess of a web-based tool – VisAdaptTM – aimed at increasing the adaptive capacity amongNordic homeowners. Based on the results from continuous user-testing and focus group interviews weoutline lessons learned and key aspects to consider in the design of tools for communicating complexissues such as climate change effects and adaptive response measures.

Homeowners are important actors in implementing climate change adaptation. However, individual socio-cognitive constraints related to risk perceptions and perceived capacity may hamper their action. Climate change visualization could help planning and management overcome such constraints by offering accessible information to increase individual adaptive capacity. Such visualization would require that information be perceived as legitimate and credible by emphasizing the diversity of impacts and alternative options, and simultaneously as salient by highlighting context-specific risks and measures. Based on focus group interviews and test sessions, we analysed how homeowners made sense of and discussed a specific interactive planning support tool – VisAdapt™ – integrating climate scenarios, local risk maps, and adaptation measures for various house types. The tool combines precise and general depictions in visualizing climate change to support adaptation among Nordic homeowners. Results reveal that the tool spurred reflection on concrete local risks and various adaptation actions. The tool was less successful in providing a framework for assessing the magnitude of anticipated changes, making these appear as generally small. Visualization aspects that are important for spurring reflection on adaptive action are specifying various climate parameters, relating climate impacts to established practices for managing weather risks, and emphasizing diverse concrete short- and long-term measures.

Strategy-making is key for realizing sustainable urban water management. Though general barriers and factors for change have been identified, fewer studies have assessed how different conditions influence municipalities’ strategy-making ability and, thus, how to plan strategically given these conditions. Healey’s strategy-making notion was applied to delimit a study of how size, finances, development path, and water organization influence Swedish municipalities’ strategy-making ability for urban water. Three municipalities, Laxå, Norrköping, and Skellefteå, with different, yet overlapping, institutional and socio-economic conditions were analyzed using semi-structured interviews, a stakeholder workshop, and document analyses. The study finds that even though key events have filtered urban water issues into the political agenda, this has not induced systemic change, except where the role of water management in urban development has been specified, i.e., has aligned dispersed planning processes. Organizational setup influences the strategy-making ability by prescribing not only when water issues are raised, but also what system perspective should be applied and what actors that should be enrolled. Judging from the three cases, size, finances, and development path do matter for strategy-making ability, but they appear to be less important than the organizational setup. Departures for improving strategy-making under different conditions are discussed.

Citizen participation is obligated in municipal planning but is often criticized because of its inadequate implementation. To increase the usefulness of citizen participation and the involvement of underrepresented groups, online participatory tools (OPTs) have attracted attention, in particular, on topics related to climate change. Although many OPTs have been developed and are becoming more widely used, assessments of their usefulness in real-world planning remain scarce. This study aimed to disentangle prospects and pitfalls of this still novel way of practicing citizen dialogue. Specifically, we apply criteria derived from related literatures to assess a mainstreamed OPT in Norrkoping, Sweden. The CityPlanner (TM) tool was discussed with citizens and planners using focus group methodology and semi-structured individual interviews. Moreover, citizen contributions in four applications of the OPT were analyzed. The results reveal that the biggest challenges for citizen dialogues on planning in general and on climate change, in particular, appear not mainly rooted in the technical functions of the OPT. Rather, problems lie in (i) the lack of municipal strategy for citizen participation and in applying OPTs, (ii) a disparagement in citizens abilities to contribute to forming robust and sustainable cities, and (iii) in diverging views about the role of citizen contributions. This is reflected in how the OPT is used. While the examined OPT shows potential, the results indicate that visualized contexts for planning might be too scant to be entirely meaningful, and it lacks mechanisms for feedback. Not using the full potential of the OPT makes citizens less engaged and risks to adversely affect learning and citizens contributions to solving complex issues.

Climate-related risks, vulnerabilities, and impacts are increasing in cities, illustrated by precipitation-driven pluvial floods. Post-event analyses can aid in reducing urban flood risks, but knowledge gaps exist regarding how welfare services and premises are impacted and can be adapted. This study analyses an extreme precipitation-driven event generating extensive flooding in Gavle, Sweden, in 2021. The objective is to increase knowledge about how municipal welfare services are vulnerable to pluvial floods, and of appropriate actions towards improving the response capacity and building more resilient welfare premises and operations. The study shows that the Swedish weather warning system generally worked well, but the analysed property companies lacked strategies and equipment to evade flooding in their properties. Flood damages in 60 analysed buildings were generated by different causes, demonstrating the importance of contemplating the vulnerability of welfare buildings when conducting flood risk assessments. Although the flood event did not generate deaths or serious personal injuries, the study identified impacts on welfare service operations in both the short and long terms. The event increased learning on climate adaptation but did not trigger adaptive action. Identified keys for adaptation include prioritizing premises to protect, knowledge of flood protection equipment, insurance company requirements, and updated emergency plans.

Transforming cities into low-carbon, resilient, and sustainable places will require action encompassing most segments of society. However, local governments struggle to overview and assess all ongoing climate activities in a city, constraining well-informed decision-making and transformative capacity. This paper proposes and tests an assessment framework developed to visualize the implementation of urban climate transition (UCT). Integrating key transition activities and process progression, the framework was applied to three Swedish cities. Climate coordinators and municipal councillors evaluated the visual UCT representations. Results indicate that their understanding of UCT actions and implementation bottlenecks became clearer, making transition more governable. To facilitate UCT, involving external actors and shifting priorities between areas were found to be key. The visual UCT representations improved system awareness and memory, building local transformative capacity. The study recommends systematic assessment and visualization of process progression as a promising method to facilitate UCT governance, but potentially also broader sustainability transitions.

Transformative adaptation is described as decisive to mitigating risks and to seizing opportunities from a changing climate, requiring new ways of governing, planning and collaborating, alongside technical innovations. Building municipal capacities for citizen participation in adaptation is important to enabling such transformational changes but remains challenging. By applying capacities distilled from the literature on Urban Transformative Capacity and Participatory Climate Governance in a Swedish municipal case, this study aims to disentangle key limits for, and innovations to strengthen, local capacities for citizen participation in transformative climate adaptation. Interviews with municipal officials, focus groups with citizens, and document analyses were employed to analyse how climate adaptation and citizen participation are governed, and how these policy areas are interacting and could be bridged. The study points at conditions that foremost prevent bridging established policies and practices on adaptation and citizen participation, stemming from the different logics and distribution of responsibility within, and lacking collaboration between, these separated policy areas. The analysis concludes that potential ways to enable citizen participation in adaptation involve: broadening the geographical boundaries of deliberations; redefining the target groups for participation; co-designing participation targets, approaches and evaluation; and developing new ways to analyse and act on the patterns in the citizen inputs received.

The production of contextualised assessments of local climate change vulnerability serves to improve their usefulness in urban planning. For this purpose, a cross-sectoral participatory approach combining local and academic knowledge is vital. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of how such assessments can be effectively facilitated. Through the elaboration of a framework for joint knowledge production, the paper develops and applies ex-post evaluation criteria to analyse how the set-up and design of participatory assessments affected the identification of local climate vulnerability in two Swedish urban areas. These cases included a series of researcher-led stakeholder dialogues involving participants from various municipal departments, national agencies and research institutions. The results demonstrate that the project set-up affected the joint knowledge production by unifying relevant competences. However, occasionally, it also created conflict. The design of the dialogues influenced the understanding of local vulnerability by broadening the perspective on risks and opportunities and by creating common visual representations of abstract issues. The paper concludes that when facilitating participatory cross-sectoral vulnerability assessments, the consideration of two aspects is important. First, intermediaries, in the form of maps, interactive techniques and metaphors, can bridge organisational divides if designed with clear and negotiated aims. Second, the project set-up can spur motivation if the initial group composition is substantiated and the process is flexible enough to allow for relevant detours.

Though managing vulnerabilities posed by climate change calls for effective strategies and measures, its challenges have hitherto not been fully understood. In Sweden, municipalities have recently started incorporating vulnerability management into their political and administrative agendas. This study discusses such experiences and explores how institutional determinants may influence adaptive capacity within a local case study area, to illustrate emerging challenges and opportunities for Swedish municipalities in managing climate vulnerabilities. Specifically, formal institutional structure and the use of knowledge are analysed, concluding that vulnerability management often is focused on technical and reactive fixes, due to limited cooperation between local sector organisations, lack of local co-ordination, and an absence of methods and traditions to build institutional knowledge. Even so, opportunities, such as a high capacity to examine risks to technical systems and important establishments which in turn facilitates protection of technical infrastructure exposed to climate variability and change, also exist.

International policy development and expected climate change impacts such as flooding, landslides, and the extinction of sensitive species have forced countries around the Baltic Sea to begin working on national climate adaptation policies. Simultaneously, the EU is building both a central and a macro-regional Baltic Sea-wide adaptation strategy to support national policy developments. However, it yet remains unclear how these EU strategies will complement each other or national policies. This article analyzes the constraints and opportunities presented by this new institutional interplay and discusses the potential of the forthcoming EU strategies to support national policy. It does so by mapping how adaptation is institutionalized in two case countries, Sweden and Finland, and is organized in the two EU approaches. The vertical institutional interplay between scales is analyzed in terms of three factors: competence, capacity, and compatibility. Results indicate institutional constraints related to: risks of policy complexity for sub-national actors, an unclear relationship between the two EU approaches, an overly general approach to targeting contextualized climate change vulnerabilities, and a general lack of strategies to steer adaptation. However, there are also opportunities linked to an anticipated increased commitment to the national management of adaptation, especially related to biodiversity issues.

The insurance industry is important for facilitating climate change adaptation. Insurance companies involvement is, however, influenced by national adaptation policy. The literature suggests that especially policy factors - government interventions, political priorities and public-private cooperation - and market factors - cost offset, cost mitigation, planning flexibility and business opportunities - shape private actor approaches. To increase the understanding of insurance company involvement in adaptation, this study examines how insurance companies approaches are influenced by policy and market factors in three countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The study found that the policy factors tested significantly shaped the approaches of the companies assessed, while market factors currently appear less influential. This is likely due to the absence of climate risk and adaptation in political debates and among insurance policyholders. The study discusses the potential role of the insurance industry in adaptation governance and suggests how barriers facing insurance companies could be overcome.

Climate change is expected to intensify weather related risks affecting the existing buildingstock. To increase the understanding of how the capacity among individual house ownersto mitigate such risks can be improved, this study analyses the compliance between anticipatedclimate risks and existing adaptation guidelines to house owners in Denmark,Norway and Sweden. The assessment of climate risks is based on a review of climatechange and building research literature. The compilation of available guidelines is basedon an assessment of information from government authorities, municipalities as well asinsurance companies and organizations. Results reveal a high compliance between availableguidelines and risks for already experienced weather risks, while somewhat new risksfrom anticipated climate change impacts are less covered. To better facilitate adaptiveresponses, further adaptation guidelines would earn from explicitly targeting house owners,as well as highlighting relationships between anticipated climate impacts, existingweather risks and individual management practices. Public–private cooperation is identifiedas an important means for making information more accessible and easily available.

Socio-economic and climatic stresses affect local communities’ vulnerability toflooding. Better incorporation of socio-economic stress in local vulnerability assessments isimportant when planning for climate adaptation. This is rarely done due to insufficientunderstanding of their interaction, in both theory and practice. The omission leads to criticalweaknesses in local adaptation strategies. This study analyses how socio-economic stressinteract with climatic stress and shape local vulnerability to flooding, and how such stresscan be more efficiently managed within local government organisations. A frameworkcontaining potential stresses was developed and applied to investigate how socio-economicstress affected exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity in two case studies, usinginterview and group exercise transcripts. Cases consisted of major development projects intwo Swedish municipalities, Gothenburg and Lilla Edet. The cases were similarly exposedto climatic stress but differed in socio-economic context, and previous professional climatechange experience. Fierce foreign competition and market structure were seen as the twomost significant socio-economic stresses influencing local vulnerability to flooding throughshaping the ‘local’ worldview. In falling order sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacitywere seen to be influenced by the socio-economic stresses. Two approaches to efficientlyincorporate climatic and socio-economic stress in local management are proposed: shiftingthe focus of vulnerability assessments towards future sensitivity of people and settlements,rather than on the current infrastructure’s sensitivity, would facilitate their use in planningand by ‘mainstreaming’ adaptation into long-term strategic planning vulnerability would bemore dynamically addressed and periodically revised.

Rooted in different theories and focusing on different elements of the socio-ecological fabric, climate transitions and transformations are conceived to have various forms. Although these literatures recognize the significance of learning and boundary spanning, systematic reviews of the role of knowledge in climate transitions are lacking. We review how targets of transformation, functions, types, and intermediaries of knowledge are conceptualized in five types of literature. We highlight that knowledge has a role as: the motor of transition in Transition Management literature, a consultant supporting transition in Transformational Climate Adaptation literature, an emancipator of transition in Transform Political and Economic Systems literature, the beacon guiding transition in Social-Ecological Transformation literature, and an Ad Hoc Committee motivating transition in Grassroots Transitions literature.

Climate change and urban densification pose major challenges to the built environment. In Swedish cities, fluvial and pluvial floods risk being aggravated, necessitating adaptation efforts to make the build environment more resilient. A recent governmental inquirystates that owners are primarily responsible for adapting their property, and that the existing built environment is particularly tricky. Property owners often lack tools and approaches to strategically adapt to climate risks. This paper presents and tests a structured approach intended for large property owners to assess and visualize flood vulnerability in both individual buildings and the property portfolio, and organizational adaptive responses. The approach was developed and tested using the municipal housing company Hyresbostäder in Norrköping, Sweden as case. The study builds on workshops with staff, a systematic flood vulnerability mapping of 575 buildings, and in-situ inspections of the 85 most vulnerable buildings. The vulnerability and need for adaptation of individual buildings were visualized on a map, and adaptive avenues were identified. The approach was found useful for identifying the most vulnerable buildings, concrete adaptation measures and five broad adaptation avenues: riskfocused adaptation investments, area-focused adaptation, regular inspection and maintenance, informed collaboration and tenant dialogues. The property owner’s transformative capacity was improved by creating a shared vision, empowerment and learning, innovation capacity, gaining overview supporting transformative leadership and external cooperation likely to contribute to meeting SDGs 13 and 11. In further studies the approach will be tested by other large property owners under limited research support.

How to organize citizen participation in planning is continuously debated. The amount of Online Participatory Tools (OPTs) to facilitate inclusive and efficient participation has increased. While studies have assessed their functionality, usability and effectiveness in planning, they have rarely analyzed OPTs beyond single-cases, targeted tools that are widely used or assessed how OPTs affect broader values of participation. Targeting this absence, this study analyzes how ten applications of a widely used OPT, CityPlanner™, affect the normative, substantive and instrumental values of citizen participatory planning in Swedish cities. By analyzing 1,354 citizen proposals and interviewing urban planners, we find that citizens more extensively submit proposals and initiate debates on planning when using the OPT. Results suggest a more even age and gender distribution among proposal users than with conventional methods, facilitating normative values of participation. The OPT was generally applied early in planning and generated high-quality inputs. Our results, however, nuance previous analyses by also emphasizing the importance of place-specificity of OPT applications and of joint participation strategies among departments. Key for OPT development includes the need to improve their ability to analyze overarching trends among inputs.

Sedan klimat- och sårbarhetsutredningen presenterade sitt betänkande år 2007 har omfattande samhällsvetenskapliga forskningsinsatser riktats mot hur offentliga aktörer och myndigheter styr, planerar och arbetar med klimatanpassning och klimatomställning. Analytisk kompetens inom flera för klimatanpassning centrala områden har byggts upp vid ett flertal lärosäten och inom flera sektorsmyndigheter.

Det   är   alltför  tidskrävande  att   göra   en   heltäckande  och   rättvisande  bild   av   dessa forskningsaktiviteter, men denna inlaga från Centrum för klimatpolitisk forskning, CSPR, vid Linköpings universitet i samarbete med Lunds universitets centrum för studier av uthållig samhällsutveckling, LUCSUS, gör valda nedslag inom tre huvudområden i vilka kunskapen ökats genom svensk anpassningsforskning. De tre huvudområdena för kunskapsökning är: Klimatanpassning  på  offentliga  aktörers  agenda,  Verktyg  för  att  stimulera  och  stödja klimatanpassning och Klimatanpassning och stadsplanering.

Det är vår förhoppning att detta ger en tillräckligt god bild av hur kunskapsläget ökar snabbt och att vi ser tecken på att ökningstakten tilltar. Vi vill också på förhand be om ursäkt för de texter och den forskning som vi på grund av begränsade resurser inte fick med i vår framställning.

This poster presents the design and implementation of the web-based visual analytics tool VisAdapt which allows houseowners in the Nordic countries to assess potential climate related risk factors that may have an impact on their living conditions, and to get an overview of existing guidelines of how to adapt to climate change and extreme weather effects.

The Web-based visualization VisAdapt tool was developed to help laypeople in the Nordic countries assess how anticipated climate change will impact their homes. The tool guides users through a three-step visual process that helps them explore risks and identify adaptive actions specifically modified to their location and house type. This article walks through the tool's multistep, user-centered design process. Although VisAdapt's target end users are Nordic homeowners, the insights gained from the development process and the lessons learned from the project are applicable to a wide range of domains.

För att möta utmaningarna med ett förändrat klimat är minskade utsläpp av växthusgaser och anpassning till klimatförändringens ofrånkomliga effekter olika sidor av samma mynt. Det är av största vikt att samhället gör sitt yttersta för att förhindra ytterligare uppvärmning av jordens atmosfär. Det är också nödvändigt att se de förändringar som redan inträffat och sannolikt kommer att inträffa innan de samlade åtgärderna för utsläppsminskning får full effekt. Klimatanpassning är därför ett nyckelperspektiv som motiveras av faktiska förändringar i vår omvärld och av krav på bl.a. kommuner att ta hänsyn till klimatförändringar. Kunskap om klimatförändringarnas effekter och hur dessa kan hanteras är definitivt inte bara viktigt för kommunala förvaltningar, utan också för andra myndigheter, olika samhällssektorer och branschorganisationer, privata organisationer och företag, samt för privatpersoner.

Som stöd i detta arbete finns mängder av resurser i form av kvantitativa dataunderlag som t.ex. klimatmodelleringar, karteringar, GIS-verktyg, sofistikerade beräkningsverktyg och avancerade konsekvensmodeller. Även lagkrav som t.ex. Plan- och bygglagen (PBL) och olika aktörers erfarenheter av händelser som krävt akuta och mera långsiktiga åtgärder, t.ex. översvämningar, utgör också en form av stöd. Däremot saknas ett strukturerat angreppssätt för hur man kan organisera en klimatanpassningsprocess som integrerar olika typer av kunskap och perspektiv och har förmåga att sortera i informationsmängderna och prioritera de viktigaste frågorna. Denna handbok syftar till att fylla detta tomrum genom att tillgängliggöra resultat från de senaste årens forskning kring integrerade sårbarhetsbedömningar och anpassningsprocesser.

Vår ambition är att detta ska vara en självinstruerande, användarvänlig och relativt enkel handbok för, i första hand, kommuner men även andra organisationer som ser ett behov av ett strukturerat angreppssätt för att möta klimatförändringarna. Verktygslådans grundidé är att en grupp representanter från olika förvaltningar och ansvarsområden träffas i en serie möten (förslagsvis fyra möten à ca. tre timmar) för att med hjälp av verktygen diskutera och sammanställa den kunskap som finns utspridd inom kommuner och identifiera områden där det behövs mera information.

Vi anser att det är mycket viktigt att anpassningsarbetet är förankrat bland flera typer av relevanta aktörer som kan bidra med olika perspektiv och erfarenheter. Detta är nödvändigt för att förstå den mångfald av faktorer och komplexitet som bidrar till att sårbara situationer kan uppstå. Ett holistiskt synsätt är också en förutsättning för att identifiera åtgärder som bör prioriteras för att hållbara anpassningsstrategier ska kunna implementeras.

Fokus i verktygslådan ligger därför på att skapa en arbetsprocess som systematiskt identifierar viktiga faktorer, tillgängliga handlingsalternativ och möjliga ansvariga aktörer. Detta lägger i sin tur grunden för en övergripande anpassningsstrategi med goda chanser för genomförande av nödvändiga åtgärder. Processen bör således omfatta en arbetsgrupp med representanter för både ”hårda” och ”mjuka” förvaltningar som träffas regelbundet under en begränsad tidsperiod och utifrån sina skilda perspektiv sammanställer en bild av kommunens sårbarhet. Tillsammans skapar processledaren och deltagarna ett fruktbart samtal med hela kommunens bästa i fokus, på kort och lång sikt.

Within the scope of this project, tools for conducting systematic and integrated climate vulnerability and sustainability assessments have been developed. Two municipalities in the lower Göta Älv catchment were selected as study cases. Together with representatives from key municipal departments and national government agencies, the interdisciplinary research team designed and conducted a co-production process. Results obtained using the developed tools demonstrate that conducting such a systematic assessment of the current situation and potential impacts of climate change adaptation measures would contribute to synergies between adaptation strategies and other policy arenas. Our recommendation for enhancing the capacity of local vulnerability management in Sweden is to shift foci in four fields: from static analysis of climate vulnerability to a dynamic approach to social vulnerability, from a sectorwise fragmented approach to integrated management, from a focus on technical fixes and physical measures to institutional adaptation measures, and, finally, from sustainability-blind adaptation investments to long-term sustainable climate adaptation measures. The processes and mechanisms for succeeding in this requires that knowledge be produced, shared, and managed in partly new ways, allowing stakeholders both inside and outside local government administration to voice and synergise their concerns and solutions.

As experiences of implementation of climate change adaptation are accumulating, there is a need toincrease the understanding of the potential negative consequences of adaptation actions that mightoccur, and the capacity of research to assess them. Maladaptation used in this context has remainedelusively defined and sparingly used, and therefore difficult to apply. Based on a literature review, wediscuss the conceptual boundaries of maladaptation and how it can be used to analyse negativeoutcomes of adaptation and propose a refined definition. We present a typology of maladaptation thatdistinguishes between three types of maladaptive outcomes – rebounding vulnerability, shiftingvulnerability and eroding sustainable development, and argue that maladaptation can be defined as a resultof an intentional adaptation policy or measure directly increasing vulnerability for the targeted and/orexternal actor(s), and/or eroding preconditions for sustainable development by indirectly increasing society’svulnerability. We note that the recognition of adaptation as an intentional action and the importance ofsetting clear spatial and temporal boundaries, as well as thresholds, are key to analysing negativeoutcomes.

In a global context, the outlook for the Nordic region is relatively favourable, given its relatively stronger resiliency to climate change impacts in comparison to many other geo-political regions of the world. Overall, the projected climatic changes include increases in mean temperatures and in precipitation, although regional variations can be significant. The countries’ robust institutions and economies give them a strong capacity to adapt to these changes. Still, the need for adaptation to the changing climate has been and still is substantial, and in most of the region, there has been progress on the issue. This paper explores the potential for Nordic cooperation on adaptation; specifically, for the development of a regional adaptation strategy. In particular, it addresses two questions (1) What is the current state of adaptation in the Nordic countries? and (2) What are the potential benefits and weaknesses of a Nordic strategy for adaptation? In order to answer these two questions, this paper examines reviews the current national adaptation policies of each Nordic country and discusses the challenges facing a Nordic strategy and finally assesses the potential for common Nordic adaptation policy and further cooperation.

This CSPR briefing report is a summary of an international workshop hosted by the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research and Department of Thematic Studies: Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University in Norrköping on 21 November 2011. The workshop brought together some 20 scholars interested in the role of science in democratic societies. In the following report we present the analytical aim, setup and outcomes of the workshop. We also reflect upon promising ideas for future research that were discussed during the workshop deliberations. With this brief summary we would like to thank all participants for their thoughtful input to the workshop theme. While the report is intended to reflect the rich and vibrant debate that took place in the CSPR conference room this sunny November day, it is of course difficult to fully represent the diversity of views and perspectives presented by our workshop participants. Hence, any arguments  (and  mistakes)  forwarded  in  this  briefing  remain  those  of  the  authors. Finally,  we  would  also  like  to  acknowledge  the  workshop  support  provided by  the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research and the Department of Thematic Studies: Water  and  Environmental  Studies.  By  positioning  our  research  environment  in  an ongoing scholarly debate and by identifying promising project ideas for spring 2012, we hope that time and money was well spent.

Workshop aim

The role of science in democratic societies has been widely debated in recent years. In an age of food scares such as the BSE crisis in the UK and environmental mega-risks such as nuclear disasters and anthropogenic climate change, scholars and practitioners alike have suggested that scientific experts need to test the validity of their knowledge claims outside the laboratory in order to gain public trust and legitimacy. The aim of this workshop  is  to  take  stock  of  this  scholarly  debate  by  discussing  its  theoretical foundations and practical implications. We use climate change as our main empirical case, although the debate extends well beyond this policy domain. What do calls for more  democratic  modes  of  climate  science  and  expertise  entail?  What  ideals  of democracy  do  they  rest  upon?  What  can  we  learn  from  practical  efforts  to  engage publics  and  stakeholders  in  the  making  and  interpretation  of  climate  science?  By bringing  together  scholars  at  the  intersection  of  science  and  technology  studies, environmental  studies  and  democratic  theory  the  workshop  sets  out  to  identify promising  ideas  for  future  research  that  may  advance  the  science  and  democracy research agenda.

Objectives: Heatwaves are having a disproportionate impact on the elderly population, as demonstrated by pronounced mortality and morbidity. The present study aimed to explore elders subjective experiences of heat impacts and adaptive strategies. Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 19 elderly Swedes were conducted, focusing on their experiences of the extremely hot summer of 2018. Results: Most informants suffered during the heatwave, although some found it pleasant. The readiness to implement adaptive measures was generally high among the healthiest, who were able to avoid excessive heat and adjust their daily routines. In contrast, those highly dependent on care from others had limited options for avoiding the heat, and little capacity to take up adaptive measures. Discussion: With heat becoming an increasing problem, it is important to adjust elderly care so that the most vulnerable elderly people can avoid excessive heat exposure.

Klimatförändringar leder till ökade och nya risker i samhällen. Översvämningar från skyfall är en sådan risk som redan genererar stora skador, vilka förväntas öka markant i framtiden. Inte minst riskerar många villaägare att drabbas av översvämningar och de har också tillskrivits en central roll i Sveriges klimatanpassningsarbete. Trots detta har inga tidigare svenska studier undersökt specifikt hur villaägare påverkats av översvämningar bortom skadekostnader och ytterst få har undersökt hur de har hanterat eller ser på sitt ansvar att förebygga översvämningsrisker. Bristen på sådan kunskap kan leda till mindre informerade beslut om klimatanpassning. Genom intervjuer med villaägare som drabbats av översvämningar undersöker denna studie hur villaägare; ser på översvämningsrisker, har påverkats materiellt och hälsomässigt, har hanterat situationen, och ser på ansvar att förebygga nya skador. Studien påvisar tydliga effekter på villaägares välbefinnande, att få villaägare har implementerat åtgärder, tendenser att underskatta risker för översvämningar samt att ansvaret för förebyggande åtgärder skjuts över till andra aktörer.

With global warming, heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense, particularly in northern latitudes, where the pace of warming is faster. Due to its northern location, Swedish society has been built primarily to manage a cold climate, and is less prepared to manage heat, which the 2018 heat wave demonstrated. While young children are recognized as vulnerable to heat, and are reliant on preschool care, few studies have examined how the young and vulnerable people are cared for during heat waves in the institutional preschool setting. This exploratory study demonstrates how children in preschool environments are vulnerable to heat, in order to identify management needs by assessing experienced impacts and responses to the 2018 heat wave in Sweden. Empirically, the study builds on a survey completed by 33 unit heads responsible for 77 preschools in the focused municipality, and qualitative interviews with five educators and five parents, as well as temperature measurements in three selected preschools. This study shows that: (i) children and educators are exposed to both high indoor and outdoor temperatures in the preschools; (ii) both children and educators were affected by the heat wave in the preschools, and their sensitivity is deeply intertwined due to their dependency relationship, rendering a form of double sensitivity to heat; and (iii) the preschool heads and educators were unprepared to sufficiently cope with the heat wave, and organizational strategies for managing heat were lacking, indicating weak adaptive capacity. The significant exposure to heat in preschool environments, the dual sensitivity of children and preschool educators, and the low organizational readiness resulting in uncoordinated responses to reduce heat stress suggest a pronounced vulnerability to heat waves in preschools.

Agriculture is often described as one of the sectors most vulnerable to future climate change, and its vulnerability is commonly assessed through quantitative indices. However, such indices differ significantly depending on their selected indicators, weighting mechanisms, and summarizing methods, often leading to divergent assessments of vulnerability for the same geographic area. The use of generic indicators might also lead to a loss of information about contextual risks and vulnerabilities. This may reduce the perceived usefulness of indices among stakeholders.

This study analyses the role of indicators in assessing agricultural vulnerability to climate change. It analyses how indices are understood and used through three separate focus group sessions, involving agricultural experts professionally active in south-eastern Sweden. The paper presents how agricultural practitioners perceive a set of common vulnerability indicators, presented through a visualization tool, and their relevance, logic, and applicability to assess and address vulnerability to climate change. The results of this study contribute with perspectives on (i) the relevance and applicability of the commonly used generic indicators for agricultural vulnerability (ii) the assumed correlation of indicators with climate vulnerability and (iii) the identification of missing vulnerability indicators. The study finds that commonly used vulnerability indicators are perceived hard to apply in practice, as definitions and thresholds are often depending on the geographical and temporal scale, as well as the regional context. Additional exposure factors that were identified included extreme events, such as heavy precipitation and external factors such as global food demand and trade-patterns. Further, participants expressed that it is important to include indices that combine effects of multiple climatic changes and in-direct factors, such as policies, regulations and measures. Inherent complexities, context dependencies, and multiple factors should further be included, but entail difficulties in developing suitable indicators. These factors must be addressed by a broader set of qualitative and quantitative indicators, and greater flexibility in the assessment methodology. The interactive vulnerability assessments presented in this paper indicate a need for an integration of quantitative and qualitative aspects and how such indicators could be developed and applied.

Municipal actors are increasingly expected to consider climate adaptation in operative and strategic work. Here, digital environments can support strategic decisions and planning through visual representations of local climate risks and vulnerabilities. This study targets visualization of vulnerability to heat and floods as a means of supporting adaptation action in preschools, primary schools, caring units, and municipal residential buildings in Norrkoping, Sweden. Workshops with sector leaders identified vulnerability indicators used as a basis for collecting, calculating and representing self-assessed vulnerability of individual units and buildings. Informed by user inputs, a map-based interactive visual tool representing resulting vulnerability scores and risk maps was developed to support (1) planners and sector leaders in strategic prioritization and investments, and (2) unit heads in identifying adaptation measures to reduce local flood and heat risks. The tool was tested with adaptation coordinators from targeted sectors. The study finds that the tool made it possible to overview climate risks and adaptation measures, which arguably increases general governance capacity Allowing yearly updates of set scores, the tool was also found to be useful for monitoring how vulnerability in the municipality evolves over time, and for evaluating how adaptive efforts influence calculated risks.

The complexity of climate information, particularly as related to climate scenarios, impacts, and action alternatives, poses significant challenges for science communication. This study presents a geographic visualization approach involving lay audiences to address these challenges. VisAdapt (TM) is a web-based visualization tool designed to improve Nordic homeowners understanding of climate change vulnerability and to support their adaptive actions. VisAdapt is structured to enable individual users to explore several climate change impact parameters, including temperature and precipitation, for their locations and to find information on specific adaptation measures for their house types and locations. The process of testing the tool included a focus group study with homeowners in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden to assess key challenges in geographic visualization, such as the level of interactivity and information. The paper concludes that geographic visualization tools can support homeowners climate adaptation processes, but that certain features, such as downscaled climate information are a key element expected by users. Although the assessment of interactivity and data varied both across countries and user experience, a general conclusion is that a geographic visualization tool, like VisAdapt, can make climate change effects and adaptation alternatives tangible and initiate discussions and collaborative reflections. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background. Serious games are gaining increasing prominence in environmental communication research, but their potential to form an integrated part of participatory research approaches is still strikingly understudied. This is particularly the case for applications of interactive digital formats in research on environmental challenges of high complexity, such as climate adaptation, which is a specifically suitable case as it involves complex interaction between climate systems and society, but where the response also involves trade-offs with potentially negative – maladaptive – outcomes.

Intervention. This article presents the Maladaptation Game, which was designed to facilitate dialogue about potential negative outcomes of agricultural climate adaptation.

Methods. We conducted test sessions with agricultural stakeholders in Finland and Sweden, and analysed quantitative and qualitative, audio-recorded and transcribed, material for opportunities and challenges related to dialogues, engagement, interactivity and experienced relevance.

Results. The qualitative analysis of recorded dialogues shows that the Maladaptation Game has potential to support dialogue by challenging players to negotiate between options with negative outcomes. The gameplay itself presents opportunities in terms of creating engagement with options that provoke disagreement and debates between players, as well as interactivity, that players reflected upon as quick and easy, while challenges were related to the experienced relevance, in particular the options provided in the game, and its general framing.

Conclusions. The results indicate a need for complementary approaches to this type of game but also suggest the importance of moderation when the game design is aimed at creating dialogue around a complex environmental challenge such as agricultural climate adaptation.

Enhancing legitimacy and effectiveness of climate policy requires improved interactions between and within administrative levels, the latter including horizontal public private coordination. In the heavily decentralized Swedish urban planning process, developer dialogues are used to enhance collaboration and thereby increase the climate-proofing of new housing districts. In practice, municipalities struggle with identifying what types of collaborative arrangements best support the realization of climate goals, in light of strong property developer interests and bargaining. Based on qualitative interviews with coordinating planners, this paper illustrates lessons from repeated collaborative practices in six Swedish municipalities. We analytically characterize a shift between first- and second-generation developer dialogues. In first-generation dialogues, coordinators attempted to ensure jointly agreed upon principles, priorities and commitments, which instead resulted in troublesome negotiations. In second-generation dialogues, coordinators used mixed approaches to ensure more competitive and climate-proof urban development by mechanisms of indirect command and control. Principles of collaborative interaction were abandoned to regain control over urban planning. This documented shift contrasts heavily with theoretical assumptions from the climate governance literature, where enhanced collaboration assumedly increase effectiveness of climate policy implementation. Acknowledging the practical implications of using developer dialogues to climate-proof urban planning in different settings is critical for improved policy implementation.

While climate adaptation planning and implementation is gradually increasing across the globe, there is a documented gap between what is done and what needs to be done. Researchers have documented climate adaptation efforts at the strategic policy-making level and in urban planning practices, but less is known about how cities navigate the intricacies of climate adaptation policy-progression in the existing built environment. Contributing to the analytical unpacking of how to reduce policy implementation gaps, this paper targets ten Swedish early adopter cities seeking to proactively and pragmatically progress with their climate adaptation efforts from policy-formation to implementation in the urban built environment. Qualitative analyses of interviews and policy-documents illustrate that the cities, despite their early adopter status, struggle with stepwise policy-progression and get stuck when approaching implementation. Ensuring appropriate climate adaptation in the existing urban built environment becomes problematic due to current legal distribution of responsibilities, diverse land-ownership patterns and path-dependent structures and configurations within cities that are dense, intricate and tightly developed over of time. We identify three pragmatic action-strategies adopted to create solution space and allowing the cities to proceed: event-driven, target-driven and opportunity-driven climate adaptation, each having their advantages and disadvantages for ensuring urban robustness, as well as different requirements for up-scaling. The analysis enables important lessons of climate adaptation policy-progression, the promise and pitfalls of stepwise adaptation and the necessity of pragmatic muddling that is required to make climate adaptation work in the existing urban built environment.

While strengthening public–private interplay is expected to improve the climate profile of urban planning in terms of mitigation and adaptation, less is known about the practice of such new interactive modes of governing. The paper critically examines the role, benefits and limitations of extended public–private interplay in developing a new housing district in Sweden. The developer dialogue between municipal officials and property developers confirms mutual interests, shared understandings and the added value of interacting. However, the closer the dialogue comes to settling agreements, the more difficult it gets for municipal officials to steer the process and its outcomes in favor of climate proofing. Complications with adapting to the new interactive setting means that municipal officials balance between acting as facilitators and/or regulators and property developers between acting as partners, competitors and/or defenders. Refining steering-strategies for sustaining commitments and securing formal agreements are pertinent for using public–private interplay to climate-proof urban planning.