Building a culture of risk is an essential objective within the integrated risk management paradigm. Challenges arise both due to increasing damage from natural hazards and the complexity in ...interaction of different actors in risk management. In Switzerland, the Strategy for Natural Hazards Switzerland, aims to establish efficient protection of the population, natural resources and material goods. This requires that all responsible actors are recognized and aware of their role in risk management. However, previous studies indicate that risk awareness and preparedness levels are rather low within the general population. For the first time, our nationwide survey provides empirical data on factors that influence individual risk preparedness in the general population. Multivariate analysis shows that taking responsibility for natural hazard risk prevention is not only related to personal experience and perceived probability of hazard events, but also crucially influenced by social forms of communication and integration. Therefore, we conclude that social capacity building needs to include such factors in order to render integrated risk management strategies successful.
► Novel research framework and practical tool for mapping hotspots for nearby recreation areas around settlements. ► Landscape suitability analysis with a unique dataset featuring (a) nearby ...recreation preferences of people and (b) their declared geographical presence. ► Allows inferences about people's landscape-related recreation desires and whether these desires are fulfilled on their visited locations. ► Allows practical planning recommendations.
Green space around settlements is increasingly important for recreation. However recreation managers have limited spatially explicit data on recreation potential around cities, and representative field data are expensive to gather. To support the identification of hot spots for nearby recreation we developed a GIS model based on a representative survey (N=1622). The model was tested for Swiss towns with 10,000–100,000 inhabitants. Respondents indicated (1) outdoor activities, (2) time spent, (3) type of transportation used, (4) preference for given landscape properties, and (5) preferred locations on maps with a cell size of 1km2. Generalized linear models were applied to link people's declared presence/absence in the 1km2 cells to “objective” landscape properties of the same cells. The models explain 41–65% (adj. D2) of the variance in the data. Many of the “objective” landscape characteristics found to significantly influence nearby recreation in the model match with “subjective” preferences, i.e. distance to residence, open water, forests, summits with overview and avoidance of major roads. Old people are “subjectively” more sensitive to landscape characteristics than young people, and indeed they visited locations with more distinct landscape properties. In contrast, persons reaching their locations by foot are “subjectively” more sensitive to landscape characteristics than mobile people (access by car, bicycle), but they go to close-by locations with less distinct landscape characteristics. As most people reach their locations by foot, we conclude that measures to improve green space should be concentrated within 5–10min walking or biking distance in order to be effective.
River landscapes are complex social-ecological systems with many benefits for people. A common challenge is to integrate social values in river planning and management. In particular, there is a ...paucity of research on the meaning and significance of place in river recreation and how people feel emotionally and spiritually connected to river landscapes. Based on five European case studies, this study compares different methods and approaches for mapping sense of place in river landscapes and subsequently addresses the question of how these studies can inform participatory processes. The case studies are set in diverse geographical, institutional and policy contexts, including the planning and evaluation of river restoration projects in Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and Spain and the monitoring of the effects of newly constructed river dams in the Netherlands. This comparative study is a first step in understanding the breadth of analytical and spatial approaches that can be used to assess sense of place in river landscapes and their implications for resilient river landscape planning and management.
Participatory planning that includes interest groups and municipal representatives has been presented as a means to deal with the increasing difficulty to reach arrangements due to progressively ...scarce land resources. Under dispute is whether collaborative forms of planning augment social capital or whether they might actually cause the destruction of such a valuable social commodity.
In this paper we focus on trust in institution as a specific dimension of social capital because we argue that this is one of the effects the convenors of such participatory planning procedures are most interested in. We pursue a pre-post design and survey advisory group members of five on-going river-related planning processes in Switzerland. Controlling for generalised trust, we investigate how trust in institutions is affected over time by the quality of such processes and the degree of participation they offer. We find that generalised trust is highly correlated with initial levels of trust and so is process quality. Particularly the latter finding challenges the usually assumed direction of causality according to which process quality influences trust building. Additionally, we find a positive (non-significant) effect of process quality on changes in trust, while a higher degree of participation rather seems to hinder trust building. We suppose this indicates that under the conditions of limited time and resources more attention should be paid to how to improve the quality of participatory processes than putting much effort in increasing the degree of participation.
•We investigate how trust in institutions is affected by participatory planning.•We focus on the degree of participation and the quality of the participatory process.•The degree has a negative effect while quality improves trust, but not significantly.•Initial trust levels likely affect the perception of participatory planning processes.
The need for social-ecological systems to become more adaptive is widely acknowledged. Social effects generated by participatory planning have been claimed to contribute to this transformation, but ...little empirical evidence is available that backs up or opposes this notion. We aimed to offer some insights regarding questions as to which social effects are formed in participatory planning processes and at what costs, and to then discuss their contribution to the transformation toward more adaptive social-ecological systems based on empirical evidence. Consequently, we investigated the social effects of participatory planning processes, including the social learning processes leading to them. We conducted semistructured interviews with members of advisory groups involved in river engineering projects in Switzerland. Our results indicate that participatory planning processes can somewhat contribute to maintaining and spreading knowledge and social capital among individuals in a planning group, and this may help them collectively deal with new and complex challenges. However, it is costly in terms of time and patience to build up ecological knowledge, communicative capacities, and trust, with the latter also eroding over time. Overall, we conclude that the contribution of participatory planning via positive social outcomes to the transformation toward adaptive capacity social-ecological systems is smaller than optimists might hope. However, other forms of planning very likely result in no social effects or even the destruction of social capital. Participatory planning, in contrast, can offer the conditions for relational and cognitive learning contributing to the maintenance of social and political capital. Based on our results, we suggest shifting resources from technical to communicative aspects of planning processes and implementations. We recommend that project leaders provide stakeholders with firsthand information about projects, explain rationales and data behind decisions, and clearly communicate that stakeholders do not have decision making competence to support participants in finding their roles in similar participatory planning settings.
The term “risk” is connoted with divergent meanings in natural hazard risk research and the practice of risk management. Whilst the technical definition is accurately defined, in practice, the term ...“risk” is often synonymously used with “danger”. Considering this divergence as a deficiency, risk communication often aims to correct laypersons’ understanding. We suggest to instead treat the variety of meanings as a resource for risk communication strategies. However, there is however to date no investigation of what laypersons’ meanings of risk actually comprise. To address this gap, we examine the meanings of risk by applying a social representations approach within a qualitative case study research design. Results of the study among inhabitants of Swiss mountain villages show that differences in meanings were found according to hazard experience and community size. We found commonly shared core representations and peripheral ones. We conclude with suggestions on how to make usage of the knowledge on SR in risk communication.
With the increasing emergence of renewable energy sites in Switzerland, new impacts on the landscape can be observed. Above the Alpine village of Bellwald, a pilot project testing avalanche barriers ...as a possible site for photovoltaic installations was inaugurated in 2012. This study focused on social aspects of the project and asked questions about local residents' and tourists' perceptions of and attitudes toward the installations. Its findings reveal that the new elements are not perceived as a drastic intrusion into the landscape, because the view was already affected by the avalanche barriers, which are accepted because of their vital protective function. No significant difference was found between residents' and tourists' evaluation of the new photovoltaic installations. However, different factors influenced the perceptions of these 2 groups. In both groups, conceptions related to place played an important role in the evaluation of possible photovoltaic sites.
► While capacity building is a term increasingly used within policies, it is yet to evolve in scientific discourses. ► We define different types of capacity and then propose to distinguish between ...interventionist and participatory approaches. ► This framework is used to elaborate links to the topics of social vulnerability, risk communication and education as well as risk governance.
Social capacity building for natural hazards is a topic increasingly gaining relevance not only for so-called developing countries but also for European welfare states which are continuously challenged by the social, economic and ecological impacts of natural hazards. Following an outline of recent governance changes with regard to natural hazards, we develop a heuristic model of social capacity building by taking into account a wide range of existing expertise from different fields of research. Particular attention is paid to social vulnerability and its assessment, as well as to risk communication and risk education as specific strategies of social capacity building. We propose to distinguish between interventionist and participatory approaches, thus enabling for a better understanding of existing practices of social capacity building as well as their particular strengths and weaknesses. By way of conclusion, we encourage more research on social capacity building for natural hazards in the European context which at present is highly diverse and, at least in parts, only poorly investigated.
In the last decades, prosperous regions in Europe have experienced a tremendous rate of urbanization. In spite of considerable research efforts in the last decades, the socio–psychological ...implications of urbanization are still poorly understood. This paper aims to systematically determine the influence of urbanization on the relationships between inhabitants and their residential environment including their place attachment, place-satisfaction, civic participation, and proximity behavior. To achieve these goals, standardized cross-sectional questionnaires were administered to random samples (N = 1200 each) of the residential population in four study areas in Switzerland, which represent rural, peri-urban, suburban, and urban stages of urbanization. Statistical analysis revealed that place attachment was mainly influenced by the inhabitants’ good experiences in the place, their sense of local community, their local social contacts, and the level of urbanization. A structural equation model (SEM) further showed that the degree of urbanization of the setting had a direct negative influence on place attachment, while place attachment appeared to be a key moderator of, and a main driver for, place-satisfaction, civic participation, and proximity behavior. A key to reducing negative impacts of urbanization is therefore to offer optimal opportunities for access to appropriate public places
Context
The implementation of landscape-management decisions is often blocked because actors disagree in their perception of the problem at hand. These conflicts can be explained with the concept of ...problem framing, which argues that actors’ problem perspectives are shaped by their interests. Recent literature suggests that social learning through deliberative processes among actors enables shared solutions to complex landscape-management conflicts.
Methods
To examine these assumptions, a participatory process on integrated water-resource-management in a Swiss Alpine region was systematically evaluated using a quasi-experimental intervention-research design. The involved actors’ problem perspectives were elicited before and after the participatory processes using qualitative interviews and standardized questionnaires. Furthermore, a standardized survey was sent to a sample of regional residents (N = 2000) after the participatory process to measure the diffusion of actors’ social learning to the wider public.
Results
The data analysis provided systematic evidence that a convergence of involved actors’ problem perspectives, which were found to differ considerably before the intervention, had taken place during the participatory process. Furthermore, it determined diffusion effects of actors’ social learning to the wider public in terms of its attitude towards participatory regional planning.
Conclusions
The findings confirm the expected mechanism of social learning through deliberative processes and demonstrate it as a promising approach to implementing landscape-management decisions successfully. The catalyzing role of shared interests among actors suggests that landscape-management decisions should be implemented by participatory integrated planning on the regional level, which would require a new, strategic role of regional institutions.
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