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Local governments are highly relevant actors when it comes to mitigating climate change impacts such as flooding. Not only do they need to implement regulatory and infrastructural measures, but they also need to promote complementing self-protective measures at the household level. The individual motivation of municipal actors to pursue climate adaptation can be important for the implementation of such measures, obviously alongside several other factors, such as financial and administrative issues. A questionnaire survey with a non-random sample of 77 local government actors from 15 of the 16 German federal states was conducted, focusing on potential key factors concerning the motivation to implement adaptation measures against hazardous impacts of heavy rain. Additionally, the perceived effectiveness and realizability of selected municipal structural measures and of activation measures promoting self-protective behavior were collected. It can be shown that the perceived realizability of adaptation measures as well as knowledge of risk and adaptation may be key factors in the motivation to implement both activation and structural measures, while motivation and implementation are only partially related. The results imply a need for the evaluation of activation measures and a need for further research on the motivation of municipal actors to implement activation measures.
Jana Werg; Torsten Grothmann; Stefan Löchtefeld. Fostering Self-Protection against Impacts of Heavy Rain at the Municipal Level. Sustainability 2021, 13, 7019 .
AMA StyleJana Werg, Torsten Grothmann, Stefan Löchtefeld. Fostering Self-Protection against Impacts of Heavy Rain at the Municipal Level. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (13):7019.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJana Werg; Torsten Grothmann; Stefan Löchtefeld. 2021. "Fostering Self-Protection against Impacts of Heavy Rain at the Municipal Level." Sustainability 13, no. 13: 7019.
We report the results on factors for self-protective behavior against weather extremes such as extreme heat events, drought, and heavy precipitation. Our research draws on the Model of Private Proactive Adaptation to Climate Change (MPPACC). We developed a survey instrument incorporating the main aspects of the MPPACC and other factors from related research works that are assumed to explain why some people show self-protective behavior while others do not. The interview survey was conducted with a non-random sample of 210 respondents from three Philippine cities, namely Baguio, Dagupan, and Tuguegarao. The results reveal the importance of adaptation appraisal, including the perceived feasibility of self-protective measures, the perceived adaptation knowledge, and, with limitations, the perception of actions taken by neighbors or friends. We also show that perceptions of past weather trends are closely linked to risk perception but are only partly corroborated by weather station data. Implications for fostering self-protective behavior are making use of time windows right after an extreme weather event and focusing on enhancing adaptation appraisal.
Jana Lorena Werg; Torsten Grothmann; Michael Spies; Harald A. Mieg. Factors for Self-Protective Behavior Against Extreme Weather Events in the Philippines. Sustainability 2020, 12, 6010 .
AMA StyleJana Lorena Werg, Torsten Grothmann, Michael Spies, Harald A. Mieg. Factors for Self-Protective Behavior Against Extreme Weather Events in the Philippines. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (15):6010.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJana Lorena Werg; Torsten Grothmann; Michael Spies; Harald A. Mieg. 2020. "Factors for Self-Protective Behavior Against Extreme Weather Events in the Philippines." Sustainability 12, no. 15: 6010.
While most climate change vulnerability assessments focus on regional or city-levels, this paper studies villages and their different forms of vulnerability vis-
Torsten Grothmann; Maximilian Petzold; Patrick Ndaki; Vincent Kakembo; Bernd Siebenhüner; Michael Kleyer; Pius Yanda; Naledzani Ndou. Vulnerability Assessment in African Villages under Conditions of Land Use and Climate Change: Case Studies from Mkomazi and Keiskamma. Sustainability 2017, 9, 976 .
AMA StyleTorsten Grothmann, Maximilian Petzold, Patrick Ndaki, Vincent Kakembo, Bernd Siebenhüner, Michael Kleyer, Pius Yanda, Naledzani Ndou. Vulnerability Assessment in African Villages under Conditions of Land Use and Climate Change: Case Studies from Mkomazi and Keiskamma. Sustainability. 2017; 9 (6):976.
Chicago/Turabian StyleTorsten Grothmann; Maximilian Petzold; Patrick Ndaki; Vincent Kakembo; Bernd Siebenhüner; Michael Kleyer; Pius Yanda; Naledzani Ndou. 2017. "Vulnerability Assessment in African Villages under Conditions of Land Use and Climate Change: Case Studies from Mkomazi and Keiskamma." Sustainability 9, no. 6: 976.
Communication measures can raise protective behavior regarding climate change, natural hazards, and other health risks. For being effective in such communication, we designed a five-steps methodology and applied it to health-protective behavior during heat extremes in Austria. The five steps are as follows: (1) target group selection, a multicriteria assessment (MCA) to identify the most important target group(s)—this led to the identification of mobile health care nurses as our primary target group; (2) target group analysis by interviews to identify drivers of and barriers to protective behavior—for the mobile health care nurses, the drivers were their climate change perceptions, control beliefs, perceptions of role models, and extent of thinking about heat and health, and the barriers were fatalism and work stress; (3) development of target group specific communication formats addressing the identified drivers and barriers—for the nurses, we designed a workshop format, animated videos, and two print formats; (4) pretest of formats in focus groups—these revealed our formats were effective in increasing heat risk awareness, competence, and protective behavior among the nurses; (5) improvement of formats based on pretest results—for example, we modified the workshop format to become a venue for mutual learning. These five steps can be applied to other projects where awareness, competence, or behavior shall be increased by means of communication.
Torsten Grothmann; Markus Leitner; Natalie Glas; Andrea Prutsch. A Five-Steps Methodology to Design Communication Formats That Can Contribute to Behavior Change. SAGE Open 2017, 7, 1 .
AMA StyleTorsten Grothmann, Markus Leitner, Natalie Glas, Andrea Prutsch. A Five-Steps Methodology to Design Communication Formats That Can Contribute to Behavior Change. SAGE Open. 2017; 7 (1):1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleTorsten Grothmann; Markus Leitner; Natalie Glas; Andrea Prutsch. 2017. "A Five-Steps Methodology to Design Communication Formats That Can Contribute to Behavior Change." SAGE Open 7, no. 1: 1.
Several case studies show that social factors like institutions, perceptions and social capital strongly affect social capacities to adapt to climate change. Together with economic and technological development they are important for building social capacities. However, there are almost no methodologies for the systematic assessment of social factors. After reviewing existing methodologies we identify the Adaptive Capacity Wheel (ACW) by Gupta et al. (2010), developed for assessing the adaptive capacity of institutions, as the most comprehensive and operationalised framework to assess social factors. The ACW differentiates 22 criteria to assess 6 dimensions: variety, learning capacity, room for autonomous change, leadership, availability of resources, fair governance. To include important psychological factors we extended the ACW by two dimensions: "adaptation motivation" refers to actors' motivation to realise, support and/or promote adaptation to climate; "adaptation belief" refers to actors' perceptions of realisability and effectiveness of adaptation measures. We applied the extended ACW to assess adaptive capacities of four sectors – water management, flood/coastal protection, civil protection and regional planning – in northwestern Germany. The assessments of adaptation motivation and belief provided a clear added value. The results also revealed some methodological problems in applying the ACW (e.g. overlap of dimensions), for which we propose methodological solutions.
T. Grothmann; K. Grecksch; M. Winges; B. Siebenhüner. Assessing institutional capacities to adapt to climate change: integrating psychological dimensions in the Adaptive Capacity Wheel. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 2013, 13, 3369 -3384.
AMA StyleT. Grothmann, K. Grecksch, M. Winges, B. Siebenhüner. Assessing institutional capacities to adapt to climate change: integrating psychological dimensions in the Adaptive Capacity Wheel. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. 2013; 13 (12):3369-3384.
Chicago/Turabian StyleT. Grothmann; K. Grecksch; M. Winges; B. Siebenhüner. 2013. "Assessing institutional capacities to adapt to climate change: integrating psychological dimensions in the Adaptive Capacity Wheel." Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 13, no. 12: 3369-3384.
The article introduces the notion of adaptiveness and discusses the role of social learning in it. Adaptiveness refers to the capacity of a social actor or social–ecological system to adapt in response to, or in anticipation of, changes in the environment. We explore arguments both from a theoretical perspective and through illustrations from case studies of water management in the Alps of Europe and Mekong in southeast Asia. We propose and illustrate that social learning processes are important for building adaptiveness in several ways and at different scales. Social learning can help cope with informational uncertainty; reduce normative uncertainty; build consensus on criteria for monitoring and evaluation; empower stakeholders to take adaptive actions; reduce conflicts and identify synergies between adaptations; and improve fairness of decisions and actions. Findings in the case studies provide some support for these generalizations but often with caveats related to diversity of stakeholder interests, levels of shared understanding versus contested knowledge and scale of coordination. For this reason, we suggest that future work pays greater attention to issues of agency, knowledge and scale: What strategies have individuals and organizations pursued in successful examples of social learning? How are the boundaries and interactions between science, policy and practice managed? How does social learning occur across spatial and temporal scales?
Louis Lebel; Torsten Grothmann; Bernd Siebenhüner. The role of social learning in adaptiveness: insights from water management. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 2010, 10, 333 -353.
AMA StyleLouis Lebel, Torsten Grothmann, Bernd Siebenhüner. The role of social learning in adaptiveness: insights from water management. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics. 2010; 10 (4):333-353.
Chicago/Turabian StyleLouis Lebel; Torsten Grothmann; Bernd Siebenhüner. 2010. "The role of social learning in adaptiveness: insights from water management." International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 10, no. 4: 333-353.