News from 2019
The Northern European Conference on Emergency and Disaster Studies (NEEDS) is now accepting paper proposals!
(2019-01-09)
The theme of this year's conference is 'Nature, Society and Scale' and includes interdisciplinary panels that reflect threshold concepts in relation to risk, disasters, crises and emergencies as well as the theoretical and methodological implications of the different disciplinary approaches, interventions, and contexts.
You may submit your paper for a specific panel (see list below) or you may submit a paper proposal without indicating a specific panel, in which case the scientific committee will forward it to the most suitable panel for consideration.
The NEEDS conference is being organized by the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology and the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science and will be held on 10–12 June 2019 in Uppsala.
List of Panels
PANEL 1: Slow-onset disasters / Conveners: Reidar Staupe-Delgado (UiT The Arctic University of Norway) and Olivier Rubin (Roskilde University)
PANEL 2: Organized retreat: Fundamental considerations in relocation / Conveners: Alex Greer (State University of New York at Albany) and Sherri Brokopp Binder (BrokoppBinder Research & Consulting)
PANEL 3: Overcoming challenges in inter-organisational disaster response / Conveners: Claudia Berchtold and Philip Sendrowski (Fraunhofer Institute for Technological Trend Analysis (INT))
PANEL 4 ROUNDTABLE Author meets critics: Learning from Hurricane Katrina / Conveners: Arjen Boin (Leiden University) and Fredrik Bynander (Swedish Defence University)
PANEL 5 The cultural processes, institutions, geographies and relationships that shape ethics and accountability in local and transboundary disaster governance / Conveners: Paolo Cavaliere (University of Delaware) and Femke Mulder (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
PANEL 6 Adapting to climate risk – developing citizen preparedness structures / Conveners: Laurits Rauer Nielsen (Emergency and Risk Management, University College Copenhagen), Kerstin Eriksson (RISE Research Institutes of Sweden), and Marco Krüger (International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities, University of Tübingen)
PANEL 7 The politics and ethics of data and digital technologies in disasters and emergencies / Conveners: Kristoffer Albris (Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen) and Nathan Edward Clark (Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen)
PANEL 8 Governance, law, and policy / Conveners: Christy Shucksmith-Wesley (University of Nottingham) and Marie Aronsson-Storrier (University of Reading)
PANEL 9 Disruptive elements: Recurring disasters and gendered lives in Asia / Conveners: Helle Rydstrom (Department of Gender Studies, Lund University) and Claudia Merli (Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University)
PANEL 10 The politics and performance of civil preparations for crisis and war / Conveners:Oscar Larsson (SLU Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) and Christine Agius (Swinburne University)
PANEL 11 Disaster diplomacy / Conveners: Christian Webersik (University of Agder, Centre for Integrated Emergency Management) and Ilan Kelman (University College London)
PANEL 12 Inequality, vulnerability and intersectionality in relation to disasters / Conveners: Sara Bondesson (Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University, and Centre for Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS)) and Frederike Albrecht (Department of Government and Department for Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, and Centre for Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS))
PANEL 13 Institutional learning in times of increased refugee movements and humanitarian crises / Conveners: Patricia Schütte (Public Safety and Emergency Management, Bergische Universität Wuppertal) and Cordula Dittmer (Disaster Research Unit (DRU), Freie Universität Berlin)
PANEL 14 Crisis governance: Taking on the grand challenges / Conveners: Jeroen Wolbers (Leiden University), Sanneke Kuipers (Leiden University), Kees Boersma (VU University Amsterdam), and Charles Parker (Uppsala University)
PANEL 15 Accessibility in emergency preparedness / Conveners: Dawid Wladyka and Katarzyna Sepielak (The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)
PANEL 16 Displacement: Examining the complexities of an escalating and vexing social dilemma / Conveners:Susanna Hoffman (Chief, Commission on Risk and Disaster, International Union of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences), Andrew Littlejohn (Leiden University/ Dundee University), and Irena L. I. Connon (Dundee University)
PANEL 17 Blown out of proportion: When media, literature and popular culture scale events / Conveners: Michael Hutt and Stefanie Lotter (SOAS, University of London)
PANEL 18 Post-disaster resiliency: Planning to meet community needs during the short-term recovery phase / Conveners: Claire Connolly Knox (School of Public Administration and National Center for Integrated Coastal Research, University of Central Florida) and Lauren A. Clay (Health Services Administration Department, D’Youville College; Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware)
PANEL 19 Multiple hazards and compound/cascading effects / Conveners: Maurizio Mazzoleni and Johanna Mård (Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University)
PANEL 20 Matters of scale in the making, understanding and analysing disasters and crises / Conveners: Susann Baez Ullberg (Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University) and Maria Rusca (Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University)
PANEL 21 Health and bodies in emergencies and uncertain times / Conveners: Claudia Merli (Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University) and Mats Målqvist (International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Uppsala University Hospital).
Examining EU leadership in the UN climate negotiations in Katowice
(2019-01-09)
The United Nations climate conference held in Katowice (COP24) produced a deal on implementing the Paris climate agreement. CNDS fellow Charles F. Parker and his colleague Christer Karlsson explain that in the absence of a constructive approach from the United States, the EU sought to provide leadership by working together with China and other partners.
Read the entire blogg article to learn about what role the EU actually played in the COP24 outcome and to what extent the EU delivered leadership in Katowice.
NEEDS Conference - Call for Papers
(2019-01-09)
List of Panels
PANEL 1: Slow-onset disasters / Conveners: Reidar Staupe-Delgado (UiT The Arctic University of Norway) and Olivier Rubin (Roskilde University)
PANEL 2: Organized retreat: Fundamental considerations in relocation / Conveners: Alex Greer (State University of New York at Albany) and Sherri Brokopp Binder (BrokoppBinder Research & Consulting)
PANEL 3: Overcoming challenges in inter-organisational disaster response / Conveners: Claudia Berchtold and Philip Sendrowski (Fraunhofer Institute for Technological Trend Analysis (INT))
PANEL 4 ROUNDTABLE Author meets critics: Learning from Hurricane Katrina / Conveners: Arjen Boin (Leiden University) and Fredrik Bynander (Swedish Defence University)
PANEL 5 The cultural processes, institutions, geographies and relationships that shape ethics and accountability in local and transboundary disaster governance / Conveners: Paolo Cavaliere (University of Delaware) and Femke Mulder (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
PANEL 6 Adapting to climate risk – developing citizen preparedness structures / Conveners: Laurits Rauer Nielsen (Emergency and Risk Management, University College Copenhagen), Kerstin Eriksson (RISE Research Institutes of Sweden), and Marco Krüger (International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities, University of Tübingen)
PANEL 7 The politics and ethics of data and digital technologies in disasters and emergencies / Conveners: Kristoffer Albris (Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen) and Nathan Edward Clark (Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen)
PANEL 8 Governance, law, and policy / Conveners: Christy Shucksmith-Wesley (University of Nottingham) and Marie Aronsson-Storrier (University of Reading)
PANEL 9 Disruptive elements: Recurring disasters and gendered lives in Asia / Conveners: Helle Rydstrom (Department of Gender Studies, Lund University) and Claudia Merli (Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University)
PANEL 10 The politics and performance of civil preparations for crisis and war / Conveners:Oscar Larsson (SLU Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) and Christine Agius (Swinburne University)
PANEL 11 Disaster diplomacy / Conveners: Christian Webersik (University of Agder, Centre for Integrated Emergency Management) and Ilan Kelman (University College London)
PANEL 12 Inequality, vulnerability and intersectionality in relation to disasters / Conveners: Sara Bondesson (Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University, and Centre for Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS)) and Frederike Albrecht (Department of Government and Department for Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, and Centre for Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS))
PANEL 13 Institutional learning in times of increased refugee movements and humanitarian crises / Conveners: Patricia Schütte (Public Safety and Emergency Management, Bergische Universität Wuppertal) and Cordula Dittmer (Disaster Research Unit (DRU), Freie Universität Berlin)
PANEL 14 Crisis governance: Taking on the grand challenges / Conveners: Jeroen Wolbers (Leiden University), Sanneke Kuipers (Leiden University), Kees Boersma (VU University Amsterdam), and Charles Parker (Uppsala University)
PANEL 15 Accessibility in emergency preparedness / Conveners: Dawid Wladyka and Katarzyna Sepielak (The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)
PANEL 16 Displacement: Examining the complexities of an escalating and vexing social dilemma / Conveners:Susanna Hoffman (Chief, Commission on Risk and Disaster, International Union of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences), Andrew Littlejohn (Leiden University/ Dundee University), and Irena L. I. Connon (Dundee University)
PANEL 17 Blown out of proportion: When media, literature and popular culture scale events / Conveners: Michael Hutt and Stefanie Lotter (SOAS, University of London)
PANEL 18 Post-disaster resiliency: Planning to meet community needs during the short-term recovery phase / Conveners: Claire Connolly Knox (School of Public Administration and National Center for Integrated Coastal Research, University of Central Florida) and Lauren A. Clay (Health Services Administration Department, D’Youville College; Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware)
PANEL 19 Multiple hazards and compound/cascading effects / Conveners: Maurizio Mazzoleni and Johanna Mård (Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University)
PANEL 20 Matters of scale in the making, understanding and analysing disasters and crises / Conveners: Susann Baez Ullberg (Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University) and Maria Rusca (Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University)
PANEL 21 Health and bodies in emergencies and uncertain times / Conveners: Claudia Merli (Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University) and Mats Målqvist (International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Uppsala University Hospital)
You may submit your paper for a specific panel or you may submit a paper proposal without indicating a specific panel, in which case the scientific committee will forward it to the most suitable panel for consideration. The deadline for submitting your paper is 22 February.
Unveiling Earth’s floodplains: Researchers develop new zoning tool that provides global topographic datasets in minutes
(2019-01-15)
A new paper on the Nature’s journal Scientific Data describes the first high-resolution global map of Earth’s floodplains developed by an international team of four water scientists, including Giuliano Di Baldassarre professor of hydrology at the Department of Earth Sciences at Uppsala University and director of CNDS.
Fluvial landscape resources are of paramount importance for human development and socio-economic growth. Identifying the boundary of floodplains (areas that can potentially be flooded) is a crucial step in planning measures for flood risk reduction. Floodplain zoning is usually performed using complex hydrodynamic models, but modeling results can vary widely as they are affected by many sources of uncertainty especially in data-poor areas. With the increased availability of remote sensing technologies, however, scientists now have access to high resolution datasets with images and quantitative data on Earth’s landscape morphologies, soil and land properties at the global scale.
In this new paper, floodplain boundaries are identified capturing their unique morphology and landscape pattern implementing a fast geospatial processing tool of global topographic dataset. The geomorphic floodplain zoning tool, GFPLAIN, is freely released sharing the opportunity with scientists and professional around the globe to replicate the experiment and process regional topographic datasets producing consistent floodplain zoning in seconds or minutes at the continental scale.
Giuliano Di Baldassarre says that “despite the requirement of a limited amount of input data, the hydrogeomorphic approach is based on consolidated theories, and it is able to identify areas that can be potentially flooded, providing results comparable to the ones derived with standard approaches. Hence, we conclude that the hydrogeomorphic approach allows to easily detect floodplains, and it is therefore a useful tool for a variety of socio-economic analyses at large or global scale. Given the ease of its application, this method is an essential complement to standard event-based approaches for flood hazard mapping, especially in data-poor areas.”
“Progress made in remote sensing has truly revolutionized our capacity to monitor the Earth. Since floodplains are so important to population centers, economic activities and transportation, it is indeed critical to be able to identify their extents. With this new view of Earth's floodplains, we can now characterize the human footprint on these globally-significant environments,” says Enrique R. Vivoni, co-author of the paper and professor at the Arizona State University (USA).
“Observing any aerial image of fluvial corridors, one can clearly distinguish floodplain boundaries, for their unique shapes and colors. These unique floodplain properties are linked to water driven erosion and deposition processes, mainly associated to historical flood events, that give shape to fluvial landforms. We found and exploit the principle that global topographic datasets implicitly contain the floodplain extent information and we released the first global geomorphic model of Earth’s floodplain together with a easy to use tool that both researchers and professional can use for their floodplain mapping projects.“ says Fernando Nardi, leading author of the paper and director of the Water Resources Research and Documentation Centre (WARREDOC) at University for Foreigners of Perugia (Italy).
The results of this research, that shares the 250m resolution dataset of global floodplains as Open Data, provide novel opportunities across diverse earth, environmental and social sciences, for advancing towards more sustainable and safer management and better understanding of complex floodplain-urban interactions, especially in data poor river basins struggling with growing human pressures.
For more information, please contact Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University
Read the full article on Nature's website.
CONGRATULATIONS TO EDUARDO REYNOLD PUGA WHO HAS NAILED THE DATE FOR HIS DOCTORAL DEFENCE
(2019-01-18)
His dissertation Flood Prediction in data-scarce basins: Maximising the value of limited hydro-meteorological data is scheduled to be defended in the Hamburg lecture hall (Geo Center, Uppsala University) at 10:00 on 8 February 2019.
Issue of climate change and security makes the agenda for "Folk och Försvar"
(2019-01-28)
"Folk och Försvar" is an annual national conference that serves as a forum for discussions on Swedish security politics, national defence and societal security. For the first time in its 30 year history, the issue of climate change was designated its own session, marking its increasing importance.
Mikael Granberg, CNDS researcher and the Director of CCS (Centre for Climate and Safety), together with Malin Mobjörk from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) contributed to the session "Climate change - society and security politics."
"Climate change has been acknowledges as a threat to national security in Sweden and it is actually stated in the country's security strategy that "in no other area is there a greater need for more preventative efforts," asserts Mikael Granberg. "Therefore, the fact that we were invited to speak at the national conference is witness to the increasing significance of this issue."
Every year more than 350 delegates and 50-60 speakers convene at this prestigous 3-day conference in order to discuss and debate the nation's most pressing security issues and upcoming trends. Attendance is strictly by invitation only.
Challenges in implementing preventative efforts in order to tackle climate risks
There are many factors that influence when and how societies work in dealing with climate risks. For example, the degree of uncertainty regarding potential effects makes it difficult to motivate current political decisions that are aimed at mitigating future damages and negative consequences. There is also uncertainty between society's different actors about who bears the responsibility and who has the mandate to act and to what degree.
"Politics is one very central aspect since it can be an obstacle to a well-formulated climate policy," says Mikael Granberg. "Politics refers primarily to the political values that shape understanding and the formulation of the climate challenges into policies. In turn, politics governs the prioritization of climate risks and climate adaptation measures, which have effects on vulnerabilities and security."
See the YouTube video clip here. Please note that the conference proceedings were held in Swedish.
Pedagogical model "Riskville" inspires research article
(2019-01-28)
Experiences from using Riskville as a pedagogical model has proven to be a good starting point for introducing and discussing the connection between urban planning and risk management. CNDS researchers at the Centre for Climate and Safety (CCS at Karlstad University) are happy to announce that these experiences have been documented and published in scientific article.
The Centre for Climate and Safety's RiskLab and its pedagogic models Floodville and Riskville are in many ways results of the ongoing research at CCS. Years of using the models have led to the playful handling of oftentimes complex scientific questions and generated new intriguing research questions.
These experiences have inspired the article "Riskville - A Game for Learning about Disaster Risks and Urban Planning" which has been peer-reviewed and recently published in International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters.
The article is the result of a collaborative effort of several researchers who have been working with the production, development and implementation of these pedagogical models. They hope that their article will contribute to the spreading and developing new ideas that will inspire playful, interactive and hands-on environments for learning about difficult and sometimes abstract societal challenges, which in turn will result in meaningful and relevant research in order to strengthen societal security.
Christenson, N, Koivisto, J., Persson, E., Hindersson, E., Gustafsson, K. and Pettersson, A. (2018) Riskville - A Game for Learning about Disaster Risks and Urban Planning. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. November 18, Vol 36, No 3. pp. 238-246.
- Read the article on the IJMED website (requires access to the journal)
- Alternative link to the article [.pdf, 1,7Mb]
CNDS research project "TRAMPOLINE" awarded grant from The Swedish Research Council
(2019-01-28)
Daniel Nohrstedt, Charles Parker, Giuliano Di Baldassarre and Maurizio Mazzoleni have been awarded a 3-year grant of 4.4 million SEK for their research project The Transformative Potential of Extreme Weather Events (TRAMPOLINE). The purpose of the project is to investigate extreme hazard events as potential triggers for changes in DRR policy and development.
Extreme weather events, floods and droughts—problems that are predicted to become more frequent and extreme due to climate change— inflict major losses and disproportionally affect lower income countries, yet the conditions for accelerating implementation of public policy for disaster risk reduction (DRR) are poorly understood.
This research project will perform a statistical, global-scale analysis of policy change after extreme events and, using the results, select four cases for a comparative examination of hazard-induced policy change in lower-income and middle-income countries. Utilizing unique data on DRR policy implementation from 2007-2018 retrieved from the United Nations Hyogo Framework, a new merged dataset of climate extremes and disasters, and material from interviews and public sources, the researchers will document the extent to which these events prompt policy change worldwide and assess whether variations can be explained by income-levels, event magnitude, regular exposure, diffusion effects, agenda-setting, political mobilization, and learning.
By testing and specifying explanations for hazard-induced policy change, the results will advance frontiers in natural hazard science, development studies, and public policy. The results will also support international efforts to reduce disaster risks through the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction.
CNDS presentations and sessions at EGU 2019
(2019-04-07)
EGU 2019: Presentations (*) and Sessions (#) by CNDS Fellows (italics):
(The list may not be complete. Please inform coordination@cnds.se if more presentations/sessions should be added)
Monday 8 April
* NH1.10 A virtual experiment to compare statistical vs. process-based methods for design flood estimation (Kenechukwu Okoli, Korbinian Breinl, Maurizio Mazzoleni, and Giuliano Di Baldassarre) Hall X3, 16:15-18:00
Tuesday 9 April
# HS1.2.2 Hydrology, society and environmental change: Panta Rhei (everything flows) (Convener: Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Co-conveners: Enrica Caporali, Heidi Kreibich, Tobias Krueger) PICO spot 5b, 08:30-10:15
* HS1.2.2 Understanding Human Settlement Dynamics in Flood-Prone Areas Using Global Data (Johanna Mård, Maurizio Mazzoleni and Giuliano Di Baldassarre) PICO spot 5b, 08:30-10:15
* HS1.2.2 Human impacts and responses to hydrological extremes: Large scale modeling over Europe to unravel the role of reservoir operations (Elena Ridolfi, Niko Wanders, and Giuliano Di Baldassarre) PICO spot 5b, 08:30-10:15
# NH9.1 Global and continental scale risk assessment for natural hazards: methods and practice (Convener: Hessel Winsemius, Co-conveners: Hannah Cloke, James Daniell, Melanie J. Duncan) Room L6, 10:45-12:30, 14:00-18:00
* NH9.1 Global water risk dynamics – Plinius Medal Lecture: Philip Ward (Philip is an invited lecturer for the CNDS/EGU Summer School) Room L6, 17:00-18:00
* NH9.1 Analysing shifts in the timing of extreme dry spells at the global scale (Korbinian Breinl, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Maurizio Mazzoleni, and Giulia Vico) Room L6, 16:45-17:00
Wednesday 10 April
# HS5.2.2 Advances in Socio-Hydrology (Convener: Britta Höllermann, Co-conveners: Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Marcus Nüsser, Saket Pande) Hall A, 10:45-12:30; Room B, 14:00-18:00
* HS5.2.2 Who follows whom: Reservoirs and population dynamics in the USA (Maurizio Mazzoleni and Giuliano Di Baldassarre) Room B, 17:15-17:30
* HS4.1.1 Trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services within the water-energy-food-land-climate nexus in Sweden (Lotte van den Heuvel, Malgorzata Blicharska, and Claudia Teutschbein) Hall A, 14:00-15:45
* NP5.3 Impacts of a Changing Climate on Spatio-Temporal Trends and Patterns of Streamflow Droughts Using a Large-Sample Dataset (Beatriz Quesada, Thomas Grabs, and Claudia Teutschbein) Hall A, 14:00-15:45
Thursday 11 April
# NH9.2 New scientific approaches and data to unravel the interplay between natural hazards and vulnerable societies (Convener: Johanna Mård, Co-conveners: Korbinian Breinl, Steffi Burchardt, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Michael Hagenlocher) PICO spot 1, 08:30-10:15
* NH9.2 Are fatality potentials of natural disasters increasing? Examining how natural and human factors affect societal vulnerability (Niranjan Joshi, Roland Roberts, and Ari Tryggvason) PICO spot 1, 08:30-10:15
* NH9.2 Changes in hydrogeological risk perception over time: Longitudinal evidence in the North-eastern Italian Alps (Elena Mondino, Frederike Albrecht, Johanna Mård, Marco Borga, Anna Scolobig, and Giuliano Di Baldassarre) PICO spot 1, 08:30-10:15
* NH9.2 Instrumental case studies of hydrosocial extremes (Elisa Savelli, Maria Rusca, Hannan Cloke, and Giuliano Di Baldassarre) PICO spot 1, 08:30-10:15
* NH9.2 Global patterns of the human interplay with floods and droughts (Sara Andersson) PICO spot 1, 08:30-10:15
* HS5.4.3 A culture of proactive drought management? Unraveling the perception and management of droughts in Swedish municipalities (Claudia Teutschbein, Elin Lundkvist, Frederike Albrecht and Malgorzata Blicharska) Hall A, 14:00-15:45
Friday 12 April
* NH9.11 Cartograms for use in forecasting weather driven natural hazards (Hannah Cloke, Florian Pappenberger, and Calum Baugh) Room L1, 14:30-14:45
* NP5.3 Comparison of bivariate copula-based bias correction of regional climate model (RCM) precipitation and temperature (Faranak Tootoonchi, Jan Haerter, and Claudia Teutschbein) Hall X4, 16:15-18:00
Congratulations to the recipients of the CNDS Interdisciplinary Grant 2019
(2019-05-10)
Name: Maria Rusca
Project name: “After the Disaster - An interdisciplinary analysis of post flood and drought recovery”
Type of project: Field work, data collection, documentary, and videography
Year Awarded: 2019
Name: Elisa Savelli
Project name: “Engaging Socio-Hydrology with Urban Planning
Type of project: AESOP workshop
Year awarded: 2019
Name: Braden Walsh
Project name: “Early warning systems for debris flows: state of the art and challenges”
Type of project: Workshop held at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Year awarded: 2019
Name: Eirina Katsidoniotaki
Project name: “OpenFOAM Advanced – Summer”
Type of project: Summer course organized by Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genova
Year awarded: 2019
Determining the Significance of Trust and Administrative Culture in Crisis Management
(2019-08-22)
Based on unique survey data and interviews in nineteen EU member states, CNDS researcher Charles Parker, together with his colleagues Thomas Persson and Sten Widmalm, explored the challenges the EU and its member states face in order to achieve more effective cooperation in the quest to better protect its citizens, namely in the critical field of civil protection.
The book provides insights to what kind of cooperative structures exist in Europe in this issue area—in single countries, between countries, and at the EU level. It shows how trust, shared norms, cooperative networks, and administrative culture determine how well the system functions and the ability of countries to cooperate in this area. It also analyses how much cooperation within the Union can be sensibly expected and which cleavages and barriers must be overcome in the pursuit of future policy reforms.
The book can be accessed via SpringerLink.
"Grounded in unique and voluminous fieldwork within the EU’s nascent community of civil protection practitioners and mechanisms, this timely study shows us that interpersonal and professional trust rooted in collegiate relationships is pivotal for bridging the different policy styles embedded in member states’ administrative cultures and building much-needed cohesive, effective and resilient European crisis management capacity. A gem for crisis management and EU scholars alike.”
—Paul ‘t Hart, Utrecht University and Netherlands School of Public Administration, The
Netherlands
New study advances network approaches to complex environmental problems
Sustainable management of natural resources requires knowledge of complex dependencies between societies and ecological systems. A new study in Nature Sustainability identifies what these dependencies are, how they arise, and what the consequences are for sustainable management. "The study contributes to our understanding of how societies interact with ecosystems, which in turn can add new insights to research on disaster risk reduction," says Daniel Nohrstedt - associate professor at the Department of Political Science, research coordinator for CNDS and one of the researchers behind the study.
Contributing to a more sustainable management of the Earth's limited resources is one of the most important research tasks of our time. However, existing knowledge is based on studies of individual cases and there is a need for common theories and methods for developing a broader understanding as a basis for developing political solutions. The study shows how a network perspective - a description of a system consisting of a set of nodes and links (Fig a) - can be used to develop new knowledge about causes and consequences in social-ecological systems.
Fig a. Example (from forest management in Madagascar) on social-ecological network with actors (red nodes) and forest areas (green nodes). Actors are linked to one another through kinship (red links), forest areas to one another via ecological dependencies through species spread in the landscape (green links) and actors to forest areas via ownership or administrative responsibility (blue links).
An important part of this research is to identify the most common challenges that arise in the management of common natural resources. One example is that management has to consider problems that require different time perspectives and different levels in society, which places great demands on actors’ ability to achieve collaboration and coordination.
“Our study provides important tools for analyzing complex problems in several areas. The work on disaster risk reduction is one area where theories and methods are needed to better understand how we can achieve effective collaboration. This is something we have been working on for a long time within CNDS, for example when it comes to collaboration in response to major forest fires,” says Daniel Nohrstedt.
The study is the result of an interdisciplinary international collaboration between 19 researchers, led by Örjan Bodin at the Stockholm Resilience Center.
The study can be downloaded from Nature's website.
Multi-level magma plumbing increases risk of hazardous eruptions
(2019-08-22)
CNDS researchers together with their other colleagues recently published their article "Multi-level magma plumbing at Agung and Batur volcanoes increases risk of hazardous eruptions" in Scientific Reports.
Abstract
The island of Bali in Indonesia is home to two active stratovolcanoes, Agung and Batur, but relatively little is known of their underlying magma plumbing systems. Here we define magma storage depths and isotopic evolution of the 1963 and 1974 eruptions using mineral-melt equilibrium thermobarometry and oxygen and helium isotopes in mineral separates. Olivine crystallised from a primitive magma and has average δ18O values of 4.8‰. Clinopyroxene records magma storage at the crust-mantle boundary, and displays mantle-like isotope values for Helium (8.62 RA) and δ18O (5.0–5.8‰). Plagioclase reveals crystallisation in upper crustal storage reservoirs and shows δ18O values of 5.5–6.4‰. Our new thermobarometry and isotope data thus corroborate earlier seismic and InSAR studies that inferred upper crustal magma storage in the region. This type of multi-level plumbing architecture could drive replenishing magma to rapid volatile saturation, thus increasing the likelihood of explosive eruptions and the consequent hazard potential for the population of Bali.
Overlapping Vulnerabilities - The impacts of climate change on humanitarian needs
(2019-08-22)
When the climate changes, it affects nature, animals, and humans.
CNDS fellow and Associate Professor Nina von Uexkull, together with Christie Nicoson and colleagues from the Norwegian Red Cross, were commissioned to investigate in what ways climate change is affecting humanitarian work and needs. In their report they present the broad humanitarian consequences of global warming, with the aim to inform humanitarian actors across different fields. It is the first of its kind and it highlights the short-term impacts of climate change that will be the most relevant within a 10-year timeframe.
The evidence compiled in the report is as overwhelming as it is daunting. Climate change has severe negative impact on crops, water quality and livelihoods and it can aggravate existing larger-scale conflicts. Climate change will harm those who are already subject to poverty, conflict, and violence the most. Overall, Africa and Asia are expected to be the most vulnerable regions in terms of humanitarian consequences of climate change.
More than 40 percent of the countries experiencing a food crisis in 2017 faced the double burden of climatic shocks and conflict. Conflicts harm the structures and systems that are necessary to facilitate adaptation to climate change. The report does not find evidence of climate change being an important cause of large-scale armed conflict but confirms that it may aggravate and prolong existing conflicts.
In 2019, the conflict in Syria entered its ninth year, but protracted conflicts are not a new phenomenon. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked to protect and assist those affected by armed conflicts in Afghanistan for more than 30 years, and in South Sudan for almost 40 years. Contexts which are not unique in the way that access to the affected populations is challenging and security concerns make it difficult for development actors to be present and provide needed services. What is new is the knowledge documented in this report that climate change will make the direct and indirect humanitarian consequences of armed conflict even worse. And, furthermore: That climate change will negatively impact possibilities to end conflicts.
In short, the report gives a clear overview of the challenges that lie ahead and that the need for action is imminent.
Read the entire report on ReliefWeb.
Seminar day on Modeling of societal exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards
(2019-08-23)
The Centre for Climate and Safety, CCS, at Karlstad University (which is part of the CNDS research collaboration) invites you to a seminar day on the 4th of September on the theme Modelling of societal exposure and vulnerability connected to natural hazards. Speakers will be Jesse Rozelle and Casey Zusak from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in USA and Daniel Knös from JLT Re.
To be able to make well informed decisions on climate related societal risks the best possible background information is needed. Several countries have developed and adapted a wide range of tools for risk evaluation. Are these tools applicable for risk evaluation purposes in a Swedish context? What are the potentials and challenges?
PROGRAM ITEMSTools and experiences from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in USAJesse Rozelle and Casey Zuzak from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, will tell us about the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program, the agency's multi-risk model National Risk Index and the software and methodology Hazus that is used to calculate potential losses of disasters.
MSB's Work on Sweden's national risk evaluation processJim Kronhamn from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) will talk about the acency's work with identification and analysis of risks that can be seen as especially serious. Jim will also talk about the future development of the agency's work and what wishes it has when it comes to the development of new tools and models. Heavy precipitation in SwedenThe project Swedish Pluvial Modelling Analysis and Safety Handling (SPLASH) is being led by the Centre for Climate and Safety at Karlstad University in close collaboration with four companies: JLT Re, Brandskyddsföreningen restvärderäddning, Länsförsäkringar AB and Länsförsäkringar Jönköping as well as with support from Jönköping municipality and OASIS loss modelling framework. Daniel Knös from JLT Re will tell us about methods used in the re-insurance sector to assess losses, with a special focus on the Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, an open platform for the development, deployment end execution of catastrophe models. Researchers from the SPLASH project will tell us about their work with modelling of exposure and vulnerability to heavy downpours. Student work within the field from Swedish UniversitiesMattias Andersson and Marcus Thorell will tell us about their thesis work where they have applied Hazus in Karlstad. Erika Lindqvist, will tell us about her thesis work at Göteborg University where she has applied the tool ICPR FLoRiAn (International Commission for the protection of the Rhine Flood Risk Analysis) to assess flood risk in Kungälv municipality. Fabian Erlandsson will tell us about his thesis work where he has analyzed the preferences of homeowners when it comes to risk evaluation and motivation to perform risk reducing measures connected to flood risk in the county of Jönköping. |
Time: 4/9 09:30 - 16:30
Place: Karlstad CCC
Language: The seminar day is held in Swedish but several presentations will be held in english.
The seminar is free to attend and includes lunch and afternoon coffee but requires registration.
Parts of the seminar will be filmed for educational purposes. If you do not wish to appear on film or photographs from the seminar, please notify the conference host or photographers on attendance.
Register on Axaco Air's website.
Contact Person
Tonje Grahn, tonje.grahn@kau.se
Nature study on climate change and conflict
(2019-08-23)
What role does climate change play in civil unrest?
A study published in the prestigious journal Nature today suggests that climate change has increased conflict risks over the past century, but other drivers, such as low socioeconomic development and low capabilities of the state, are much more influential. The study, based on expert elicitation, suggests that risks increase with intensifying climate change. While uncertainty about pathways are substantial, the study underlines the potential for important security implications if the emission of greenhouse gases is not curbed. CNDS researcher Nina von Uexkull took part in the expert elicitation and co-authored the study.
Read full article on Nature's website.
Stable yields also under extreme weather?
(2019-08-29)
We design our infrastructures, such as bridges, to withstand catastrophic but infrequent events, like floods. Can we use similar reasoning to design our cropping systems? Researchers at SLU and Uppsala University recently received funds from Formas, for a project to support the adaptation of agriculture to climatic extremes. The project will not only take into account the crops, cropping options and weather conditions, but also the human dimension – the farmers’ risk attitude and their decision making under uncertainty.
We have already seen that climate change and extreme weather can negatively affect crop yields and increase their year-to-year variability. Everybody in Northern Europe remembers the hot and dry summer of 2018, when Swedish yields were reduced on average by 30%.
"Combinations of weather conditions, such as heat and drought, can be more detrimental than each condition occurring in isolation. These conditions are expected to become more and more frequent in the future", says Giulia Vico at SLU, who leads the project.
To develop agricultural systems that can produce high and stable yields also in the future, we need to understand how our crops are affected by future climates, including extreme and currently infrequent conditions, and how to grow crops so that they can withstand extreme conditions. Possible options are selection of crop species, diversification and addition of soil amendments. Farmers’ risk preferences need also to be considered.
The project is a collaboration among Giulia Vico and Riccardo Bommarco, both at SLU, and Giuliano Di Baldassarre, at Uppsala University and the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science.
By combining meteorological and crop yield data with models, the project aims at answering three key questions:
- Which extremes and combinations of weather conditions are most detrimental to crop yields?
- Which cropping practices diminish the risks of weather-induced yield reductions under these conditions?
- Are these practices immediately applicable, considering the farmers’ risk coping attitudes?
The project focuses on crops typical of Swedish and Northern European agriculture – wheat, barley, oat and oil rapeseed. The researchers will identify the most promising cropping options under different climatic conditions to reduce the risks of extremely low yields.
Farmers’ preferences will also be considered.
"Exploiting the estimated risk distribution, we will rank cropping options based on how they are perceived by the farmers, in the light of their risk attitude. We will employ methods that have previously been used in the economy for decision on how to invest money", says Giulia Vico.
The project results can support societies in finding cropping options that can withstand extreme conditions. As such, the project will be beneficial for advisers, farmers and insurance companies.
Complex hazard cascade culminating in the Anak Krakatau sector collapse
(2019-10-31)
Volcano-induced tsunamis are thought to be rare and are therefore not commonly considered in tsunami early warning centers. Historic documents reveal, however, that Southeast Asia experiences volcano-induced tsunami hazards relatively frequently, with 17 events during the 20th century and at least 14 events during the 19th century, defining a recurrence rate of one event every 5–8 years. A volcano-induced tsunami from Anak Krakatau was anticipated, but accurate predictions were impossible owing to a lack of understanding of the processes involved. Hence, this study of the 22 December 2018 sector collapse at Anak Krakatau provides us now with important information about the precursors and processes that culminated in the disaster.
Anak Krakatau is an island volcano; a section of which collapsed on 22 December 2018, triggering a tsunami that killed over 430 people and displaced more than 30,000, with what was thought little advanced warning.
Prior to the collapse of a section of Anak Krakatau in December 2018 and the subsequent tsunami, the volcano exhibited several signs of activity in the months leading up to the event. This study, published in Nature Communications, notes that at the time, and when considered individually, none of the anomalies would have been conclusive enough to predict the events to come.
CNDS fellow Valentin Troll contributed to the study under the lead of Thomas Walter. Together, these researchers show that there were several signs of activity at Anak Krakatau prior to the 22nd December events. They report a gradual seaward motion of its southwestern flank from January 2018, which was accompanied by an intense phase of thermal activity initiated at Anak Krakatau on 30 June 2018, and an increase in the island’s surface area in the months leading up to the event. The authors suggest that these factors may help explain why a flank of the volcano collapsed. These new observations could help to improve monitoring for potential flank collapse on other island volcanoes and aid in refining early warning technologies.
Read the full article on Nature's website.
Disaster management policy and governance
(2019-11-01)
Turkey today is going through possibly the most turbulent period in its history, with major consequences both nationally and internationally. The country looks dramatically different from the Republic founded by Atatürk in 1923. The pace of change has been rapid and fundamental, with core interlinked changes in ruling institutions, political culture, political economy, and society.
The Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics pulls together contributions from many of the world’s leading scholars on different aspects of Turkey. Divided into six main parts, this handbook provides a single-source overview of Turkish politics:
Part I: History and the making of Contemporary Turkey- Part II: Politics and Institutions
- Part III: The Economy, Environment and Development
- Part IV: The Kurdish Insurgency and Security
- Part V: State, Society and Rights
- Part VI: External Relations
CNDS fellow Helena Hermansson together with Professor Naim Kapucu contributed to this handbook with a chapter on disaster management policy and governance.
Turkey is highly earthquake prone. Geological and seismological vulnerabilities are further combined with social circumstances like rapid urbanization and uncontrolled economic development, which lead to concentrations of people in highly earthquake-prone areas. In 2017, Turkey experienced the highest seismic activity in fifteen years and the quakes were most intense in the western parts of the country where Istanbul is located.
This chapter traces the development of Turkish disaster management policy and governance over time. Even though many organizational and judicial reforms have had a focus on improving collaboration and increase decentralization, more recent changes challenge these advances. The development of disaster management policy and governance in Turkey is put in perspective by also outlining wider governance dynamics in the early 2000s. The chapter also discusses how more recent political developments and centralizing provisions, including the attempted coup d’etat in 2016 and the change to a presidential system in 2017, exacerbate the challenges that already exist to finding collaborative and participatory solutions for decreasing disaster risk. In the meantime, scientists hold their breath for the dreaded “big one”, the earthquake expected to hit Istanbul, the megacity that sprawls across one of the most active fault lines in the world.
Facilitating Doctoral Education in Cross-disciplinary Milieus: Experiences from PhD-candidates
(2019-11-01)
How can we improve cross-disciplinary research environments? CNDS fellows Malin Mobjörk, Mikael Granberg, Magnus Johansson together with Camilla Berglund (Örebro University) investigated this and published a report on their findings.
Cross-disciplinarity shapes a significant amount of research today and many PhD candidates contribute to this research. Doctoral education is a formative phase in a researcher's intellectual development. Despite a large body of research about cross-disciplinarity, less attention has focused on how cross-disciplinarity shapes doctoral education.This report explores the organisation of doctoral education in four cross-disciplinaryresearch milieus and the experiences of 14 PhD candidates enrolled in these milieus.
One key finding is that PhD candidates are more comfortable when their education has involved meta-communication about conceptual approaches and experiences of conducting cross-disciplinary research. This suggests that research milieus should provide doctoral education in cross-disciplinary settings with a deliberative approach. This will both benefit the PhD candidates and the research milieus, and is central in the socialisation process of the next cadre of researchers and for the future of cross-disciplinary research.
Read the report on KAU's website.
Why gender does not stick: Exploring conceptual logics in global disaster risk reduction policy
(2019-11-01)
Social inequalities have consequences for the everyday lives of women and girls where power relations, institutional and socio-cultural practices make them disadvantaged in terms of disaster preparedness and experience.
Chapters in the book Climate Hazards, Disasters, and Gender Ramifications unravel how gender and masculinity intersect with age, ethnicity, sexuality and class in specific contexts around the globe. It looks at the various kinds of difficulties for particular groups before, during and after disastrous events such as typhoons, flooding, landslides and earthquakes. It explores how issues of gender hierarchies, patriarchal structures and masculinity are closely related to gender segregation, institutional codes of behaviour and to a denial of environmental crisis. This book stresses the need for a gender-responsive framework that can provide a more holistic understanding of disasters and climate change. A critical feminist perspective uncovers the gendered politics of disaster and climate change.
This book focuses on the challenges of living with climate disasters, in addition to the existing gender inequalities that prevail and define social, economic and political conditions.
Two CNDS fellows contributed to this book:
- Sara Bondesson, "Why Gender Does Not Stick: Exploring Conceptual Logics in Global Disaster Risk Reduction Policy." Abstract: This chapter provides an analysis of the Sendai Framework for action; the central policy document in the global field of Disaster risk reduction (DRR). It identifies two conceptual logics in the Framework that prevent full incorporation of a gender perspective. Firstly, relief logic assumes a temporality of acuteness and prescribes male-dominated professional domains as experts. Secondly, a techno-managerial logic proposes technical and managerial solutions to problems of disaster risk. DRR is a global field of policy planning and practice that involves systematic efforts to analyse and reduce the causal factors of disasters. A gender, age, disability and cultural perspective should be integrated in all policies and practices, and women and youth leadership should be promoted”. A gender perspective needs to move beyond a mere focus on the number of women in DRR decision-making positions. A gender perspective highlights how gender roles are produced through social institutions that shape norms of behaviour, as well as access to rights and power.
- Claudia Merli, "Gendered and Ungendered Bodies in the Tsunami: Experiences and Ontological Vulnerability in Southern Thailand." Abstract: This chapter focuses on the embodied experiences of women and men during and in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It explores ethnographic material collected in Thailand’s southernmost western province from December 2004 to March 2005 and on subsequent returns to the field to analyse how people lived the catastrophe through theirs and others’ bodies. The 2004 tsunami put the Global North into a shared vulnerability in a natural disaster rarely envisioned in a technocratic society. A different and more intimate relation between fish and human bodies turned out to impact the aftermath of the tsunami via a tangible fear of unintentional anthropophagy. The chapter considers perspectivistic analyses very significant for reflecting on the endangered definition of subjectivity, objectivity and personhood of the post-tsunami’s potential fish eaters. Gendered bodies as sexually active bodies were mentioned as a remote cause of the tsunami in religious interpretations that attributed the triggering of the disaster to unbridled sexuality and moral corruption.
Read more about the book on Routledge's website.
EGU sessions and short courses co-organized by CNDS fellows
(2019-11-22)
The General Assembly 2020 of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) is held at the Austria Center Vienna (ACV) in Vienna, Austria, from 3–8 May 2020. The EGU General Assembly 2020 brings together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The EGU aims to provide a forum where scientists, especially early career researchers, can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of geoscience. Several CNDS fellows will be co-organizing sessions and short courses. Here is a summary of the CNDS contributions.
REGULAR (ORAL/POSTER) SESSIONS
HS5.2.1
Advances in Socio-Hydrology
Convener: Britta HöllermannECS | Co-conveners: Iolanda BorzìECS, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Murugesu Sivapalan, Ted VeldkampECS
GMPV8.4
Magma generation and differentiation: crystals, isotopes, and experiments
Convener: Frances M. Deegan | Co-conveners: Ben Ellis, Carmela Freda, Valentin R. Troll
PICO SESSIONS
NH9.9 | PICO
New scientific approaches and data to unravel the interplay between natural hazards and vulnerable societies
Co-organized by AS5/HS13
Convener: Johanna MårdECS | Co-conveners: Korbinian BreinlECS, Steffi Burchardt, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Michael HagenlocherECS
HS3.2 | PICO
Innovative sensing techniques for water monitoring, modelling, and management: Satellites, gauges and citizens
Convener: Fernando Nardi | Co-conveners: Thaine H. Assumpção, Wouter Buytaert, Serena CeolaECS, Maurizio MazzoleniECS
HS4.5 | PICO
Operational forecasting and warning systems for natural hazards: challenges and innovation
Convener: Michael Cranston | Co-conveners: Céline Cattoën-Gilbert, Femke Davids, Ilias Pechlivanidis
NH10.3 | PICO
Compound/cascading effects in the Anthropocene
Convener: Stefano TerziECS | Co-conveners: Anna Lo JacomoECS, Maurizio MazzoleniECS, Elena RidolfiECS
HS1.2.4 | PICO
Panta Rhei: Hydrology, Society & Environmental Change
Convener: Fuqiang Tian | Co-conveners: Enrica Caporali, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Heidi Kreibich, Tobias Krueger
SHORT COURSES
SC2.3
Integrating social sciences in natural hazard research: how and why?Convener: Maria Rusca | Co-conveners: Frederike Albrecht, Sara Bondelsson
SC1.26
HydroInformatics: Bayesian statistics in Hydrology
Co-organized by ESSI1/HS11
Convener: Harsh BeriaECS | Co-conveners: Nilay DoguluECS, Sina KhatamiECS, Maurizio MazzoleniECS, Hannes Müller-ThomyECS
Using storytelling to highlight the challenges of cooperation during crises
(2019-12-17)
This book uses storytelling to share research findings from Sweden about the 2017 terrorist act on Drottninggatan, the 2018 wildfires, and the 2004 handling of the Tsunami disaster in Thailand.
Are We in the Right Path in Using Early Warning Systems?
(2019-12-20)
CNDS fellow Anna Rutgersson together with her collegues Venugopal Thandlam and Hasibur Rahaman look into the recent tsunami in Indonesia and the factors leading to the mass casualties. They also examine the failure of the early warning systems, methods, and technologies in an attempt to improve future early warning systems designed to mitigate the loss of lives and property against impending disasters. This paper is timely as Indonesia has seen one of the worst tsunamis in recent years and such disasters are continuous threats for the communities. Hence, the authors stress the importance of improving and strengthening the existing early warning systems.
Call for CNDS Interdisciplinary Grants
(2019-12-20)
CNDS is now providing an opportunity for Early Career Scientists (PhD students and postdocs from CNDS partnering universities Uppsala University, Karlstad University and Swedish Defence University) to apply for funding for interdisciplinary work within natural hazard and disaster science.
CNDS is making Interdisciplinary Grants available in order to encourage research activities that extend beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. Examples include funding of small research projects within natural hazards and disaster science involving two or more early career scientists from different disciplines, organizing cross-, multi- or interdisciplinary workshops and seminars, or attending PhD courses that are outside of one's own discipline in attempt to broaden one's research scope. While presentations of interdisciplinary work at conferences or workshops will also be considered, it will not be prioritised for funding.
The grants can be applied for until 31 January 2020 (total funds available for this year’s call is 150,000 SEK including 31% overhead costs). Acquired funding has to be spent before March 2021. The requirements for attaining the grant is that the proposed activities involve research tasks, analytical methods, and/or other efforts spanning across disciplines on a topic related to natural hazards and disaster science. Disciplines that currently are not represented within CNDS (e.g., public health, economics, and cognitive sciences) can also be covered.
Who can apply?
CNDS Interdisciplinary Grants are open for applications from early career scientists (PhD students and postdocs) from any department of CNDS partnering universities, i.e. Uppsala University, Karlstad University and Swedish Defence University.
How to apply?
Applications should be a maximum of two pages, including the proposal and description of the activity, a statement of the interdisciplinary nature of the proposal, how the proposed activity will benefit your research, budget (including overhead costs) with time line, and a motivation as to why these funds are needed. Applications must also include a one page resume of all applicants.
Review Process
Applications for CNDS Interdisciplinary Grants are reviewed and decided upon by the CNDS
Management Group. Potential for interdisciplinary and feasibility of the proposed activity are the main evaluation criteria. The management group can suggest merging applications.
Send your application to johanna.maard@geo.uu.se no later than 31 January 2020 (23:59 CET).
Please direct all questions related to the call to johanna.maard@gmail.com.
Can Regional-Scale Governance and Planning Support Transformative Adaptation? A Study of Two Places
(2019-12-20)
CNDS fellow Mikael Granberg together with his international colleagues examine more closely the idea that climate change adaptation is best leveraged at the local scale is a well- institutionalized script in both research and formal governance. 
This idea is based on the argument that the local scale is where climate change impacts are “felt” and experienced. However, sustainable and just climate futures require transformations in systems, norms, and cultures that underpin and reinforce our unsustainable practices and development pathways, not just “local” action. Governance interventions are needed to catalyse such shifts, connecting multilevel and multiscale boundaries of knowledge, values, levels and organizational remits. The authors critically reflect on current adaptation governance processes in Victoria, Australia and the Gothenburg region, Sweden to explore whether regional-scale governance can provide just as important leverage for adaptation as local governance, by identifying and addressing intersecting gaps and challenges in adaptation at local levels. The authors suggest that regional-scale adaptation offers possibilities for transformative change because they can identify, connect, and amplify small-scale (local) wins and utilize this collective body of knowledge to challenge and advocate for unblocking stagnated, institutionalized policies and practices, and support transformative change.