Integrated vulnerability mapping for wards in Mid-Norway

Abstract

The future climate of Norway is expected to become “warmer, wetter, and wilder”, and it is anticipated that this will cause more extreme weather events. Local authorities therefore need to increase their ability to assess weather-related hazards such as flooding and landslide, as well as peoples’ capacities to cope with such events. Any evaluation of future vulnerability towards natural hazards should use today's situation as the baseline. In this article, we present this baseline: a vulnerability assessment for the present. Our vulnerability assessment incorporates both physical and social dimensions of vulnerability and screens Mid-Norway at the lowest administrative level. The results reveal a considerable geographic variation regarding vulnerability. The assessment identifies the most vulnerable localities within a municipality and could thus be relevant for the local authorities. By incorporating knowledge held by the local authorities, the vulnerability mapping could be made even more relevant.

Keywords:

• effects of climate change
• exposure to natural hazards
• social vulnerability
• Norway

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from The Research Council of Norway (Project No. 196346/S30). Research presented in this paper also contributes to the Nordic Centre of Excellence for Strategic Adaptation Research (NORD-STAR), which is funded by the Norden Top-level Research Initiative sub-programme “Effect Studies and Adaptation to Climate Change”. The authors are grateful to Professor Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, the editor, Professor Bob Evans, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier versions of the article.

Notes

Not all areas where quick clay slides can occur are covered. In Namsos, one of the municipalities where mapping has been performed, the quick clay slide that occurred in Kattmarka in 2009 was released in an area outside the mapped area.

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