Vulnerability and adaptation to heat in cities: perspectives and perceptions of local adaptation decision-makers in Sweden

Abstract

Climate change vulnerability is disproportionately distributed between different population segments in society. This study qualitatively explores how key stakeholders in municipalities (i.e. planning and operational staff in municipalities and the vulnerable themselves) construct social vulnerability in relation to climate change with a specific focus on thermal stress (i.e. heat waves) and which adaptive responses they identify at different levels. The empirical material consists of five focus groups with actors in a large Swedish municipality where the “Vulnerability Factor Card Game” was used as stimulus material to create 10 fictional individuals. The results show that there is a substantial amount of local knowledge about vulnerability drivers and inter-relations between social factors and vulnerability. Local decision-makers also defined a wide range of possible adaptation measures at different municipal levels. Our study clearly indicates that contextualised knowledge, which could complement the quantitative approaches in research, is abundant among municipal planners, staff employed at municipal operations such as health care, and among the vulnerable themselves. This knowledge remains untapped by research to a great extent and only seems to have an insignificant influence on policy-making. In particular, how impacts vary between different social and demographic groups and how adaptation strategies that target the most vulnerable could be defined are of great interest. The present study clearly indicates that social hierarchy may produce increased inequality in the specific context of climate change, vulnerability and adaptive responses at different levels.

Keywords:

• climate vulnerability indicators
• vulnerable groups
• vulnerability to heat
• local adaptation responses
• multiple inequalities

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank participants in the focus groups for their assistance and mutual exchange of ideas and two anonymous reviewers for their fruitful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. The Game can be used for other types of exposures, including uneven distribution of exposures such as urban heat islands or flood-prone areas. In this study, the type of dwelling was defined for the fictive persons (i.e. own house or apartment or public housing). This to some extent corresponds with the factor of neighbourhood stability (Wilhelmi and Hayden 2010) but strongly correlated with socio-economic status and was left out of the analysis, although some adaptation measures were dependent on the type of housing.

Additional information

Funding

The project was funded by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS, the Swedish Energy Agency, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish National Heritage Board and the Swedish Transport Administration. Drnr 2010-358.