ACHILLES: Arctic climate change induced hazards and social transformations for upholding local livelihoods, safety and wellbeing

In several areas in Norway, climate change is projected to induce more frequent natural hazards such as snow and slush avalanches and blizzards along the highways. This will in turn lead to more frequent and sudden road closures. The research project ACHILLES provides insights into community responses to such winter climate-induced disruptions and local flexibility and adaptive capacity to meet future incidents. The project maps and assesses responses from affected people and municipalities, including personal welfare and safety perceptions and possible longer-term considerations including work commutes. Findings illustrate that residents have developed a range of response strategies to abrupt disruptions caused by avalanche risks and blizzards. Everyday responses include keeping extra clothing, toiletries and medicine on the other side of the avalanche points and in their cars, reducing social commitments during peak season and relying on local knowledge and social networks. A questionnaire survey takes a novel natural experiment approach to inhabitants' subjective personal experiences and perceptions of lifeline vulnerability in the seaside study areas that have been sporadically isolated due to avalanches, heavy snowfall, and/or snowdrifts. This enquiry aimed at filling a research gap on sudden winter climate-induced disconnections and road travel hazards in advanced societies. Taken together, the project shows that weather-induced road closures lead to worries about road travel and practical problems but also that many people are able to adjust to reduce their vulnerabilities. Community characteristics such as available services and social and human capital are important for understanding people's vulnerabilities, worries, and hazard preparedness. A part of the project attempted to find out whether and how disagreements among public authorities might create barriers to public sector adaptation and preparedness. The literature on weather vulnerabilities and climate adaptation recommends increased public sector coordination. One thus explored if and how governance can contribute to improvement of lifeline conditions. A case study suggests that the different mandates of responsible public authorities sometimes clash. Such clashes limit the abilities to sustain welfare and business conditions when avalanches and blizzards cause highway outages. The study also shows that governance might only partly improve public sector peril response measures, as there is rarely sufficient flexibility to consider specific interests or preferences, for example, to keep a highway open until a school bus or a freight delivery has passed. Climate model simulations find increase in snow indices in both study areas in present climate, while a strong decrease is expected in near and far future, particularly in low elevations where snow cover during winter might become a rarity by 2100. Heavy water supply is rather infrequent in the present climate of Troms, but such events are likely to occur more often in all inland areas in the future. Although the risk of dry snow-related access disruptions might decrease, a warmer and wetter winter climate may increase the risk of wet-snow avalanches and slush flows. Zero-crossings, known to destabilize snow pack and cause rock fall, have increased in most parts of Troms during the last decades, and a further increase is expected for inland regions in the future, while coastal regions can expect less zero-crossings. Project results are presented in academic journal articles. Moreover, a special issue in January 2020 of Tromsø Museum?s popular science journal Ottar will include some ten articles with project outcomes.

Prosjektet belyser mange sider ved at atkomstveier plutselig blir stengt på grunn av store snøfall, snøskred, sørpeskred, nedfall av is og generell skredfare. For offentlige myndigheter er veistenginger som følge av skredfare og ekstremvær et gjenstridig problem: Det er vanskelig å dele det opp i klare ansvarsområder og de involverte myndighetene har ulike oppfattelser av problemet, samtidig som man er utsatt for lunefulle naturkrefter. Samtidig er det økende oppmerksomhet om samhandling i organisering og tenking i offentlig sektor. Beboere og virksomheter ønsker forhåndsvarsling av sannsynlig stenging av atkomstveier på grunn av skredfare og ekstremvær. Vegvesenet framholder imidlertid at de ofte ville komme til «å rope ulv» om de skulle gi generell forhåndsvarsling; altså at de sier at veien kan bli stengt, men så viser det seg at vær og snøforhold bedres.

In exposed areas in Northern Norway, climate change is projected to induce more frequent natural hazards such as landslides, mud and rock slides, snow and slush avalanches. This will in turn lead to more frequent and sudden closures of roads and/or interr uptions of telecommunications and electricity supply. The project will provide insights into community responses to such climate change induced disruptions and assess local resilience and adaptive capacity to meet incidents. The proposed approach will com bine the typical longer term perspective in resilience and adaptation studies with the common shorter time frames of vulnerability analyses. The project will additionally complement a top-down approach related to climate impact assessments with a bottom-u p experience based assessment of local conditions such as welfare, livelihood adaptation, and risk reduction. The study will map and assess responses from affected people, municipalities and enterprises, including personal welfare and safety perceptions a nd possible longer-term considerations including settlement patterns and industry localisation. As climate induced incidents will continue to take place in the future; the project will be complemented with projected climate change effects causing natural hazards. Comparing histories of different locations, population segments, enterprises and institutions allows for assessments of resilience factors, adaptation strategies and possible multilevel coordination. This type of extended case approach and relate d survey and field research techniques make it achievable to critically examine actual locally experienced climate change effects and responses to the problems caused and advance management measures. The project will also provide insights as to whether an d how local and regional public administrations cooperate with each other and with affected private stakeholders and citizens. Outreach and communication will be on-going elements, not simply an end-product.