1. Making sense of climate risk information: The case of future indoor climate risks in Swedish churches
- Author
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Gustaf Leijonhufvud
- Subjects
Atmospheric Science ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,Cultural heritage management ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Climate change ,010501 environmental sciences ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,lcsh:QC851-999 ,01 natural sciences ,Risk communication ,Sensemaking ,11. Sustainability ,Adaptation ,Adaptation (computer science) ,Environmental planning ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Global and Planetary Change ,business.industry ,Impact assessment ,Climate risk ,Environmental resource management ,Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap ,13. Climate action ,Salient ,lcsh:Meteorology. Climatology ,Business ,Built heritage ,Social Sciences Interdisciplinary - Abstract
Organizations and institutions managing built heritage have to make use of increasingly detailed, elaborate and complex climate change impact assessments. It is a challenge to determine how, when and by whom climate predictions should be translated into risk estimates usable for decision-making. In this paper results from the Climate for Culture project are used to study how heritage decision-makers interpret future indoor climate-related risks to Swedish churches. Different sets of risk maps were presented to ten engineers, ten building conservators and five experts on indoor climate related risks. Interviews were used to understand how the interviewees made sense of the presented information and if they associated it with a perceived need for adaptation. The results show that the risks were interpreted and assessed largely dependent on their pre-understanding and familiarity with the individual risks. The magnitude of change and the lack of uncertainty estimates were subordinate to the overall impression of the information as being credible and salient. The major conclusion is that the dissemination of risk information, also from projects which at the outset have aimed at producing knowledge relevant for end-users, should be both customized and tested in collaborative efforts by stakeholders and scientists.
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