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Human health risks in dealing with floods in a river basin in South-Western Finland are analysed as an example of scientific and practical challenges in systemic adaptation to climate change and in integrated governance of water resources. The analysis is based on case reports and plans, on literature studies and on conceptual models of risks and risk management. Flood risks in the Northern European study area are aggravated by melt- and storm-water runoff, ice jams and coastal flooding. Flood risk assessment is linked with management plans based on EU directives as applied in the case area. National risk management policies and procedures of increasing scope and depth have been devised for climate change, water resources and overall safety, but an integrated approach to health risks is still largely missing. The same is true of surveys of perceived flood risks, and participatory deliberation and collaborative planning procedures for flood risk management in the case area, specifically for adaptive lake regulation. Health impacts, risks and benefits, socio-economic and systemic risks, and over-arching prevention, adaptation and compensation measures are not fully included. We propose a systematic framework for these extensions. Particular attention needs to be given to health risks due to flooding, e.g. from water contamination, moist buildings, mental stress and infrastructure damage and also from management actions. Uncertainties and ambiguities about risks present continuing challenges. It is concluded that health aspects of flooding are complex and need to be better included in assessment and control, to develop more integrated and adaptive systemic risk governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on long-term media coverage of environmental issues has focused predominantly on English-speaking industrialized countries and on single isolated topics. This article presents a comparative analysis of the Finnish newspaper coverage of climate change and eutrophication from 1990–2014. The coverage of eutrophication showed an annual cycle with summertime peaks strongly influenced by local conditions and domestic news sources. The coverage of climate change had three distinctive peaks, influenced by several factors including international climate policy negotiations, domestic energy debates, and mild and snowless winter weather. The prospects for building public awareness of environmental issues through media representations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of an impact assessment (IA) can mean both instrumental success of applying IA results directly in decision-making, and conceptual success linked to learning about policy problems more generally. Both instrumental and conceptual success can be claimed to be reliant on the knowledge exchange context of the IA, shaped by factors such as the complexity of the policy problem, type of policy area, organisational norms, actor constellations and continuance and openness of information sharing. Even though such context factors may be pre-set, they are nevertheless contested and reformulated during each IA process. This paper ties together lessons from six different IA processes that were performed between 2011 and 2013. The cases include agricultural policy at the EU and regional level in Greece, national-level climate change and energy policy in Finland and Estonia, resource efficiency policy at the German national level, and sustainable land use policy in Inner Mongolia, China. The paper introduces and applies a typology of knowledge brokerage context factors. The paper asks how knowledge brokerage is shaped by different contexts and what determines the consequent application (or non-application) of IA tools and the use of IA results. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of identification and acknowledgement of different knowledge exchange contexts in IA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Societies are increasingly characterised by increasing mobility of people and materials. Consequently, harmful environmental impacts of transport are likely to increase unless specific policies aimed at mitigating these impacts can be successfully implemented. Based on EU-level requirements for carbon dioxide emission reductions, a car tax reform was enacted in Finland in 2008. By using the environmental protection process (EPP) framework as a conceptual tool, we perform a quantitative content analysis of media discussion of the car tax reform. The EPP framework is an integrative tool, aimed at an overall view of the characteristics of environmental problems and mitigation measures. The results show that societal factors, emissions, measures and the potential side-effects of the reform dominated the media discussion. Short-term impacts were emphasised over longer-term perspectives in the discussion’s future-orientation. Overall, it seems that in spite of a relatively wide-ranging discussion, the media debate contributed only marginally to public understanding of the prerequisites for environmentally sustainable transport. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Ecological thresholds have raised considerable interest as a concept that may help to understand and manage environmental challenges in coastal areas. We present results from an international survey on ecological thresholds targeted at coastal and marine experts. The results show that experts are confident that coastal areas are affected by risks and changes related to ecological thresholds. Experts also are concerned that current coastal management structures and practices are not capable of preventing the crossing of the thresholds of harmful changes, especially those related to climate change. The results also show a high level of variability of views and suggest a need for the creation of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary platforms and processes of open-minded deliberation needed for the adaptive management of coastal areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reasons for the emergence of environmental issues in public debate have been widely studied, while the reasons for the disappearance of environmental issues from the public agenda are researched to a far lesser extent. This article presents how the newspaper coverage of climate change has evolved in Finland. The study is based on long-term (1990–2020) data from the leading national-level newspaper. The climate coverage has been characterized by an increasing overall trend and remarkable fluctuations in the intensity of debate. The monthly coverage of climate change had four distinctive peak periods. The drops from peak levels are explained by several factors, such as the end of a specific news event or policy process (e.g., international climate policy meetings), lack of weather anomalies (e.g., normal winter weather and snow coverage), silence of key influencers (policy-makers, business elite), and news competition together with reporting fatigue following abundant climate coverage. The first months of the intense phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 showed a deep, but not unprecedented drop in climate coverage from the preceding peak level. The persistence of anthropogenic climate change, gradual mainstreaming of climate concerns across different societal sectors, and recent policy debates around so-called green or sustainable recovery suggest that climate coverage is not likely to be muted in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] The transport environmental debate is studied through media, expert, and student discourses. [•] A holistic framework of environmental problems is employed. [•] Long-term environmental implications of traffic policies remain obscure in discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]