Culture and Climate Resilience: Perspectives from Europe (Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies) 303058402X, 9783030584023

Table of contents :
Praise for Culture and Climate Resilience
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Fruit of Approaching Climate Resilience Through Culture
Reference
Chapter 2: Cultural Analysis and Climate Resilience
Culture and Its Representations
Culture
Resilience
Cultural Codes in Relation to the Adaptation of Climate Requirement
Cultural Differences
Frame for Investigations Climate Resilience in Communities
References
Chapter 3: Cultural Insights into Coastal Risks and Climate Change Resilience of a Society ‘in Transition’
Foreword
Climate and Culture
Natural Hazards
Social Groups’ Perception of Risk
The Role of Culture (Values and Traditions) in Shaping the Risk Perception
Mode of Governance. Dynamics between Governmental and Non-governmental Institutions
Legislative Framework of Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation
Disaster Risk Reduction and Flood Management
Coastal and Landslide Management
Adaptation to Climate Change
Mitigation and Adaptation Measures at Place
Essential Measures of Coping with Disasters
Shore Protection Measures
Flood Management Dimension
Problems and Weaknesses in Disaster Protection
Conclusions and Recommendations
References
Chapter 4: Livek: A Mountainous Border Area’s Transformation from a Ski Paradise to a Resilient Community
Introduction
Climate and Culture
Climate Change and Its Impact
Physical and Climate Characteristics
Historical and Social Characteristics
Problem Statement
A Response Without a Response: A Total Absence of Planned Counteractions
Gradual Transition after 1991: Power and Agency
Networks (Relationships, Loyalties, and Dependencies)
Social Justice
Adaptive Capacity and Climate Resiliency
Concrete Coping Measures and Strategy Implemented (Mitigation and/or Adaptation)
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Contested Bogs in Ireland: A Viewpoint on Climate Change Responsiveness in Local Culture
Peatlands in Ireland: Landscape, Energy, and Identity
Climate Impacts
Ecological Risks
Local Aspects of Changing Resource-Doctrine
Social Risks
Changes in National Project and Their Local Implications
Reactions in Local Communities
Political Divisions in Relation to Local Cultures
Problem Specification
Adaptation Strategies
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: Climate Resilience on the Island of Pellworm: Balancing Multiple Layers in the Context of Climate Change
The Case Study Island of Pellworm on the German North Sea Coast
Climate Impacts on Pellworm
Exposure and Biophysical Vulnerability Over Time
Climate Resilience on Pellworm
Internal Factors Contributing to Climate Resilience on Pellworm
The Social Dimension of Place Attachment
The Economic Dimension of Place Attachment
The Cultural Dimension of Place Attachment
The Natural Environmental Dimension of Place Attachment
Implications for Internal Climate Resilience
External Factors Contributing to Climate Resilience on Pellworm
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: Culture and Climate Resilience: A Comparative Analysis of Experiences and Practices in Four Case Studies Across Europe
Brief Overview of the Case Studies
Similarities Across Cases
Differences Across Cases
Conclusion
Reference
Correction to: Livek: A Mountainous Border Area’s Transformation from a Ski Paradise to a Resilient Community
Epilogue
References
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CLIMATE RESILIENT SOCIETIES SERIES EDITOR: ROBERT C. BREARS

Culture and Climate Resilience Perspectives from Europe Edited by Grit Martinez

Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies Series Editor Robert C. Brears Avonhead, Canterbury, New Zealand

The Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies series provides readers with an understanding of what the terms resilience and climate resilient societies mean; the best practices and lessons learnt from various governments, in both non-OECD and OECD countries, implementing climate resilience policies (in other words what is ‘desirable’ or ‘undesirable’ when building climate resilient societies); an understanding of what a resilient society potentially looks like; knowledge of when resilience building requires slow transitions or rapid transformations; and knowledge on how governments can create coherent, forward-looking and flexible policy innovations to build climate resilient societies that: support the conservation of ecosystems; promote the sustainable use of natural resources; encourage sustainable practices and management systems; develop resilient and inclusive communities; ensure economic growth; and protect health and livelihoods from climatic extremes. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15853

Grit Martinez Editor

Culture and Climate Resilience Perspectives from Europe

Editor Grit Martinez Ecologic Institute Berlin, Germany

ISSN 2523-8124     ISSN 2523-8132 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies ISBN 978-3-030-58402-3    ISBN 978-3-030-58403-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021, corrected publication 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Praise for Culture and Climate Resilience “This collection centring on the relationship between culture, place and climate change provides essential background for cultural heritage specialists who are mobilising the past to equip communities for the future. Understanding the relationship between people and their environments in the past and in the future is a core concern for archaeologists and cultural heritage specialists. Archaeological data provides hard evidence of climate change over millennia, detailing also how people have responded by adapting to but perhaps also exacerbating impacts. Equally, climate change is threatening many treasured places around the world, obliging countries and communities to make tough decisions about what can be saved. There are lessons we can learn from the fabric of historic buildings and landscapes about how people used to live with challenging environmental conditions, but the past also provides a setting that can help the urgent conversations and transformative changes that need to occur amongst individuals, communities and societies. Culture is fundamental to engaging with climate change: the insights and case studies in this volume provide vital context for climate heritage research and practice.” —Dr Antony Firth, MCIfA, Director, Fjordr Ltd., UK “These authors convincingly show the power of cultural analysis in building resilience to climate change. Combined, the case studies advance our understanding of lessons learned and paths forward. They provide important lessons from Europe on why culture must be central to our research, policies and interventions to make communities climate resilient.” —Michael J. Paolisso, University of Maryland

Contents

1 Introduction: The Fruit of Approaching Climate Resilience Through Culture  1 Grit Martinez 2 Cultural Analysis and Climate Resilience  5 Grit Martinez and Simo Häyrynen 3 Cultural Insights into Coastal Risks and Climate Change Resilience of a Society ‘in Transition’ 15 Nataliya K. Andreeva, Zoritza K. Kiresiewa, Nikolay N. Valchev, and Petya T. Eftimova 4 Livek: A Mountainous Border Area’s Transformation from a Ski Paradise to a Resilient Community 45 Mimi Urbanc and Mateja Šmid Hribar 5 Contested Bogs in Ireland: A Viewpoint on Climate Change Responsiveness in Local Culture 69 Simo Häyrynen, Caitriona Devery, and Aparajita Banerjee

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6 Climate Resilience on the Island of Pellworm: Balancing Multiple Layers in the Context of Climate Change 97 Daniela Siedschlag and Kira Gee 7 Culture and Climate Resilience: A Comparative Analysis of Experiences and Practices in Four Case Studies Across Europe119 Mimi Urbanc and Grit Martinez Correction to: Livek: A Mountainous Border Area’s Transformation from a Ski Paradise to a Resilient Community C1 Mimi Urbanc and Mateja Šmid Hribar

Epilogue131 Grit Martinez Index133

Notes on Contributors

Nataliya K. Andreeva, PhD  is a researcher at the Institute of Oceanology-­ BAS in Varna, Bulgaria in the scope of coastal processes with an emphasis on coastal hydrodynamics. Recently, her work is also related to assessment of coastal flood hazard, vulnerability and exposure, risk management, climate change, and stakeholders’ mapping. Aparajita  Banerjee is a post-doctoral researcher at the College of Business, University College Dublin, Ireland. Her research explores issues around labour and community impacts of energy transitions, sustainability, and public policy implementation challenges in achieving Sustainable Development Goals 7, 8 & 17. Caitriona Devery  writes about food, art, and culture for Dublin’s Char digital and print magazine and FEAST Journal, a UK-based publication. She works as the research manager at the Earth Institute, University College Dublin. She grew up in County Offaly in the Irish Midlands. Petya  T.  Eftimova, MSc is working in the Coastal Zone Dynamics Department at the Institute of Oceanology-BAS, Varna, Bulgaria. Her professional field is coastal modelling with a focus on beach morphodynamics, data processing, coastal hazard mapping, etc. She took part in several European and national projects dealing with disaster risk assessment, disaster risk reduction measures, and climate change adaptation. Kira Gee  is based at the Department of Human Dimensions of Coastal Areas at Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht, Germany. Marine spatial planning is a central focus of her work, but her research interests also ix

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include marine values, seascapes, cultural ecosystem services, and socio-cultural aspects of climate change. Simo  Häyrynen  is University Lecturer (Environmental Policy) at the University of Eastern Finland. He has run several research projects including The Frontiers of Sustainability Transition focusing on the cultural adaptation of sustainability policies in European peripheries. Zoritza  K.  Kiresiewa  is a research fellow at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin with a background in geography. Her doctoral thesis focuses on land management issues, the development of livelihood and climate change adaptation strategies in Mongolia. Her research focuses climate change adaptation and bio-based economy issues. Grit Martinez  is a senior researcher at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin and an associate professor at the department of anthropology of the University of Maryland. She spent more than 15 years working on topics in environmental, historical and cultural studies related to coastal hazards, climate change and community resilience so that policy makers and practitioners make use of our past knowledge to cope with future changes. Daniela  Siedschlag  is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany. She has research experience in social vulnerability, risk perception, and concepts of place attachment and has particular expertise in research on adaptation to climate change and extreme weather events on the German North Sea coast. Mateja Šmid Hribar  holds a PhD in geography. She is a research fellow at the ZRC SAZU Anton Melik Geographical Institute (Slovenia). Her research interests focus on human-nature interactions, landscape studies, governing commons, and common-pool resources and exploring the role of Ecosystem Services in landscape governance and management. Mimi Urbanc  holds a PhD in geography. She is a senior research fellow and deputy director at the ZRC SAZU (Slovenia). Her main research areas include cultural landscapes, perception, and representations of landscapes. Nikolay  N.  Valchev  is head of Coastal Zone Dynamics Depаrtment at the Institute of Oceanology—BAS in Varna. His professional experience in the field of study and monitoring of coastal processes, coastal hazard and risk assessment, disaster risk reduction planning and forecasting, and early warning systems. He has a record of more than 70 scientific publications.

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 4.5

Fig. 4.6

Varna case study on the western Black Sea coast. (Data source: ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003.2019 from NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, distributed by NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC, https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ ASTGTM.003 and shapefiles from http://www.vdsgeo.com/. Prepared by P.T. Eftimova) 17 Map of the local community of Livek; location within the Municipality of Kobarid and Slovenia 46 One of the settlements in the Livek area, Perati, at 828 m (photo: Boris Drešček) and Culture 47 Annual precipitation (columns), the five-year sliding period in Livek from 1961 to 2011, and an average for 1981 to 2010 (black line) and 1961 to 1990 (grey line; Nadbath 2017) 49 Amount of precipitation (mm) and number of days with snow cover per month in Livek in 1992 (Arhiv meteoroloških 2020) 50 Days with snow cover during the snow seasons in Livek from 1968 to 2011. For the 1970/1971 and 1974/1975 snow seasons (red numbers) not all data are available. A decline in the number of days with snow cover is visible (Arhiv meteoroloških 2020)50 Measures taken according to approaches (top-down, bottom-up) and for whom they were addressed and designed. The colour signifies the type and level of operation (green for the local, municipal, or cross-border level, and blue for the regional or national level) 63

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List of Figures

Fig. 4.7 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 5.6 Fig. 5.7 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 6.4

The Nebesa cottages at the former ski lodge site (photo: Nebesa.si) 63 Peat bog, County Offaly (Caitriona Devery) 71 Yellow furze or gorse bushes on post-industrial peatland, County Offaly (Caitriona Devery) 71 Domestic turf cutting, County Offaly: turf footings (Caitriona Devery)72 Homage to the people of the Peatlands: Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park, County Kildare (Simo Häyrynen) 74 The case study site: Map of the Irish peatlands (Noora Rämö, UEF) 77 Bog Track sculpture by Johan Sietzema, Lough Boora Sculpture Park (Caitriona Devery) 89 Carbonx Flux sculptures by Rachael Champion (Rachael Champion)91 Location of Pellworm on the German North Frisian coast. (D. Siedschlag, based on GfK Geo-Marketing) 99 Map of the island of Pellworm. (D. Siedschlag, based on ‘kartenwerk’ Kartographie Manufaktur und Verlag) 101 Section drawing of the island of Pellworm (not to scale). (D. Siedschlag)102 Climate Resilience in the context of the Island of Pellworm. (D. Siedschlag, K. Gee) 105

List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5

Measures implemented after the decline of ski tourism in the Livek area Biophysical characteristics Climate change and natural hazards related information Culture and resilience, and their representations Governance issues Intervention and related issues

61 121 122 123 125 126

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Fruit of Approaching Climate Resilience Through Culture Grit Martinez

Abstract  This book addresses why values, knowledge, and identity matter in building community resilience in place-based contexts. Case studies from different geographical regions in Europe illustrate how past and present societal trajectories shape local and regional responses to climate change and why this concerns political decision makers at all levels who are aiming to mainstream mitigation and adaptation strategies confronting climate change effects and in turn shaping resiliency. Keywords  Culture • Climate change • Resilience • Values • Knowledge • Identity • Context Recently, various effects of climate change have become visible in Europe, including higher average temperatures, increases in precipitation in northern Europe and decreases in precipitation in southern Europe, decline in G. Martinez (*) Ecologic Institute, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_1

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snow cover, melting glaciers, and warming of permafrost soils. Furthermore, extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods, and droughts have led to increasing losses (European Commission 2020). When it comes to dealing with climate change, Europe seems to be united. Important drivers for unified action at the European level were the floods in 2002 and the heat wave in 2003. In 2005, the European Union recognised the need to adapt to the consequences of climate change and set up a working group under the European Climate Change Programme. Finland was the first European country to present a national adaptation strategy in 2005. France and Spain followed in 2006, Germany and the UK in 2008. Today 28 European countries have developed national adaptation strategies, and some countries are already in the process of implementing adaptation activities via their national and sectoral action plans. Within these activities, municipal planning is a key avenue to respond to the consequences of climate change which have, undoubtedly, predominantly local impacts. Thus, all societal and cultural groups of a community need to be included in planning in order to build up resiliency. Nevertheless, concrete adjustment measures are often exclusively associated with economic means, specific policies, governmental arrangements, and sectoral urban and regional planning and development. Local or regional cultures are rather seldom addressed, as they seem to be less important from our predominantly societal thinking in terms of cost-­ benefit ratios. Although the participation of local stakeholders plays a role in adaptation and resiliency programmes and projects, values, beliefs, knowledge, and behaviour of community groups, as well as cultural-­ historical contexts and traits of a region are far under-acknowledged in climate adaptation and resiliency policy making. This seems to be surprising, since the connections that people have with places and the way these places shape and alter their sensitivity to climate stressors, as well as their capacities to adapt to them, are well known. For decades social science and humanities scholars documented that the social vulnerability of a community at a specific geographical place is characterised by particularities of history, values, beliefs, knowledge, trust, and social relationships within and amongst groups, but also within political and legal traditions and institutional and socio-economic structures in which specific climatic change impacts manifests and occurs. The ability of a social group to cope with the impacts of climatic experiences in the long term and to adapt to future stresses, perturbations, or shocks is known as resiliency. Cultural values influence how decision

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makers and community members interpret climatic experiences, particularly how they perceive the value of their geographical place, the level of risks they associate with the climatic changes and the beliefs they have about its control and responsibility to adapt and mitigate its effects. Thus, resiliency and culture are inextricably linked. With this book, we hope to contribute to bridging the gap between climate change policies and decision making and the cultural traits of communities in Europe and elsewhere. The book’s chapter are structured as follows: Chapter 1 introduces the focus of the book. Chapter 2 focuses on the inevitable link of climate resiliency and culture and sets the scene for the case studies, which are explored in the next four chapters. Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 feature four case studies in Bulgaria (Varna situated at the Black Sea), in Slovenia (the village of Livek in the hilly area of the northwestern part of Slovenia at the border of Italy), in Ireland (the Irish Midlands) and in Germany (The North Frisian Island Pellworm). Chapter 7 compares similarities and differences of the cases studies in terms of their climate resiliency. Chapter 8 provides an epilogue.

Reference European Commission (Climate Action/EU-Action). (2020). Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/adaptation/how_en.

CHAPTER 2

Cultural Analysis and Climate Resilience Grit Martinez and Simo Häyrynen

Abstract  This chapter gives an overview of how cultural analysis is able to tackle spatial dynamics narratives that are connected with different natural resources and their climate impacts. It is divided into five sections: (1) culture and its representations; (2) resilience; (3) cultural codes in relation to the adaptation of climate requirements; (4) cultural differences; and (5) frames for investigations of community resiliencies. Keywords  Cultural analysis • Codes • Narratives • Resource doctrine • Climate resilience • Europe

G. Martinez (*) Ecologic Institute, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] S. Häyrynen Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_2

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Culture and Its Representations Culture There is no generally accepted definition of culture. Rather, broad and narrow definitions of the concept can be found in large numbers, with different emphases depending on the field of scientific research. This was already documented in 1952 by the American researchers Kroeber and Kluckhohn, who published a collection of over 100 different definitions of culture. After they had systematized and analysed them, they proposed the following comprehensive definition of culture, which has become a widespread common understanding across the social science and humanities: ‘Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts. The essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historical derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values. Culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action’ (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952). Recent and further back studies (e.g. Lemée et al. 2019; Clarke et al. 2018; Fresque-Baxter and Armitage 2012; Adger et al. 2011; Brien and Wolf 2010; Dove and Carpenter 2008; Kruper 2000) have emphasized that people’s perception of climate change and hence their actions are strongly influenced by the value they tribute to their surrounding environment (place), the level of risks they associate with the changes in their environment and the beliefs they hold about control and responsibility to adapt or to mitigate its effects. In that sense, cultures are collective cognitive processes which individual members of a group use to assess various value questions and simultaneously are to be identified by both the likes and the others (Geertz 1973). Relevance structures (Schütz 1970) can build networks of trust including binding elements such as common narratives and memories that mediate and reinforce appropriate cultural values in a community. Dan Kahan (2006) suggests that cultural commitments are prior to factual beliefs especially in highly charged political issues. People would evaluate empirical information on gun control, death penalty, or climate change more by their cultural criteria than in less sensitive questions. Cultural consciousness is considered a crucial element of being a human. It shows both the value and knowledge-difference between groups

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of people. Therefore, and especially in the western world, cultural sovereignty is generally considered to be intact. The inviolability of cultural value is exemplified by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1945). In practice, cultural sovereignty means that groups may be allowed to cultural deviations from general norms and societies must endure them as evidence of human diversity. How is such cultural ‘normality’ represented? The hegemony of normality is achieved through the popular knowledge (path-dependent assumptions, prejudices, unverified facts), which the main cultural institutions and rituals often maintain. Individuals make sense of their experience by connecting with larger narratives and identities (Hards 2012). Collective identity illustrates particular binaries (good/bad, beautiful/ugly, etc.) prevalent in this community, which are crucial and concrete also for the adoption of environmental attitude. Collective identity becomes a symbolic mask to illustrate ‘the true nature of the group’ or ‘desired us’ situations that are taken for granted are constructed and maintained as conscious identity actions. However, culture is rarely an uncontested system, at least not in the contemporary global world. Although culture is adapted with familiarity, it cannot avoid facing unfamiliar formations. From time to time hegemony is challenged by new ideas and new interpretations of the reality. New concepts (e.g. green economy, bioregionalism, or clean technology) and devices (e.g. electric cars, windmills, or cycle routes) dealing with contemporary environmental challenges are textbook examples. Similarly, new cultures have to contend with strong hegemony first with old methods. If daily needs and motivations do not equate to those of global political decision making, the hegemonic narrative lacks local power (Eriksen 2017). With complex issues like climate change mitigation and adaptation, for example, local understanding may strongly differ from hegemonic discourses. With no global consensus on solutions, let alone commonly shared ideas about what should be done, people in their daily local environments may feel a sense of helplessness that leads to fear and ignorance. Thus, culture is not something that can be created merely by an act of will; nor is it a kind of primordial matrix that determines people’s behaviour to the last detail. Cultures are symbolic frameworks inhabited by certain group of people and producing more or less conscious identity actions (products, deeds, statements) to deal with—adapt as well as resist—with the new phenomena. These symbolic networks set the codes for different actions, which again change the frameworks.

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Resilience The term ‘resilience’ is widely used today, and there are many different views on what it means. Often, resilience is used in relation to shocks, environmental disasters, climatic extremes, or financial crisis. However, there is no single accepted definition. Despite such lack of consensus, generally, resilience is understood as the ability of a system to cope with changes, perturbations, or shocks and to return to it is originally status, to adjust to the new circumstances and to reduce future risks and vulnerabilities. The Rome Declaration (2017) aims to increase resiliency throughout the European Union. The concept is increasingly being applied to a range of policy areas including climate change adaptation and mitigation. Resiliency tends to be understood in relation to disaster risk management and emergency planning, for example to climate-related hazards and natural disasters such as storm surges, floods, heat waves, or droughts. However, the context-specific nature and diversity of resilience—comprising its social-cultural, political, economic, and environmental system components—makes investigations to understand, measure, or evaluate resilience complex. Ecological systems, their resources, values, and knowledge of populations, authorities, decision makers, and planners living and working in these systems, their institutional arrangements, rules, laws, political devices, and last but not least historical origins and path-­dependent developments need to be taken into account when assessing the state of resiliency or ‘just transition’ in any given community.

Cultural Codes in Relation to the Adaptation of Climate Requirement Over the last decades, researchers have discussed diverse forms of background knowledge and social structures as being relevant to explain hazard-­related action differences, such as ecological worldviews and value orientations (e.g. Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Adger et al. 2011; Paolisso et al. 2012; Devine-Wright 2013; Heimann 2019). Indeed, it is possible to analyse cultures according to their relation to a particular ecological system: How, for example, a traditional way of exploiting natural resources shapes a community’s worldview, its moral and aesthetic standards. Bonding elements can be, for instance, types of landscapes and predominant sources of living, or conventional human/nature-illustrations. This fundamentally emotional relation constitutes what is called an

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environmental identity/citizenship. Moreover, the concept of resource doctrine is helpful in developing a deeper understanding of the importance of cultural codes: Resource doctrine is a composition of technologies, rationalities, institutions, and narratives that maintains certain (hegemonic) regime of rule including perceptions of truth and morality concerning nature exploitation, extraction, and human/nature-relation (Rose 1999). It performs ‘roles’ for people involved with the chains of production: labour, family, community, company, enablers, ‘enemies’, consumers, etc. For its strong cultural trajectories such a doctrine cannot be removed or replaced in a blink even if a political will is there or a political decision has been reached. As it is often said, culture provides people with a sense of security especially when community is in the middle of considerable changes and familiarity is fading away (Mathissen 2001). It seeks to maintain a sense of security by drawing a line between an acceptable standard and an unidentified culture. Therefore, culture becomes often a main producer of a lock­in situation. On the other hand, culture provides an arena for innovation and new practices and as such can act as a ‘picklock’ of locked-in transition. Cultural statements can be observed as responses—both supportive and causing ‘unexpected curves’ to linear normality (Geels 2011). It is a matter of perspective whether a local culture fills the gaps of official discourse or does question official discourse by local knowledge. Thus, the dialogue between familiarity and unfamiliarity sets cultural dynamics in coping with political, technological, or economic change and hence constitutes capacity of coping with new formations. Cultural resilience in climate change would then be the capacity to use the elements of one’s symbolic relevance structure to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to climate.

Cultural Differences Cultural knowledge-oriented approaches and socio-ecological (environmental, economic, and social capital) as well as institutional factors (existing policies, legal frameworks, and institutions) help to explain diverse handlings of natural hazards. Various authors discussed that preferences for measures against environmental threats may differ between actors from different socio-cultural contexts, even if events occur under (almost) similar physical conditions (e.g. Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Thompson et  al. 2003; Douglas et  al. 2012; Martinez et  al. 2012). It

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suggests a relationship between people and a particular local condition of human/nature relations, rather than what is conceived of as a ‘purified’ de-contextualised system of general/abstract formalities (Devine-Wright 2013; Boillat and Berges 2013). The core idea of the cultural approach applied to the case studies in this volume is that there are cultural differences—different tastes and different ambitions, which produce different filters to change the ‘slope’ of climate resilience and adaptability. However, a question arises: are there cultural groups that are more or less prone to adopt innovations tackling climate change? On the one hand, it is known that wealthier and more educated people often prove keener than the poor and less educated to accept green innovation and make political statements/identity actions out of their consumption of organic products or renewable energy, for example. On the other hand, poor and minority groups usually support environmental improvements simply because of their first-hand experience of environmental pollution, degradation, and noxious land use in their usually less desirable residential areas close to industry, traffic, etc. (Uyeki and Holland 2000). As for the variety within resource doctrines, from countries all over Europe and beyond we may recognize e.g. coastal, mineral, forest, or agricultural cultures all participating in the creation of societal landscape with their own specific global/local-relation. It means that the same identity action may seem inadequate in other landscape, and vice versa. Cultures produce more or less receptive platforms for transition, depending on the nature of the culture and attitudes it encompasses. Furthermore, in a multicultural world, different societies and groups are attracted by different cultural representations. To encounter and address this diversity and cultural distinctiveness between different actors, we must analyse the kind of cultures, shaped by local histories, politics, and spatial variation, that are written into representations. Frame for Investigations Climate Resilience in Communities The following chapters (Chaps. 3, 4, 5, and 6) provide empirical evidence about specific community’s resiliencies by focusing on the inevitable link of resilience and culture in relation to climate change deeds. Each case study exemplifies how specific approaches of a community have been shaped by multiple cultural, socio-political, economic factors, and the physical ecologies surrounding them.

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In policy and practice, there is a growing concern to support and empower capacities of rural communities under changing climatic conditions. Nevertheless, there is little systematic understanding why approaches work at the local level or not and what makes some communities resilient and others less so. The chosen cases address this shortcoming from a cultural and socio-ecological perspective. They demonstrate how culture resides decision making and acceptance in local communal settings across various regions in Europe. Despite the overwhelming opportunities for case studies from worldwide regions, we chose to focus on Europe. Because of its moderate climate, its manifold urban-industrialized regions, its typically highly skilled educated population, its successes in science and technology and advanced climate change policies, Europe is typically thought to be well equipped coping with the effects of a changing climate. However, as the cases illustrated there is a growing need for understanding the effects culture has on communal resiliency and for decision makers and planners to pay attention to ‘cultural’ details and the complexity of contextualized local conditions to enable successful and durable implementation of climate change policies, programmes, and measures.

References Adger, W. N., Barnett, J., Chapin, F. S., III, & Ellemor, H. (2011). This Must Be the Place: Underrepresentation of Identity and Meaning in Climate Change Decision-Making. Global Environmental Politics, 11(1), 1–25. Boillat, S., & Berges, F. (2013). Perception and Interpretation of Climate Change Among Quechua Farmers of Bolivia: Indigenous Knowledge as a Resource for Adaptive Capacity. Ecology and Society, 18(4), 21. Brien, K.  L., & Wolf, J. (2010). A Values-Based Approach to Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change. WIREs Climate Change. https://doi. org/10.1002/wcc.30. Clarke, D., Murphy, C., & Lorenzoni, I. (2018). Place Attachment, Disruption and Transformative Adaptation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 55, 81–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.12.006. Council of the EU. The Rome Declaration (2017). 149/17. Devine-Wright, P. (2013). Think Global, Act Local? The Relevance of Place Attachments and Place identities in a Climate Changed World. Global Environmental Change, 23, 61–69. Douglas, M., & Wildavsky, A.  B. (1982). Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Douglas, E. M., Kirshen, P. H., Paolisso, M., Watson, C., Wiggin, J., Enrici, A., & Ruth, M. (2012). Coastal Flooding, Climate Change And Environmental Justice: Identifying Obstacles And Incentives For Adaptation In Two Metropolitan Boston Massachusetts Communities. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Dove, Michael R., Carpenter, C., eds. (2008). Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader. Malden (MA): Blackwell. Eriksen, T.  H. (2017). Overheating: An Anthropology of Accelerated Change. London: PlutoPress. Fresque-Baxter, J., & Armitage, D. (2012). Place Identity and Climate Change Adaptation: A Synthesis and Framework for Understanding. WIREs Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.164. Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geels, F. (2011). The Multi-Level Perspective on Sustainability Transitions. Responses to Seven Criticisms. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 1(1), 24–40. Hards, S. (2012). Tales of Transformation: The Potential of a Narrative Approach to Pro-environmental Practices. Geoforum, 43, 760–771. Heimann, T. (2019). Climate Cultures and Space. Theoretical Foundations. In Culture, Space and Climate Change. Vulnerability and Resilience in European Coastal Areas. Routledge. Kahan, D. (2006). Cognition and Public Policy Cultural. Faculty Scholarship Series. Kroeber, A. L., Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: a critical review of concepts and definitions. Papers. Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University, 47(1). Kruper, A. (2000). Culture: The Anthropologist’s Account. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lemée, C., Fleury-Bahi, G., & Navarro, O. (2019). Impact of Place Identity, Self-­ Efficacy and Anxiety State on the Relationship Between Coastal Flooding Risk Perception and the Willingness to Cope. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 499. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00499. Martinez, G., Frick, F., & Gee, K. (2012). Socioeconomic and Cultural Issues in the Planning, Implementation and Transfer of Adaptation Measures to Climate Change. The Example of Two Communities on the German Baltic Sea Coast. In G. Martinez, P. Fröhle, & H.-J. Meier (Eds.), Social Dimension of Climate Change Adaptation in Coastal Regions (Vol. 5, pp.  203–219). München: Oekom Publishing. Paolisso, M., Douglas, E., Enrici, A., Kirshen, P., Watson, C., & Ruth, M. (2012). Climate Change, Justice, And Adaptation Among African American Communities In The Chesapeake Bay Region. Weather, Climate, and Society, 4(1), 34–47. Rose, N. (1999). Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Schütz, A. (1970). Reflections on the problem of relevance, Yale University Press. Thompson, M., Grendstad, G., Selle,Per, eds. (2003). Cultural Theory as Political Science, Routledge, London and New York, 1999. United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1945). https://www. humanrights.com/what-are-human-rights/universal-declaration-of-humanrights/preamble.html Uyeki, E., & Holland, L. (2000). Diffusion of Pro-Environment Attitudes? American Behavioral Scientist, 43(4), 646–662.

CHAPTER 3

Cultural Insights into Coastal Risks and Climate Change Resilience of a Society ‘in Transition’ Nataliya K. Andreeva, Zoritza K. Kiresiewa, Nikolay N. Valchev, and Petya T. Eftimova

Abstract  The study explores the cultural, socio-ecological, and institutional factors responsible for the present ways of handling natural hazards and coping with climate change challenges in Varna, a coastal city situated on the western Black Sea, Bulgaria. Diving into cultural perceptions of risk, governmental, social, and economic circumstances triggered after the political changes in 1989, and present state of development and implementation of disaster risk reduction, coastal management and climate

N. K. Andreeva (*) • N. N. Valchev • P. T. Eftimova Institute of Oceanology ‘Fridtjof Nansen’, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Varna, Bulgaria e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Z. K. Kiresiewa Ecologic Institute, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_3

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adaptation legislation framework helped to reveal the main reasons behind the relatively low adaptive capacity and climate resilience of Varna. Keywords  Culture • Natural hazards • Risk perceptions • Mode of governance • Disaster risk reduction • Coastal management

Foreword Varna is the third largest and highly urbanised city in Bulgaria, situated amphitheatrically following the curve of Varna Bay on the western Black Sea (Fig.  3.1). Some of the earliest traces of human presence in the area are related to prehistoric settlements of the First Civilisation in Europe, best known for the Chalcolithic Necropolis (mid 5000 BC), which is internationally considered the world’s oldest large find of gold artefacts (Ivanov 1982). Known as Odessos in antiquity, Varna grew from a Thracian seaside settlement (1200–1300 BC) and has been a major economic, social, and cultural centre for almost three millennia. It is well known as the ‘marine capital of Bulgaria’, something that people living there are proud of. However, the political changes in 1989 took its toll on the city, playing a major role in its transformation. Once a leading heavy industry and maritime transport hub, today it is a business and education centre of secondary importance with economics predominantly based on tourism (mainly seaside-recreational, but also spa and health, environmental, cultural) and services and trade in various sub-sectors. Other important sectors are the  maritime industry (port activities and infrastructure; cargo/oil commerce, transport, distribution, and storage; shipbuilding and repair), transport and logistics, fishery and aquacultures, etc., as their share is twice as small compared to tourism and services. Varna also hosts many national and international events and festivals related to culture and art. Varna is an administrative centre of a coastal municipality, which has a rather complex coastline, highly susceptible to erosion, and dominated by the presence of cliffs and beach bodies. Considerable parts of the coast, especially in Varna Bay, have been human-modified during the last century. To the north, the seaside is occupied mainly by large tourist resorts. The city’s coastal area comprises an urban park, beaches, and promenade with food and drink cafes, beach bars, small shops, and sports attractions. The most inner curve of the bay, being a low-lying sand spit, is now cut by two navigable canals, shaping an island, and connecting Varna bay to Varna Lake. This area accommodates the remaining industry and

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Fig. 3.1  Varna case study on the western Black Sea coast. (Data source: ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003.2019 from NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, distributed by NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC, https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ ASTGTM.003 and shapefiles from http://www.vdsgeo.com/. Prepared by P.T. Eftimova)

commerce activities and also holds the premises of Port Varna and headquarters of the Bulgarian Navy. Being a coastal city, Varna is under a threat of natural hazards like storm surge, erosion, flash floods and landslides. Climate change predictions suggest an increase of risks and vulnerability, so recent evaluations state that Bulgaria is particularly vulnerable to temperature rise, heavy rainfalls, drought and floods.1 According to 2008 report ‘Regions 2020’,2 an 1  National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan of Bulgaria, https:// www.moew.government.bg/bg/klimat/mejdunarodni-pregovori-i-adaptaciya/adaptaciya/, last accessed on 28.04.2020 2  https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/it/information/publications/studies/2008/ regions-2020-an-assessment-of-future-challenges-for-eu-regions, last accessed on 28.04.2020

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assessment of the vulnerability of EC regions to future challenges of globalisation, demographic change, climate change, and energy challenge, Varna falls within a region, which ranked as the sixth most vulnerable and one of the least developed in Europe. Furthermore, 2010 results on Regional Climate Confidence Index3 reveals that the region is under threat in this regard, as well.4 Varna case study investigates the cultural perceptions of coastal risks and climate resilience of a society living in times of still standing consequences of intentionally prolonged shift from state-controlled towards a free market economy. A situation that has led to it being labelled as a society ‘in transition’ to comfortably cover up the overwhelming political, economic, and societal issues. The perceptions to risks in the region were extracted from 26 formal questionnaire-based interviews, conducted in 2014 with major stakeholder groups from local authorities, civil society, enterprises, and scientists, and 8 informal interviews from 2016 with owners of beach food and drink cafes, sport clubs, shops, etc. Additional desktop research and ongoing literature review, covering a period of more than 15 years contributed to the analysis. Looking into risk perceptions on natural hazards of different society groups gave us the opportunity to examine the determining factors, shaping opinions with regard to the perceived and real risk of the city population as a community due to their cultural values and traditions, and as individuals influenced by their affiliation and degree of awareness and knowledge on environmental issues. An overview and in-depth analysis of political, governmental, non-governmental, social, and economic conditions in Bulgaria after the ‘transition’ and their impacts on the  population’s cultural norms and mentality, allowed the identification of societal and political reasons behind the present state of policy and decision-­ making processes related to disaster risk reduction and management, as well as perceptions and actions regarding the climate change. The requirements of the legislative framework related to disaster risk reduction, coastal management, and climate change adaptation, and analysis of their implementation on regional and case study level helped to reveal the main gaps and problems concerning the adaptive capacity and climate resilience of Varna. We believe that the present study will greatly contribute to  https://www.rec.org/publication.php?id=219, last accessed on 28.04.2020  http://www.mrrb.government.bg/?controller=articles&id=521, last accessed 28.04.2020 3 4

on

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understanding the reasons behind identified risk-related problems and issues and will have practical benefits for future disaster risk planning in the region, thus increasing its resilience to climate changes.

Climate and Culture Natural Hazards For Varna, risks from natural phenomena primarily originate from extreme weather, like strong winds, heavy rainfalls, and a combination of storm surge and wave impact on the coast. Such events pose urban and coastal hazards, like flash and surge-driven floods, coastal erosion, and landslides, leading to environmental deterioration and socio-economic damages. Investigation of past and recent trends suggests storminess increase until the 1990s (with peaks during 1976–1981 and 1990s) and sharp decrease afterward disclosing rather complex inter-decadal variability. The storm climate in the first decade of the twentieth century was even marked by a return to calm conditions. The average duration of storms shortened; still, the intensity of the storms’ most energetic part remained high (Valchev et al. 2012b; Galabov and Chervenkov 2018). On the other hand, the twenty-first-century climate projections show that the frequency and duration of storm events will increase even if not drastically. Relatively sharp storm intensification is predicted on short- and long-term horizons. The wave height within the Bulgarian shelf is estimated to grow by 10 cm on average (Valchev et al. 2012a). Respectively, the relative mean sea level is projected to rise by 28 cm (Vousdoukas et al. 2016), while an increasing centenary trend for the surge level is predicted to be in the order of 10 cm (Valchev et al. 2012a). Historically, the most severe storms that caused significant damages along Bulgarian coast in general, and in Varna in particular, occurred in the  late 1970s, viz. October 1976, January 1977, and February 1979 (Andreeva et  al. 2011). For these events, winds with speed ranging between 24–34 m s−1 generated nearshore waves with heights of 2.5–5 m, while the surge level rose with 0.8–1.2 m. Along the case study site, they caused extensive beach flooding, erosion, and loss of sediments, as well as damages to Port Varna breakwater, administrative and transport infrastructures located in the vicinity (ibid.). In recent years, heavy storms with similar consequences occurred in March 2010, February 2011, and February 2012. During the storms in 2010 and 2011, the port breakwater

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was constantly overtopped, thus flooding and compromising the area behind it. The storms caused sand sediments being washed away at Varna city beaches. The seaside promenade was flooded, overtopped, and covered with sand, there were also damages to the road surface and displacement of revetment stones. The groynes were under wave attack, suffering further damage and deterioration. In February 2012 waves higher than 5 m were flooding the city beaches up to 80–90% of their extent causing severe erosion. At Varna central beach the foundations of the Sea Baths (historical heritage until 1998) were undermined and partially ruined. Some beach buildings like restaurants, small bars, etc. were inundated. Due to low air temperature (–10  °C) the port seawall was ice-covered. Nevertheless, the breaking waves inflicted significant damages like dislodged pieces of the breakwater body and revetment, as well as undermined foundations. The defence structure was constantly overtopped. The frequency of floods in Bulgaria has increased over the last decade (Vasileva et al. 2019). Almost 70% of the floods are due to river overflowing, caused by heavy rainfalls, snow melting, and poor maintenance of river beds and dikes (Ivanova et al. 2013). Other reasons include deforestation, poor dam control and management, indiscriminate construction, lack of forecasting and early warning.5,6 During 2004–2018 more than 7370 floods have occurred (Vasileva et al. 2019), as the most devastating were floods in 2005–2006,7 followed by events in 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2012 (Romanova et al. 2012). Unfortunately, in the light of the above-­ mentioned Varna made no exception. Thus, on 19th June 2014, the amount of registered precipitations over the past 24 h was 75  l m−2. According to news media, consequences for Varna city were flooded streets and subways, damaged street pavement; flooded ground floors and basements of two hospitals and several administrative buildings. Extensive damages were recorded along the city seaside promenade area: activated landslides and landslips; flooded, muddy, and damaged promenade road surface; fallen trees and broken beach umbrellas; large amounts of garbage around and within the beach areas; it was reported that all coastal food and drink establishments were severely inundated. Moreover, the event 5   10 main reasons for floods in Bulgaria, https://www.10te.bg/lyubopitno/10-teosnovni-prichini-za-navodneniyata-u-nas/, last accessed on 04.05.2020 6  Long-term incorrect state policy is the reason for floods, https://www.wwf.bg/?197646/ WWF-Bulgaria-Floods, last accessed on 04.05.2020 7  Chronicle of the biggest floods in May 2005–July 2006, http://infocenter.bnt.bg, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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turned disastrous for Asparukhovo residential area, mainly, due to poor rainfall drainage system maintenance, illegal construction over and along the drainage channels, and deforestation of the area surroundings (Rusinov et al. 2014). The aftermath: 13 human casualties; more than 200 flooded and partially destroyed residential properties; evacuation of more than 450 people; dozens of damaged cars; flooded, muddy, and damaged streets blocked by uprooted trees, tree branches and various garbage (ibid.). For 24 hours the area was without electricity and water supply. Furthermore, Varna municipality territory is characterised by the presence of vast landslide complexes with a total number of 98 registered landslides encompassing a total area of 32,783.25 acres.8 To the north of Varna city, they cover the eastern slopes of the Frangen Plateau, spreading from the plateau edge down to the seacoast, while to the south the landslides are developed on the eastern slopes of Avren Plateau, but therein due to the lithological composition of the area landslides are more stable with a smaller extent (Fig.  3.1). Alongside the seismic, geological, and lithological characteristics of the area the landslides’ dynamics depends on a combination of natural factors, in terms of complicated hydrogeological conditions, intense rainfalls, sea storms, and coastal erosion, and anthropogenic impacts such as urbanisation, additional construction load, absence of a  sewage system with water supply system availability, inefficient shore-protection activities, etc.9,10 Social Groups’ Perception of Risk Even though the natural hazards described above show that the region is exposed to multiple climate hazards, those risks do not seem to be a major concern of the wider public. In 2014, only two out of 26 interviewees perceived the risk the city of Varna is exposed to as high. The majority of the stakeholders believe that the region is somewhat at risk from natural disasters and a relatively small portion identified the region as not at risk at 8  Annual report from ‘Geozashtita’ Ltd, Varna of prevention activities related to registration and monitoring of landslide and coastal erosion areas along Varna Black Sea coast conducted in 2018, https://www.mrrb.bg, last accessed on 04.05.2020 9  National program for prevention and limitation of landslides at the territory of Bulgaria, and fluvial and coastal erosion along Danube River and Black Sea coast 2015–2020, https:// www.mrrb.bg, last accessed on 04.05.2020 10  Development plan of Varna municipality 2014–2020, https://www.varna.bg/bg/156, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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all. The reason for the relatively low risk perception is that, on the one hand, there are many non-environmental issues such as poverty and lack of social and economic security, which people consider as more urgent compared to natural threats. On the other hand, people in Varna have not experienced devastating natural hazards. As mentioned by an interviewee, Varna is located in a favourable climatic and geographical zone, ‘… it is something like a piece of heaven, and it seems like relentless natural disasters pass by or are milder with respect to other regions worldwide’. However, the risk perception towards flooding might have changed after the flash flood in 2014 with over a dozen victims and destroyed infrastructure, demonstrating high social vulnerability in the region and discrepancy between the perceived and the real risk, the region is exposed to. The risk perception towards sea storms, however, has not changed noticeably over the years. Eight further interviews conducted in 2016 showed that restaurants’, sports clubs’ and shops’ owners along the city coast do not feel at risk despite the fact that their properties are placed directly on the beach. At the same time, they are aware that their capacity to cope with natural hazards is low to moderate. This is reflected in the fairly simple measures the business owners undertake on their own in case of storms. These include removing of terrace furniture, surfboards, movement of cars out of car parks, etc. (Cumiskey et al. 2018). Another interesting observation from the interviews is that the overwhelming majority of the interviewees believe that nature is tolerant to a certain degree of intervention, highlighting how important it is not to pass the ecological thresholds of tolerance. This understanding of nature supports the findings that people in Varna feel safe and not exposed to risk from natural disasters. Furthermore, the perception of risk varies in terms of stakeholder affiliation and the type of natural hazards. For instance, most non-­governmental organisations’ (NGO) representatives do not feel exposed to risk. Also, the majority of business owners along the coast perceive the risks as low. In contrast, experts dealing with coastal environment and disaster management, as well as a local resident, who was previously affected by a hazard, have a higher risk perception and identified Varna as an area at moderate risk. A local authority representative, involved in the preparation of Flood Risk Management Plans, and an academic identified that based on the available scientific data Varna is a region exposed to high risk. Scientists’ view of risks is based on a longer time-horizon and their knowledge lays in research and analysis of data covering 100–150 years. For this reason, their perception is of moderate to high flood risk, in particular

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concerning the protection infrastructures, low-laying territories, and narrow parts of the beaches. Beach erosion risk is considered also high, in instances leading to beach loss due to their persistent narrowing. This demonstrates that the higher risk perception could be associated with a greater understanding of the problematics complexity but also with the access to knowledge and information, which is not widely available. Most of the interviewees confirmed that they do not have access to information on risk minimisation, in particular about what they have to do in case of a natural disaster. In addition, people who are aware of existing problems such as the poor state of the urban infrastructure and the insufficient maintenance of the shore protection facilities perceive the cities’ capacity to cope with the impacts of natural disasters as limited and rank the risk respectively higher. In overall, with regard to the type of natural disasters, the risks from heavy rains, landslides and erosion are perceived as higher than that from storm induced flooding. The Role of Culture (Values and Traditions) in Shaping the Risk Perception Most of the interviewees described Varna as a beautiful city on the Black Sea coast with a rich history and culture. Generally, the majority of the interviewees could not provide information about specific local traditions and cultural values unique only to the region, but those mentioned were rather related to the country ones. Therefore, the role of culture in Varna seems not to be of pivotal importance for local residents, but has an obviously noticeable impact on the city. According to some interviewees, people living in Varna never felt as a great community, which is historically determined. At the beginning of the twentieth century, nobody spoke Bulgarian in Varna, but Turkish, Armenian, Roma, Hebrew, or Greek, and the city was divided into smaller neighbourhoods, which co-existed peacefully, but never acted as one community. With regard to the mentality of the people, a strong inconsistency has been revealed ranging from Varna is a city with ‘unpleasant Carma’, where ‘…people do not react to the issues and only make immediate decisions…’ to ‘…there is a lot of patriotism in Varna…’. Given the importance of culture for local communities to respond to natural disasters and put in place community-based adaptation strategies (Adger et  al. 2013), it seems that there is a lack of collective actions in the city leading to low socio-cultural resilience and greater

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vulnerability. The interviews conducted in 2016 demonstrated, however, that there is a strong community network in the beach area amongst businesses who share weather forecast and response information (Cumiskey et al. 2018).

Mode of Governance. Dynamics between Governmental and Non-governmental Institutions Bulgaria belongs to the so-called countries ‘in transition’. Although this term is related to the transformation from a planned to a market economy, it has a broader meaning if all changes in the Bulgarian society during the last three decades are considered. Democracy and freedom—so desired during the communist time (1944 to 1989)—came along literally overnight in 1989. This was followed by a few very difficult years of economic and political transformation: the economy and the supply system collapsed, many people lost their jobs, and the inflation rate had been increasing continuously. Nowadays, 30 years later, democracy in Bulgaria is still very fragile and weak. The government corruption, organised crime, poverty, and insecurity have not only influenced and changed people’s attitudes and behaviour, but also have become acceptable social norms. On this background, it is not surprising that climate change is not treated with the same urgency as poverty and economic and political insecurity neither by the government nor by the population. Today, Bulgaria is the poorest and the first most corrupted country in the EU.11 Demographic crisis due to significant emigration and rapid decline in birth rate are worsening the situation. Due to this difficult socio-economic context, ecosystem preservation is not a high priority for the government. Under pressure from the EC, Bulgaria has developed different environmentally related strategies but the respective authorities seem not to be interested or motivated in their proper implementation due to either lack of financial or human resources, or vested interests on governmental decisions. For example, organised crime groups are involved in tourism along Bulgarian Black Sea coast, but due to corruption and lack of law enforcement, they can build their expensive hotels and resorts wherever they want, destroying nature and undermining the attempts of the Integrated Coastal Zone Management strategies. Often, local people witness the unscrupulous destruction of 11  Bulgaria seen as most corrupt in EU, https://euobserver.com/justice/132012, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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nature for commercial gain. They see how their environment is changed year by year and they do not seem to have a great stake in getting involved in decision making about the coastal environment. Additionally, previous studies on European’s attitudes towards climate change have shown that the perception of climate change and its importance among Bulgarians, as well as the willingness to take any actions to tackle climate change is very low.12 These poll results partially correspond to the findings of our research. According to an NGO representative, the problem of Bulgarian society is that it fails to establish a mechanism, which can penalise poor political decisions it suffers from. There is a need for society to define tools to influence this process. People react only in times of duress and there is no other type of correlation, i.e. once a problem is faced, they try to solve it; only a very few people take preventive measures. Furthermore, as mentioned by an interviewee, even though society can generate many reasonable and useful ideas, the lack of consideration and financial support on behalf of the governance often hinder their realisation. In some cases, they are even deliberately put to a halt. Consequently, society becomes discouraged and cease to believe in the justice of public order, which leads to a certain fatigue in the societal reflections and response. On this background, Bulgaria is rated at the end of the social justice ranking (38th out of 41 countries) according to a report on Social Justice Index (Hellmann et al. 2019). The country faces major problems in the area of social inclusion and non-discrimination, provision of good-quality and inclusive health care, and expenditure on research and development in the public sector. Moreover, the broad marginalisation of the Roma minority is becoming a growing issue. To poverty risk are exposed 15.4% of the population, the same risk among older people is even higher—17.4% (ibid.). This explains why the risk of poverty is perceived as greater than natural disasters. The first NGOs that came forward after the political changes in 1989 were positioned in the field of environmental protection and biodiversity and often have been sought as partners in transposing European legislation in Bulgaria, e.g. 2002 Biological Diversity Act, Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Natura 2000 network, etc., as well as in the process of strategic documents’ adaptation at national, regional, and municipal levels. Later on, NGOs that deal with other issues were established. Since 12  Special Eurobarometer 490, Report on Climate change, 2019, https://ec.europa.eu, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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2006, NGOs in Varna have been working on coastal problematics in collaboration with governmental bodies (such as the  Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, regional and local authorities) on elaboration of projects related to coastal risk mitigation, spatial planning, and development of coastal management strategies and plans. They participate as standalone partners, but most often as support partners to the governmental institutions. Nowadays, NGOs often draw in professionals who work or had worked in scientific institutions. Although there is no tendency for an increase in the number of projects in which NGOs are involved, the general impression is that they are often preferred to collaborate with to researchers from institutes with established scientific capacity and expertise. Concurrently, since NGOs are not institutions bound to traditional scientific values and responsibilities, they could be easily influenced by ‘the powers that be’, be it the establishment or private interests. According to a stakeholder opinion, nowadays, about two-thirds of the NGOs dealing with environmental issues are engaged in eco-racketeering. The civil society representatives, interviewed in 2014, claimed, however, the weakness in the ability to influence the political status quo and the lack of democratic and trustful participation in the policy process. Given the aforementioned, it is not surprising that Bulgarian citizens are not interested in civil activities and civil society fails in reaching a critical mass of people needed to shape the public policy paradigm. According to a 2015 public opinion poll of Open Society Institute-Sofia, 80% of the population does not participate in any form of social or political organisation and only 7% are members of non-governmental organisations.13

Legislative Framework of Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation Disaster Risk Reduction and Flood Management After Bulgaria’s admission to the EU, the national policy for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is shaped according to the  EU institutional environment. The National Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction 2018–2030,14 13  h t t p s : / / w w w. b t i - p r o j e c t . o rg / e n / r e p o r t s / c o u n t r y - r e p o r t s / d e t a i l / i t c / BGR/#management, last accessed on 08.04.2020 14   National Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction 2018–2030, www.strategy.bg, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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developed in accordance with the  2006 Disaster Protection Act,15 takes into account the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. The strategy implementation is overseen by the Ministry of Interior and is secured by the National Disaster Protection Program 2014–201816 and Action Plans, updated on an annual basis. The program includes a detailed analysis of the current state of disaster protection against natural and human-made disasters, as well as measures for vulnerabilities decrease. The strategic framework is supported by the 2012 Strategy for Development of Voluntary Units for Protection against Disasters, Fires and other Emergencies17, but organisation and effective management of the voluntary units is still under initial development. At the sub-national level, the disaster protection is outlined in District and Municipality Disaster Protection Plans, which for Varna case study were prepared in 2016. Another document, significant for the disaster protection of the population, is the 2000 Water Act,18 via which the requirements of EU Directive 2007/60/EU were adopted by the Ministry of Environment and Water through its four River Basin Directorates. In 2011 Bulgaria delivered a report on Preliminary Flood Hazard and Risk Assessment concerning river basins and the Black Sea region.19 Later on, in 2015 and 2016 flood hazard and risk maps of Areas of Potential Significant Flood Risk, as well as Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMP) 2016–2021 were delivered, each of these is subjected to revision and update every six years. At the moment, updates of methodology for flood hazard and risk assessment and FRMPs for 2022–2027 are in progress.

15   2006 Disaster Protection Act, https://www.lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2135540282, last accessed on 04.05.2020 16  National Disaster Protection Program 2014–2018, https://www.mvr.bg, last accessed on 04.05.2020 17  2012 Strategy for Development of Voluntary Units for Protection against Disasters, Fires and other Emergencies, https://www.mvr.bg, last accessed on 04.05.2020 18   2000 Water Act, https://www.mrrb.bg/en/act-on-waters/, last accessed on 04.05.2020 19  Report on preliminary flood hazard and risk assessment concerning river basins and Black Sea region, https://www.bsbd.org/UserFiles/File/Copy%20of%20BSBD_PFRA_ v2.pdf, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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Coastal and Landslide Management In Bulgaria, the management and protection against hazards such as landslides, fluvial erosion, and coastal abrasion, as well as financing of relevant measures is primarily a state matter. The predominant institutional responsibility lies with the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works (MRDPW) and the state enterprise Geozashtita, which is responsible for registration and monitoring of landslides, data collection, research, design, and implementation of stabilising measures in landslide areas and weak soils. 2007 Act on the Black Sea Coast Spatial Development20 defines the territorial scope (hinterland and aquatic) of the Black sea coast and coastline, rules and norms for their planning, use, building, and protection. It declares sand dunes, sea beaches and shore protection systems and facilities as public state property. Furthermore, the spatial development of the coast is based on concepts and schemes under the  2001 Spatial Development Act,21 the 2008 Regional Development Act,22 and municipalities’ general and detailed spatial development plans. Specialised schemes for the belonging aquatory shall be developed according to the Maritime Spatial Plan of Bulgaria, which is to be approved in 202123 with duration 2021–2035. The Act on the Black Sea Coast Spatial Development also defines the terms and provisions of the sea beaches management through awarding of concessions and lessees. Since July 2019, the Ministry of Tourism is the responsible body to conduct procedures for awarding of beach concessions.24 In 2015, the MRDPW in collaboration with the Geological Institute-­ BAS developed a five-year National Program for Prevention and Limitation of landslides at the territory of Bulgaria, and fluvial erosion and coastal

20  Act on the Black Sea Coast Spatial Development, https://www.mrrb.bg/en/act-onthe-black-sea-coast-spatial-development/, last accessed on 04.05.2020 21   2001 Spatial Development Act, https://www.mrrb.bg/en/spatial-developmentact-82421/, last accessed on 04.05.2020 22  2008 Regional Development Act, https://www.mrrb.bg/en/regional-developmentact/, last accessed on 04.05.2020 23   In 2021 Bulgaria will have a Maritime Spatial Plan, https://www.mrrb.bg/bg/ do-2021-g-stranata-ni-ste-razpolaga-s-morski-prostranstven-plan/, last accessed on 04.05.2020 24  https://news.bg/society/plazhovete-shte-se-otdavat-na-kontsesii-po-zakona-za-chernomorskoto-kraybrezhie.html, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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abrasion along the Danube River and the Black Sea coasts.25 The program aimed to provide directions, priorities, and measures for diminishing risks related to landslides, erosion, and abrasion. Organisation, management, financing, investment, use and maintenance of engineering and protection related technical activities are regulated under Ordinance No 1 issued in 1994,26 which also declares the responsibility to the MRDPW, as well as relevant ministries, state departments, and regional and district administrations. Moreover, the projects for the protection of the Black Sea and the  Danube River coasts should be harmonised with the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Transport. Adaptation to Climate Change In accordance with the  2013 EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change, the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and national 2014 Climate Change Mitigation Act, Bulgaria was committed to drawing up a National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan27 (NASAP), which serves to set the adaptation framework and priorities up to 2030. The NASAP was approved in November 2019. On a national level, the Ministry of Environment and Water is the central body coordinating the adaptation policy-making process. The Strategy outlines the climate change-related risks and vulnerabilities in nine economic sectors (agriculture, biodiversity and ecosystems, energy, forestry, human health, tourism, transport, urban development, and water), cross-sectoral relations and macroeconomic consequences of climate change. Adaptation and implementation of NASAP are expected to be supported by national public and private funds, and the EU Structural Funds budget up to 20–25% for 2021–2027. So far, at the sub-national level, the strategy has been adopted at a sectoral rather than at a regional level.28 Nevertheless, the 2014–2020 Development 25  National Program for Prevention and Limitation of landslides at the territory of Bulgaria, and fluvial erosion and coastal abrasion along Danube River and Black Sea coast 2015–2020, https://www.mrrb.bg, last accessed on 04.05.2020 26  Ordinance № 1/20.01.1994 for Geoprotective activity, https://www.lex.bg/laws/ ldoc/-551020542, last accessed on 04.05.2020 27  National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan of Bulgaria, https:// www.moew.government.bg/bg/klimat/mejdunarodni-pregovori-i-adaptaciya/adaptaciya/, last accessed on 04.05.2020 28  SWD/2018/460, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD: 2018:460:FIN, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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Plans for Regions29 (NUTS2 level) and Districts,30 (NUTS3 level) each include a separate chapter on climate change vulnerability and related adaptation strategies. Local authorities (municipalities) have an important role to play, particularly with regard to the implementation of adaptation actions.31 So far, climate change issues have been addressed, adaptation measures proposed and action plans outlined in the  2014–2020 Municipality Development Plans.32 The progress on climate change adaptation in Bulgaria is reflected in the  European Climate Adaptation Platform.33

Mitigation and Adaptation Measures at Place Essential Measures of Coping with Disasters As pointed out earlier a common strategic framework for disaster protection is in place in Bulgaria, which is a manifestation of state power and has a marked political dimension. Disasters have always been the subject of politicisation and some disasters have a very serious political resonance (Mardirosyan 2007). The main advantages of the strategic framework are a clear definition of objectives, priorities, types of disasters, and protection measures. The disaster protection system in Bulgaria remained relatively stable until 2009, when the Ministry of Emergency Situations was closed down. Afterwards a model of management with a relatively high degree of centralisation was adopted with a leading role of General Directorate Fire Safety and Civil Protection (GDFSCP) at the Ministry of Interior (MI). Operational capabilities were integrated by placing the civil protection structures under the GDFSCP command (Hadjitodorov et  al. 2016). According to the  2006 Disaster Protection Act, the legal term for the 29  Regional Development Plans 2014–2020, http://www.mrrb.government.bg/?controll er=articles&id=521, last accessed on 04.05.2020 30  Varna District Development Plan 2014–2020, https://www.vn.government.bg, last accessed on 04.05.2020 31  SWD/2018/460, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD: 2018:460:FIN, last accessed on 04.05.2020 32  Development Plan of Varna municipality 2014–2020, https://www.varna.bg/bg/156, last accessed on 04.05.2020 33  Climate-ADAPT platform, https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/countries-regions/ countries/bulgaria, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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model is Uniform Rescue System (URS), which is the major and most complex disaster protection measure in place. It refers to any type of natural or man-made disaster. The system has four levels of disaster protection: national, district, municipal, and at the site (for critical infrastructure assets). The URS has a hierarchical structure, which includes many elements of the state administration. Although they continue to play an important role, the on-site manager in a disaster area is the GDFSCP territorial unit assisted by the regional police forces and emergency medical units. Back to back, on a district level, a Headquarter for Disaster Protection Plan implementation is established, composed of representatives (heads) of all institutions involved in disaster management, such as Navy, State Executive Agencies Maritime Administration and Port Infrastructure, Basin Directorate, Regional Inspection of Environment and Waters, Meteorological Services34, scientific institutions, etc. An important element of the URS is the warning alert. In the case of marine disaster, it originates from the hydro-meteorological forecast provided by the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (NIMH), further contributed by the Navy and Maritime Administration communication systems, which spread the warnings to all military and civilian vessels. The NIMH system is based on the European Meteoalarm Platform,35 making use of standard hazards and related warning codes. It should be mentioned that while this system considers wind, waves (not part of meteoalarm), snow/ice, thunderstorms, fog, extreme high/low temperature, and rain, it does not issue warnings related to coastal events, flood, and rain flood (flashflood) among others. The Centre for Aerospace Surveillance, as a part of the MI, operates a number of ground stations and provides real-time information on imminent disasters. There are two warning channels. The first one is a telephone connection with executive authorities and the basic units of the URS (police, emergency, hospitals, fire safety units), while the second is a siren disaster alert system for citizens. It is based in the GDFSCP operational centre in Sofia and is duplicated in the coastal city of Bourgas. The siren alerts are both sound and voice announcements, as the latter is available only within the city limits.36 34  Weather forecasts, National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (NIMH), http:// weather.bg/0index.php?lng=1, last accessed on 04.05.2020 35   European Meteoalarm Platform, https://www.meteoalarm.eu/en_UK/0/0/ BG-Bulgaria.html, last accessed on 04.05.2020 36  https://www.mvr.bg/gdpbzn/footer/info-center/pravila-signali/signali, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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Shore Protection Measures The first coastal protection program was developed and implemented by а state enterprise Geozashtita, established in 1980  in Varna, under the authority of the MRDPW, which is still active today. The Coastal Protection and Conservation Program (Resulov 1990) known as the ‘General Scheme for Coastal Protection of Bulgarian Black Sea Coast’ is aimed at protecting the coast from abrasion and landslide hazards. The concept considered exclusively hard protection measures, assuming soft measures such as beach nourishment as inappropriate (Marinov 1989). The coastal protection measures implemented on Varna shore are presented by T-, Y- and L-shaped solid concrete groynes, concrete and rocky revetments, seawalls, and jetties. Some of the shore stretches prone to abrasion/landslide are protected by coastal dikes (functioning also as roads), in combination with T- and Y-shaped groynes. As for the port infrastructure, the Port of Varna is the major facility, which is protected by a breakwater; there are also several small marinas located along the regional coastline. According to the General scheme program manager, the proposed engineering facilities ‘… meet the requirements for shore utilisation by 2030 and are being built at proven efficiency’. The program implementation cost 538 million BGL (Bulgarian currency during 1962–1999) (Vasilev 1989). Cost-effectiveness was estimated as high since the facilities were meant to be multifunctional, e.g. to serve both as protection and mooring facilities for small boats. However, in essence, protection and mooring facilities have a completely different purpose and function, and their joint use compromises the protection ones (Marinski 2018). The new facilities, called groynes, were designed in a manner that completely blocked the nearshore sediment transport. External expert consultations explicitly qualified the proposed shore protection method as ‘vicious, insane, and unscholarly’ and recommended a reconsideration of the entire concept (Nikiforov 1987). Thirty years later, Young et  al. (2013) found out that the natural beaches and dunes along the Bulgarian coast, representing fully functional geomorphologic systems with abundant biodiversity, were being replaced by engineering structures protecting private estates and buildings close to the sea. All throughout, the officials firmly stated that the protection concept is plausible and possible failure is due to the program not being fully implemented. Nowadays, an important measure in carrying out the geo-protection activity is registration and monitoring of landslides. A Register of

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Landslides is in place, which is a periodically updated information system about landslides in Bulgaria within regions undergoing abrasion along the Black Sea and erosion along the Danube River coasts.37 The electronic database is generated and maintained by state geo-protection companies depending on their territorial scope. The information concerns the main landslide properties: location, extent, current state, damages, performed protection measures and activities, etc. The landslide monitoring comprises measurements performed at geodetic benchmark stations in real-­ time and detailed geological, hydro-geological, and hydrological studies to determine main landslides’ properties. Benchmark stations are useful in controlling the implementation of protection activities and any type of construction in landslide-prone areas. Following the monitoring data obtained, a construction activity carried out in violation of the relevant norms and technical conditions can be suspended. It was assessed that about 257 million BGN will be needed to stabilise all landslides along the Black sea coast for the period 2015–2020. However, there are many landslides that are reinforced with private investments. A good idea, proposed during the interviews, would be to register and monitor coastal protection facilities the same way as the landslides. The activity would be justified by the  existence of an ordinance38 issued in 2012, prescribing a set-up of an early warning system on each potentially vulnerable asset. Since 201139 the MRDPW had started announcing public procurements for monitoring of beaches under concession and after 2015 this function was transferred to the Ministry of Tourism. This activity could give useful information about the evolution of beaches and foster measures for their maintenance. Flood Management Dimension There are serious deficiencies in flood protection regulations as the progress has been made only over the last few years. It is related to the elaboration of the Flood Risk Management Plan 2016–2021 by the Black Sea Basin Directorate.40 The plan addresses all aspects of risk management  http://gz-varna.mrrb.government.bg/map/, last accessed on 04.05.2020  https://www.lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2135779997/, last accessed on 04.05.2020 39  https://www.mrrb.bg/bg/profil-na-kupuvacha/01-11-046/, last accessed 04.05.2020 40  https://www.bsbd.org/bg/purn_2016-2021.html, last accessed on 04.05.2020 37 38

on

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focusing on prevention, protection, and preparedness. It includes a program of specific measures or combination of measures to address identified problems and achieve the objectives set for each of 45 areas (both terrestrial—rivers and dams, and coastal) with significant potential flood risk within the Black Sea coastal municipalities. Climate change was addressed by simulating a specific worst-case scenario. Looking into the specific measures, preference is still given to hard protection аgainst floods (dikes and seawalls), coastal accommodation measures, such as flood proofing (e.g. maintenance of drainage system, cleaning of river beds and ravines, winter bars) and Early Warning Systems (EWS) for flood events (including the ambitious goal to establish a national real-time water management system including flash flood EWS), risk communication (providing wide access to information through the use of modern methods and technologies), training, and capacity building based on developed or updated organisational directives. However, there are no larger-scale measures related to sediment-based protection or ecosystem-­ based adaptation. EWS for storm surge induced coastal flooding and erosion are also not considered, although there is a successful local forecasting pilot development (Valchev et al. 2018) that could be used for predictions within vulnerable hot spots. A study has proven that the effectiveness of other DRR measures could rise as high as 18% if impact-based storm forecasts are available and timely disseminated (Cumiskey et al. 2018). Less developed matters concern emergency planning (focus is put on a mechanism for coordination of response and mitigation actions) and land use planning (forced displacement of illegal houses in ravine systems, in particular). Still, there is no reference to the planned relocation of exposed coastal properties and businesses. Relatively new measures to be fostered are different kinds of insurance instruments. Another preparedness measure discussed during the interviews was a coastal monitoring system of vulnerable sectors, which is not part of the program either. However, the only measures that have been undertaken after the plan completion in 2016 were several small-scale information campaigns. There are no details on the implementation of any larger-scale measures. Perhaps relatively low risk perception, as well as other issues that will be pointed out later, prevent the development of a regional flood monitoring system

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on the example of the one operating for the city of Bourgas, namely Information System for Water and Flood Risk Management.41 As for climate adaptation, most of the proposed measures in place overlap with those planned within other disaster protection plans but their implementation has not started yet. Problems and Weaknesses in Disaster Protection Essential shortcomings of the strategic framework and regional specifics for coping with disaster risk reduction are related to some persisting problems. Among all of them, centralisation of power and lack of proper financial support are considered to have a major implication. A majority of interviewees think that Bulgaria is a highly centralised state and everything is decided in the capital—Sofia city. If the Government does not benefit from something, they transfer it to the municipalities by legislative means, but local authorities do not have at their disposal adequate financial resources and human capacity to implement a certain measure and it remains only on the book. ‘… That is why, we have plenty of strategies and plans that no one is implementing, because none of them are financially secured…’ For example, the state severely underfinances maintenance of the coastal protection infrastructures and cleaning of city drainage channels and ravines. Apparently, coastal erosion and the wretched state of protection facilities are not a governance priority. Funds allocated to the municipality of Varna are used to resolve other pressing problems, such as improvement of the city road network. Thus, it is not clear who should act if a coastal structure needs to be repaired after a severe storm: state, regional, municipal administrations, or beach concessionaires, resulting in problem negligence. Damage assessment committees are set up that determine the amount of funds for restoration but they are never granted or are insufficient to properly accomplish the activity. A particularly striking example is the state of Varna Port breakwater. In 2015, a project for reinforcement with rocks and tetrapods started but it was only partially completed. As a result, the facility is being continuously overtopped even in cases of not particularly heavy sea states, while the area behind it is partially or entirely inundated, thus threatening human lives and properties. 41  System for Water and Flood Risk Management, https://wms.burgas.bg/wmis-portal/, developed under project https://wms.burgas.bg/drupal/en/project, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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The Municipality collects revenues from various types of fees, such as a construction fee, which can amount to about 250,000 BGN for a shopping mall, but apparently the acquired finances are used for activities that do not contribute to the improvement of the coastal protection. Likewise, concession revenues, which should also be capitalised for rehabilitation, are rarely used as intended. ‘… The problem with the funding is created by the officials. Just as the Port collects fees for using the infrastructure, but does not invest them back in quays repair…’ Another problem is that infrastructural funding is not allocated where appropriate or most needed but through political lobbying: ‘… funds are being diverted from one region to another for political reasons, which is why Varna has for a long time been considered as not worthy of investing in…’ The problem of coastal zone ownership is a major hold-back for municipal and private initiatives aiming at better governance. Often, private investors, such as the owners (or concessionaires) of resorts, are forced to seek alternative approaches to protect their primary resource—the beach space—and the property located onshore. As they cannot register a new facility as the  property of the resort, the construction (often with only local effect) is presented as a coastal protection measure, which they are obliged to implement under the investment program. This hinders the implementation of large-scale DRR measures that would be beneficial not only to a certain area but to larger coastal stretches, as the beach loss is a complex problem that requires a comprehensive approach. While the local efforts are suppressed due to centralised fund allocation, the ‘appetising’ concessions of the most attractive beaches are distributed by the Government (currently by the Ministry of Tourism) in the shadow of ambiguous legislation. With this respect, the prevalence of private over public interests is often noticed. As an example could be given the reconstruction of the seaside promenade, called First Alley: ‘… the acquisition of land, which is exclusively state-owned, by a private holding is a blatant example of an improperly executed transaction signed by governmental officials…’ On the other hand, being a ‘private property’, the First Alley and restaurants located there have recently been reconstructed to regain their former attractive appearance. The problem of improperly designed protection facilities is also highlighted. The prevailing opinion is that the facilities do not accomplish the role they were built for, which resulted in increased erosion and beach loss, as well as in higher vulnerability to floods. Striking is the refusal to reconsider the current hard coastal protection strategy as the diametrically

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opposed stakeholder opinion is also expressed: ‘… I think the existing protection facilities are a successful example, which have been fulfilling their function for tens of years without any repair. Before the construction, there was not a single beach in Varna…’ Soft measures to decrease the exposure, such as sand nourishment, ecosystem-based protection, or planned retreat, are considered neither in Varna Spatial Master Plan nor in DRR plans:‘… One such opportunity was to preserve the ecozones around the gullies as natural parks. If everything is a green area, people can walk around even in case of high waters. Moreover, if damage occurs, the community will have to recover a few benches. And now, we have gas stations, a kindergarten, a shopping mall…’ Additionally, the existing legislation often hampers the coastal conservation. For example, the  2007 Act on the Black Sea Coast Spatial Development was introduced as a tool for coastal protection and conservation. It underpins not only conservation but the restoration of the natural landscapes, which already suggests that the latter had been degraded or at least modified. In addition, the main objectives were not linked to the development of the tourism industry or other economic stakes, which could have negative environmental effects. To achieve these goals, a 100 m-wide strip landward from the coastline is established as a security zone, which represents the most vulnerable part of the seaside. However, the building permit regime in this zone is not substantially different from the one in the residential areas. Virtually, almost anything is allowed to be built or positioned there—structures, permanent and temporary buildings, entertaining facilities, etc. Moreover, many already existing illegal buildings were legalised despite the high risk. This approach makes almost impossible the transition to soft strategy; thus, the shore fortification remains the dead-end of the coastal protection (Marinski 2018). Hadjitodorov et al. (2016) pointed out that the model of disaster protection system reflects the existing dynamics between responsible governmental and local authorities and the degree of coordination between them, particularly when they represent different political parties. In practice, most authorities have some degree of competence in disaster protection. This fact, despite the complexity of disaster risk reduction, gives the impression of diluted responsibilities with this regard. However, the lack of coordination between local authorities themselves is also frequent. An interviewee shared with respect to organisation of ‘Search and Rescue’ activities: ‘… There were lots of successful operations but failures also happened. The bad thing is that generally the rescue is not properly organised. It

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is not under a unified command. We cannot split “the lion’s share” between the Border police, Navy, Maritime Administration and our rescue system runs with delay…’ Another problem is formalism and lack of a long-term vision in preparation of organisational directives and plans and in the implementation of preparedness and prevention measures. ‘… Preventive measures are rarely completed, the post-disaster response is often ineffective and the resulting cost is much higher than what was ’saved‘ due to postponed or not taken measures. Public training and information campaigns are insufficient with no emphasis on marine disasters. Our weak points are prediction and analysis because we are not good at operating the cognitive cycle’ Observation-Orientation-­ Decision-Action. ‘That is why we are always one step behind…’ Another interviewee thinks that a common weakness is that the strategic and regional DRR planning is implemented when there is external pressure, in terms of adoption of the  European directives or legislation transposition.‘… Even so, the product we obtain is not functional and does not manage to reduce effectively the risk for population or the city as a whole…’ Furthermore, there is no assessment mechanism for the measures’ impact and guidance on how to achieve their sustainability. It is not uncommon that few experts are involved in the preparation of strategic documents; no broad platform, involving scientific expertise on different disciplines is available. The Integrated Coastal Zone Management and the  Maritime Spatial Planning represent instruments that could help at bettering the coastal problems governance. However, these initiatives are defined as ‘… good wording that inspires confidence and, to a great extent, hope that things will work out. But when it comes to reporting a stage completion, we do not account for what has been actually achieved within a strategy or plan, but present what has been circumstantially done as a contribution or achievement…’

Conclusions and Recommendations The article examines the adaptation capacity to climate change of the Bulgarian society, still considered as a society in ‘transition’, and their climate resilience on the example of the coastal city of Varna. The study summarises the natural hazards most common for the area and reveals the societal risk perceptions by analysis of in-depth interviews, thus hearing voices from a wide variety of stakeholders. Additional insights are

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provided by a survey of a large number of publications, official documents, and grey literature. In general, the perceptions of risk were identified as low despite the scientific evidence to the contrary, revealing a discrepancy between the perceived and real risk. Moreover, depending on stakeholders’ affiliation and hazard type the perceptions vary greatly from low to very high. The low risk perceptions were attributed to the notion that nature is tolerant, which creates an illusory feeling of safety, as the latter is reinforced even more by an absence of experience to recent severe hazardous events turning into a disaster and limited or non-existent publicly accessible sources of information on potential hazards/risks and relevant DRR practices. Ultimately, the presence of more urgent matters like economic insecurity and lack of social justice distract public attention from critical coastal issues. Additionally, cultural insights on beliefs, traditions, and mentality of local residents revealed a lack of community cohesion, which prevents collective actions, leading to a greater vulnerability that eventually hampers the application of community-based adaptation strategies. Although historically predetermined for inhabitants of Varna, it might be said that this lack of community consent and desire above all to serve and defend only personal interests could be sensed on a national level as well. Gradually, this reflection of the world and attitude towards vital challenges became a social norm, particularly after the political changes, which unfortunately triggered corruption on high levels of power, organised crime, and poverty. The most critical aspects related to the mode of governance in Bulgaria are a high level of centralisation, ambiguous legislation, ad hoc management style, and lack of administrative capacity. Evidently, the mode of governance shapes the negative peoples’ attitude with regard to its credibility and reliability. It comes as no surprise that civil society/NGOs representatives claim weakness in the ability to influence the political status quo and the lack of democratic and trustful participation in the policy process. As a consequence, society becomes discouraged and ceases to believe in the justice of public order, resulting in certain fatigue in the societal reflections and response. Analysis of the legislative framework concerning DRR, coastal management and climate change adaptation reveals a presence of a  multitude policy, law-making, and law-giving documents shaped according to the previous state system and present EU demands, often developed and prepared by different institutional departments with different levels of capacity and competence, which has led to overlapping requirements,

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inter-documental inconsistency and opaque institutional responsibilities related to the implementation of measures and coordination of actions in case of natural and man-made disaster situations. As pointed out in (Hadjitodorov et al. 2016) and confirmed by our findings, the deficiencies of the national DRR strategic framework are numerous and can be considered as so significant that they turn it into a set of desirable and declarative documents and actions. With this type of documents, even the smallest progress can be wrapped up as an important step forward in policy implementation. Moreover, obstacles, which demotivate the proper implementation of policies and strategies by the respective authorities are mainly lack of human and financial resources, as for climate adaptation the additional reasons include absence of sufficient academic research and capacity on the assessment of climate change impacts. More specifically, problems related to disaster risk management arises from the fact that, in the frame of governmental indifference to coastal regions, the local authorities do not have the political and financial power to decide and act on pressing coastal issues, such as landslides stabilisation and maintenance of beaches and shore protection facilities, unless political lobbying and private interests are involved. Another set of problems, related to the feasibility of implemented DRR measures, consists of formalism and lack of long-term and broad-scope vision on coastal management, improperly designed protection facilities, refusal to reconsider the current hard coastal protection strategy, and lack of soft measures to decrease the exposure. Additionally, the existing legislation often hampers the coastal conservation initiatives. In light of the presented findings and commented problems, we could conclude that the adaptive capacity and climate resilience of Varna’s society is relatively weak, given not only the political, social, and economic circumstances in Bulgaria but also their coping capacity to deal with matters concerning DRR, coastal management and climate changes. Having this in mind, we propose a number of recommendations, which we believe will contribute to the enhancement of society’s adaptive capacity and resilience. The recommendations are as follows: (1) it is necessary to summarise and reduce the number of regulatory documents, which will lead to simplification and fuller application not only of their requirements, but the documents themselves; (2) communication and coordination between institutions involved in disaster prevention and response should be further developed, strengthened and organised in a transparent manner, while decision-making subordination cleared of duplication and controversy;

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(3) since the present efforts are not sufficiently harmonised, the multiple governmental and local authorities having stake in coastal risk management should be better coordinated by a state or regional dedicated agency, however, without increasing the burden of centralisation and bureaucracy; (4) pursue of new forms of public dialogue, as well as new platforms for communication between stakeholders to turn the policy-making into a more effective process taking into account the broader citizens’ participation and seeking the community consensus; (5) considering the coastal management from a long-term and broad-scope perspective, while taking into account a  wider variety of soft prevention DRR measures such as sand- and ecosystem-based approaches, coastal accommodation and retreat, wider use of insurance instruments, as well as information campaigns, consistent training on emergency actions, set up of observing, forecasting and early warning systems at vulnerable hot spots, development of wide-reaching information platforms on hazard probability, risk minimisation, prevention and response; and (6) increase of institutional, scientific, and technological capacity to bring forward, test, and implement innovative DRR and climate resilience strategies in unison with the Black Sea Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda.42 Acknowledgements  This work has been carried out within the European Community’s 7th FP research project ‘Resilience-Increasing Strategies for Coasts—toolKIT’ (RISC-KIT), GA No. 603458, and the National Science Program ‘Environmental Protection and Reduction of Risks of Adverse Events and Natural Disasters’, approved by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers No 577/17.08.2018 and supported by the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) of Bulgaria (Agreement No. Д01-322/18.12.2019).

References Adger, W., Barnett, J., Brown, K., Marshall, N., & O’Brien, K. (2013). Cultural Dimensions of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation. Nature Climate Change, 3, 112–117. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1666. Andreeva, N., Valchev, N., Trifonova, E., Eftimova, P., Kirilova, D., & Georgieva, M. (2011). Literary Review of Historical Storm Events in the Western Black Sea. Proceedings of Union of Scientists—Varna, “Marine Sciences”, pp. 105–112. ISSN 1314-3379 (In Bulgarian).

 https://ec.europa.eu/info/files/black-sea-sria_en, last accessed on 04.05.2020

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Cumiskey, L., Priest, S., Valchev, N., Viavattene, C., Costas, S., & Clarke, J. (2018). A Framework to Include the (Inter)dependencies of Disaster Risk Reduction Measures in Coastal Risk Assessment. Coastal Engineering, 134, 81–92. ISSN 0378-3839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. coastaleng.2017.08.009. Galabov, V., & Chervenkov, Х. (2018). Study of the Western Black Sea Storms with a Focus on the Storms Caused by Cyclones of North African Origin. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 175, 3779–3799. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00024-018-1844-7. Hadjitodorov, S., Pavlov, N., Krystev, G., & Radev, A. (2016). Improvement of the Disaster Protection System of the Republic of Bulgaria. Proceedings of Military Scientific Conference “Modern Approaches to Dynamic Management of Education and Training in Security and Defense”, Sofia, Military Academy ‘G. Rakovski’ (In Bulgarian). Hellmann, T., Schmidt, P., & Heller, S. (2019). Social Justice in the EU and OECD. Index Report 2019, p. 274. Retrieved from www.politico.eu. Ivanov, I. (1982). The Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis. In The First Civilization in Europe and the Oldest Gold in the World (pp. 21–24). Varna, Bulgaria: Nippon Television Network Cultural Society. Ivanova, I., Nedkov, R., Stankov, N., Zakharinova, M., Dimitrova, M., Nikolova, S., & Radeva, K. (2013). Analysis of the Flood in February 2012 on the Territory of Village Biser on the Basis of Satellite and GPS Data in GIS Environment. Proceedings of Science Conference with International Participation “Cosmos, Ecology, Nanotechnology, Safety” SENS’2012, BAS, pp.  432–442 (In Bulgarian). Mardirosyan, G. (2007). Natural Disasters and Ecologic Catastrophes. Sofia: Academic Publishing House ‘Prof. M. Drinov’, p. 17 (In Bulgarian). Marinov, K. (1989). In-depth Research is Needed. Marine World, 6, 12–13. (In Bulgarian). Marinski, J. (2018). Black Sea Coastal Protective Problems. Journal of Water Business, 1/2, 29–39. (In Bulgarian). Nikiforov, L. (1987). Competent Coastal Protection. Official Gazette, No. 226 of November 12, 1987 (In Bulgarian). Resulov, G. (1990). Basic Guidelines in Coastal Protection. In Compilation “Coast Protection’89”. Center for Construction and Architecture, Sofia, pp. 3–10 (In Bulgarian). Romanova, H., Radeva, N., Marinova, I., Marinov, M., & Bozova, T. (2012). Floods—Most frequent Disaster. Causes, Consequences, Organizational Measures. Proceedings of the Union of Scientists, Varna 2’2012. Ecology, 17, 65–70 (In Bulgarian). Rusinov, V., Stoaynov, S., Michev, G., & Spasov, F. (2014). Analysis and Lessons Learned. The Disaster in Varna—Asparukhovo Residential Area, 19.06.2014.

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Report Conducted Under the Crisis Management and Disaster Response Centre of Excellence (CMDR COE), Sofia, p. 24 (In Bulgarian). Valchev, N., Eftimova, P., & Andreeva, N. (2018). Implementation and Validation of a Multi-domain Coastal Hazard Forecasting System in an Open Bay. Coastal Engineering, 134, 212–228. ISSN 0378-3839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. coastaleng.2017.08.008. Valchev, N., Krestenitis, Y., Polonsky, A., Androulidakis, I., & Kombiadou, K. (2012a). Climate Variations of Storms, Wind Waves and Surges During the 21st Century in the Western Black Sea. Proceedings of 11th International Conference on Marine Sciences and Technologies—Black Sea’2012, Varna, Bulgaria, pp. 92–97. Valchev, N. N., Trifonova, E. V., & Andreeva, N. K. (2012b). Past and Recent Trends in the Western Black Sea Storminess. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 12, 961–977. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-12-961-2012. Vasilev, T. (1989). Let’s Save the Coast. Marine World, 6, 14–15. Vasileva, R., Georgiev, A., & Romanova, H. (2019). Floods—A Leading Disaster for Bulgaria. Varna Medical Forum, 8(2), 166–171. (In Bulgarian). Vousdoukas, M.  I., Voukouvalas, E., Annunziato, A., Giardino, A., & Feyen, L. (2016). Projections of Extreme Storm Surge Levels Along Europe. Climate Dynamics, 47(9), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3019-5 Young, R., Stancheva, M., Stanchev, H., & Palazov, A. (2013). Global Lessons for Future Developments Along the Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria. 125 Anniversary Annual Meeting & Expo, 27–30 October 2013, Denver, CO, Paper No. 107-10.

CHAPTER 4

Livek: A Mountainous Border Area’s Transformation from a Ski Paradise to a Resilient Community Mimi Urbanc and Mateja Šmid Hribar

Abstract  This chapter focuses on the resilience, capacity, and role of the sociocultural context in climate change adaptation in a small and marginal local community that prides itself on an affluent past based on ski tourism and agriculture. The empirical part is built on a case study of Livek in the hilly northwestern part of Slovenia on the border with Italy, and it includes data from available literature and a series of interviews with two local opinion leaders. The results show that, in the absence of local-specific and targeted national or regional measures, the path of transition has relied on the community’s internal strength and motivation, mostly stemming from flexibility, stubbornness, identity, and place attachment. A crucial role was The original version of this chapter was revised. The correction to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_8 M. Urbanc (*) • M. Šmid Hribar Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), Ljubljana, Slovenia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021, corrected publication 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_4

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played by several NGOs and the Livek Agrarian Community, promoting various activities to improve the quality of life in both tangible and nontangible aspects. In a favourable regional and national context, the community of Livek succeeded in turning its negative development trends around and adapting to current climate conditions. Keywords  Livek • Slovenia • Marginality • Climate change • Tourism • Resilience

Introduction This case study explores the resilience, capacity, and role played by the sociocultural context in adaptation to climate change in the Local Community of Livek (named after its largest settlement) in northwestern Slovenia. Livek is located between the Soča (Ital. Isonzo) and Nadiža (Ital. Natisone) Rivers, 8 km from Kobarid, the seat of the municipality (Fig.  4.1). The entire area, measuring 11.2  km2, is characterized by

Fig. 4.1  Map of the local community of Livek; location within the Municipality of Kobarid and Slovenia

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Fig. 4.2  One of the settlements in the Livek area, Perati, at 828 m (photo: Boris Drešček) and Culture

high elevations with sloping shelves, long steep hillsides, wide passes, and gentle mountain ridges. The ridge with Mount Matajur (Ital. Montemaggiore) comprises part of a physical-geographical transition between the colder alpine orographic system and warmer sub-Mediterranean/Dinaric, shaping the area’s living conditions. The community is composed of several villages and hamlets scattered across hilltop plateaus between Mount Kolovrat (1243  m) and Mount Matajur (1642 m): Livek (695 m), Perati (828 m) (Fig. 4.2), Avsa (822 m), Jevšček (805 m), and Livške Ravne (1043 m). Altogether 263 people lived in the area in 2019 (Stat-Si 2019). Among anthropogenic characteristics, the geopolitical location, skiing, and agriculture are noteworthy. Culturally and economically, the area gravitated toward the Friuli Plain in present-day Italy. It was significantly affected by extremely turbulent historical development, with continually changing borders assigning Livek to more than ten political configurations, mostly in their immediate frontier zones. In addition to the feeling of being on a border, skiing has shaped the local identity. Skiing began here as early as 1910 and reached its peak between the 1960s and

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mid-­1980s, when Livek was still small, but a vibrant and thriving ski resort (Roš 2019). The development of ski tourism went hand in hand with agriculture, characterized by a small-scale ownership structure and less-­ favourable conditions and supplemented by earnings from agriculture and vice versa. It was easy to reconcile farming with tourism services efficiently due to their alternating seasonality. However, with climate change in the last decades of the twentieth century, the promising nexus of tourism and agriculture supported by relaxation in border regimes started to collapse (Roš 2020). In addition, the remote location also contributed to depopulation and economic recession. Therefore the locals needed to find ways to adapt to the new situation and develop strategies for making a living in this backwater Alpine area.

Climate and Culture Climate Change and Its Impact  hysical and Climate Characteristics P Many studies have shown that the climate in the Alps has already been affected by global warming, which is evidenced not only by rising temperatures but also by many other aspects, such as an altered precipitation regime and changes in insolation, humidity, water conditions, snow cover, floods, droughts, natural hazards, vegetation, and soil (e.g., Gobiet et al. 2014; Chersich et al. 2015; Hrvatin and Zorn 2017). Gobiet et al. (2014) expect that the change in the annual precipitation cycle with a summer decrease (particularly in the southern part) and a winter increase will continue, and in combination with a temperature change this will lead to floods, droughts, snowpack, and natural hazards. In addition, climate change is predicted to challenge not only the natural environment but also the socioeconomic conditions in the Alps (Chersich et al. 2015). A climate crisis has already been observed in the Livek area. Although the Municipality of Kobarid belongs to the Julian Alps, due to orographic characteristics some parts of the area are influenced by warm Mediterranean air masses that move inland along the Soča and Nadiža Valleys (Pavšek 2011), and they therefore experience a milder climate than most of the Julian Alps. The average temperatures (annual 10–12 °C, January 0–2 °C, and July 20–22 °C) make the area comparable to nearby Mediterranean regions (Pavšek 2011). Hrvatin and Zorn (2018) report that at nearby

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Fig. 4.3  Annual precipitation (columns), the five-year sliding period in Livek from 1961 to 2011, and an average for 1981 to 2010 (black line) and 1961 to 1990 (grey line; Nadbath 2017)

Mount Krn (6 km away and about 100 m higher in elevation) the temperature has risen by 1.45 °C from 1961 to 2010. The average rainfall in the Livek area is abundant, at 2500  mm per year (Nadbath 2017). However, a decline already started in 1969 and has been particularly strong, with some exceptions from 1981 to 1990 and from 2003 to 2007 (Fig. 4.3). Furthermore, the distribution of rainfall has changed over the years. Even though there is enough precipitation, rainfall might occur when it too warm to snow, resulting in winter months being drier than they used to be. For example, this happened in 1992 (Fig. 4.4); the total precipitation was 2693 ml, but the winter (January–April 1992) was dry, with only thirteen days of snow cover. Figure  4.4 shows a declining trend in the number of days with snow cover in Livek from 1968 to 2011; this can be recognised with the maximum in the 1985/1986 winter season and the minimum in the 1989/1990 season (the 1970/1971 season lacks a complete data set). Unfortunately, precipitation data for Livek after 2011 are not available. Similar trends in snow cover have also been observed in other parts of the Julian Alps; Hrvatin and Zorn (2017: 24) report that from 1961 to 2010 at eleven of the twelve precipitation stations the number of days with snow cover decreased by 16 to 49%. The only exception was Mount Kredarica, at 2515 m. It appears that the lack of snow cover has posed a more significant challenge than the temperature rise and changes in precipitation. Livek was

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Fig. 4.5  Days with snow cover during the snow seasons in Livek from 1968 to 2011. For the 1970/1971 and 1974/1975 snow seasons (red numbers) not all data are available. A decline in the number of days with snow cover is visible (Arhiv meteoroloških 2020)

one of the first areas in Slovenia to face ‘green winters’. Already in the 1970s, the area occasionally experienced winters with a significant lack of snow cover. The trend has continued up to the present day. Based on available data (Fig.  4.5), this was mostly due to a combination of the

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temperature rise and changes in precipitation distribution. Green winters not only affected Livek’s reputation as a tourism area for skiing and skirelated activities, but also—presumably more pressing—its water supply. In the past, the spring and summer snowmelt guaranteed the availability of potable water. The issue is exacerbated by the geological composition, with a prevalence of permeable bedrock resulting in inadequate surface water sources. Therefore, the area largely depends on precipitation, and a change in precipitation distribution with peak rainfall in autumn has led to drought in some recent summers. A similar climate change process and trends have been observed all over the Julian Alps (Hrvatin and Zorn 2017).  istorical and Social Characteristics H The population history and the recent demographic situation reflect a convoluted state of affairs, including but not limited to continually changing borders, a remote location, and historical connections with the Friuli Plain in Italy. These contributed significantly to perceived peripherality in a geographical, economic, social, or linguistic sense by both outsiders and insiders establishing a strong local identity despite negative demographic trends. The population in Livek has been decreasing since the population peak (669 residents) in the mid-nineteenth century (Krajevni leksikon Slovenije 1995). The drop has been more pronounced in the smaller higher-elevation settlements of Jevšček and Livške Ravne. Interestingly, a new settlement called Perati emerged in the late 1990s. In 2019 Livek had a population of 176, Avsa thirty-five, Jevšček twenty-two, Livške Ravne thirteen, and Perati seventeen. Since 2002 more than half of the population has lived in the central settlement and the share is increasing (e.g., 56% in 2002 and 67% in 2019; Census 2002; Stat-Si 2019). However, despite the persistent decrease, the community is still vital, which is proved by the increasing share of young residents (age 0–14) and the decreasing share of the elderly population (age 64+) in the last decade (Uvajanje 2017). Both indicators also show a favourable situation compared to the municipal average. Borders, especially three of them, merit special attention. The first one was the border between the Republic of Venice and the Habsburg Monarchy (1420–1797), with Livek belonging to the former. Already in 1613, the Venetians allowed Livek’s peasants to cultivate municipal pastures and forests and turn them into meadows and fields, providing an impetus for agricultural development. Following the collapse of the Republic of Venice in 1797, the metropolitan part of the disbanded state,

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including Livek, became an Austrian territory under the name of the Venetian Province. The second life-changing border was established in 1866, when the entire Venetian Province, except Livek, was incorporated into the newly established Kingdom of Italy. The imposition of this boundary ultimately prevented the Slovenian population of the Venetian province in Italy (i.e., the Venetian Slovenians) from unifying with their linguistic kin in Slovenia (Josipovič 2014). Livek remained on the border of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until the end of the First World War, during which the border was the battle line of the infamous Isonzo Front. The Treaty of Rapallo in 1920 shifted the border to the east for twenty years onto the watershed between the Soča and Sava basins. After the Second World War and after the politically and militarily sensitive period of existence of the Free Territory of Trieste (the Livek area belonged to Zone A of Anglo-American military rule) up to 1954, the boundary was moved back to its 1918 position, where it has remained until the present. This tight and closed boundary was perceived as very traumatic because it cut centuries-long economic, cultural, and social ties. To prevent illegal border crossings to the Italian side, the Yugoslav authorities ordered the border cleared of forests. A small border crossing allowing local border transport was only opened in 1957. Herein lies the reason that the border opening in 2007 takes on particular meaning; after five hundred years of belonging to ten different frontier zones, a borderless period finally arrived. Skiing was introduced by Austrian soldiers in the early 1900s to patrol the area more effectively, and Italian soldiers continued the practice after the First World War; both of these practices inspired the local population. With modest attempts in the early days, lively recreational skiing took place between the two wars (in the 1930s), when the first ski jumping facility, a 30-meter structure, was built. Livek was connected by buses and trucks with nearby Italian towns, and even with Venice and by a shuttle ski bus with Cividale. The place flourished, hence its nickname: the Davos of Friuli. Many houses offered tourist accommodation and food, and young men earned money by carrying ski equipment. After the Second World War, Livek was the only ski resort in Zone A of the Free Territory of Trieste. In 1948, the Matajur Ski Club was established in Livek. In 1950 a new ski jump was constructed based on plans by the engineer Stanko Bloudek (who also designed the ski jump facilities in the world-famous Planica Valley). Construction of ski lifts and lodges on the slope of Mount Kuk began in 1962. Livek developed into a modern ski centre with three lifts and a ski lodge, and its amazing view earned it the name Nebesa

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‘Heaven’. Despite ambitious plans, a lack of snow irreversibly affected the Livek ski slopes. In the 1990s, the ski resort was in its last gasps (Roš 2019, 2020). The downfall of ski tourism coincided with the restructuring of agriculture not only in the Livek area but generally in Slovenia, especially cattle farming, which substantially prevailed in Livek. Already in 1896, two small dairies started operating, and in 1970 a 5 km pipeline was built to transport milk straight to the Planika dairy in Kobarid twice a day (Krajevna 2020). The milk pipeline, which was the second-longest in Europe, ceased operating in 2006, when the primary sector was fragile due to a prolonged crisis; the most rapid structural changes happened between the early 1990s and 2003. Slovenian agriculture is characterized by land fragmentation, small and medium-sized farms, and harsh production conditions, which is especially true for mountainous areas. Complementing incomes derived from farming with revenues stemming from non-agricultural sources were necessary (Bojnec and Latruffe 2013). In the mid-1980, a crisis in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors affected Livek’s residents, leading to the restructuring of cattle farming, and especially dairy farming. The situation has completely changed since the mid-1990s. The number of dairy farms, which prevailed in Livek, for instance, declined by 60% by 2010, and the number of animals by 25% at the national level (Kocjančič et al. 2018). Problem Statement Although ski tourism was never an independent industry for the residents of Livek, it supplemented incomes, especially for small dairy farms. By coincidence, the crisis in both sectors overlapped. Mild winters with fewer days of snow cover depleted the potential for developing skiing (artificial snow was not an option due to the lack of local water resources) and agriculture took a step backward due to structural changes in dairy farming, which affected less-favoured mountain areas more severely. Many people sought jobs in nearby towns and also across the border in Italy. By abandoning agriculture, the slopes, once ideally suited for skiing, were taken over by spontaneous overgrowth that further reduced the potentials for skiing and farming. If people wanted to stay in the area, they needed to adapt, and this process is still going on, keeping the area populated and vital. Such development is particularly remarkable, considering that most neighbouring

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villages and hamlets across the border in Italy have been facing pronounced depopulation for decades, with some examples of complete abandonment. Such a trend is evident on the Slovenian side as well (Josipovič 2014). Conversely, in the Livek area, the residents endured and stopped the process. An increasing number of younger people decided to stay and raise their families there, but the situation is not entirely stable yet. In order to achieve firm stability and resilience, the community needs a better-skilled labour force (i.e., with a higher education level) and entrepreneurial ideas. Given climate change, it is highly likely that drought will be one of the most significant burdens in the coming years. Therefore the current challenges already identified among the locals are to address the poor condition of the water distribution system efficiently and to provide additional water resources. A Response Without a Response: A Total Absence of Planned Counteractions When the ski slope was abandoned and the facilities left to deteriorate, at the national level neither politicians nor climate science researchers considered climate change a concern. Moreover, unemployment was not an issue because the planned economy—even though economic and political problems had already been clearly outlined—was still in place, and most of the ski resort employees were regularly employed at the TIK factory, the owner of the ski resort. To complete the set of reasons for neglecting the issue of ski tourism failure, the situation in farming and the attitude toward it should be mentioned. Agriculture was widely neglected in communist Yugoslavia (Klemenčič and Genorio 1993), and when measures to boost farm production were finally introduced in the 1980s (Cochrane 1988), mountain farming was already at a critical turning point (Erjavec et  al. 1998). Transition to a market economy after 1991 with the elimination of price controls cast agriculture into a state of considerable uncertainty, combined with the disruption of long-established trade contacts (Turnock 1996). The decline in agriculture occurred in parallel with the general economic recession from the mid-1980s onward, and probably reached its low point after Slovenia proclaimed independence in 1991. The Livek area did not experience institutional or governance arrangements providing adaptation and mitigation measures with targeted measures tackling declining ski tourism and its consequences or agricultural challenges. Yet, the situation did not become critical for two reasons. First,

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part-time employment has traditionally been significant for Slovenian family farms (Razpotnik Visković and Seručnik 2013) and, second, it was spontaneously mitigated by contextual features; that is, national policies tackling the issue indirectly. A polycentric regional development approach that supported the existence of non-agricultural activities, local off-farm employment, and income opportunities in smaller rural towns starting in the early 1970s (Nared et al. 2017) is first to be singled out. People were therefore able to find employment in industry in nearby Kobarid and in tourism services in the wider area (the Upper Soča Valley). There were no planned responses to the closure of the ski slopes from non-governmental sites either. Adaptation measures would first be expected from the ski slope company itself, but this was not the case. The skiing infrastructure was owned by the TIK factory in Kobarid—a producer of medical equipment—which concluded lease contracts with landowners. The core of the company’s business was not tourism-related, and so developing adaptation strategies was not crucial for its operational performance. The economic crisis in the 1980s might be the reason why the ski slope owner did not invest in technological improvement, let along artificial snowmaking, which was rare outside of Austria and Switzerland before the mid-1990s. However, as stated above, artificial snow was not an option due to Livek’s scant water resources. The reasons for the complete absence of a proactive response from individuals gaining (additional) income in the tourism industry are even more complex and convoluted. The people involved individually followed their private strategies within a broader regional and national context without the ski industry. One reason might be detachment of ski slope management from the locals. Unlike the period before the Second World War, when ski tourism development was embedded within the local community, after the war local people were no longer stakeholders. Having had no say in the process, the locals did not feel asked to reply to this challenge. In addition, the timing coincided with turbulent political and social changes in Slovenia. The 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s saw gradual democratisation (which ended in the introduction of a multiparty system) and the struggle for national emancipation (which ended with the formation of a sovereign state). There were many consequences of the political, social, and economic changes that followed independence and the transition from a totalitarian communist social system to a democracy and market capitalism (Drozg 2007). One of the essential changes was denationalisation (reprivatisation) of agricultural lands, which made

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possible the revitalisation of agrarian communities (Petek and Urbanc 2007; Premrl et al. 2015; Šmid Hribar et al. 2018). The agrarian communities managed the common property; that is, agricultural and forest land (pastures, forests, fallow land, and ponds), particularly in hilly areas that remained undivided after the completion of the agrarian reform in 1848 (Petek and Urbanc 2007). Like elsewhere in Slovenia, Livek Agrarian Community was abolished in 1947 and again in 1965, and the property was nationalised (Zakon o agrarnih 1947; Zakon o razpolaganju 1965). New legislation (Zakon o ponovni 1994) made it possible to return the property to the former Livek Agrarian community, which was re-­ established in 1996. Eighty-one initial members collectively own and manage six hundred hectares of mostly forests (Drešček 2020). Gradual Transition after 1991: Power and Agency After proclaiming independence, Slovenian society started its transition to political democracy and a market economy. For the case study, several facts are relevant. First, the democratisation process was based on the bottom­up principle, which was conceptually new because in communist Yugoslavia all decisions were imposed top-down and the local population did not have a voice in decision-making processes. In independent Slovenia, people became involved either through territorial groups (local communities) or various interest groups (e.g., non-governmental associations, societies, clubs, study circles, etc.). A window of opportunity opened up for civil society, whose role proved to be crucial for the collapse of the communist-­ dominated regime (Bebler 2002), to be involved in the decision-making process. Second, the new economic system switched its orientation from a planned economy to a market economy, allowing private initiatives. Third, Slovenia changed its regional policy orientation from top-down imposed regional policies to endogenous regional development building on regions’ potentials (Nared 2007, 2020). It took some time for people living away from the economic and political centre to grasp a new reality. This was the case for Livek. The initial entrepreneurial activity was modest, but it gradually took on a more energetic pace. Although a considerable time was needed, tourism finally reemerged, but in a new form. In contrast to ski tourism, which was a stand-alone point, this time the tourism infrastructure and options were scattered, forming a network following a line along the Isonzo front and the course of the Soča River.

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However, the crucial factor was the locals, the embeddedness of individuals and families in the local community, belonging to the community, and attachment to an area rich in forests. It was about the adaptive capacity of people, which greatly depended on their tenacity to remain and deal with the novel situation. Slowly, together with political, social, and economic changes in Slovenia after independence, more attention was generally given to self-initiative and communities’ inner potentials. The Livek Agrarian Community should be highlighted. As an NGO, it has taken on a role that has been partially neglected by the Municipality of Kobarid. Given potential difficulties in distributing revenue incurred by timber logging among owners—some of them living abroad for decades—and the fact that the local community would not benefit sufficiently, the Agrarian Community’s council has decided to extend the circle of beneficiaries from the owners to all community members financially contributing to various local initiatives. Some recent investments benefited small-scale infrastructure activities, sports fields, training (e.g., in fire prevention), and small activities targeted at individuals’ personal lives (e.g., protective masks during the coronavirus epidemic). Not only does the Livek Agrarian Community invest its private revenue into the local community, but it has also been recognised as an exemplary forest owner pursuing the concept of sustainability to the fullest. Recently, it has been encouraging young community members to renovate the old and deteriorating inn and thus contribute to tourism development (Drešček 2020). Networks (Relationships, Loyalties, and Dependencies) A key actor for keeping a community together is the Local Community of Livek as an extension of the Municipality of Kobarid. Before Slovenian independence and before the introduction of the Local Government Act in 1993, local communities were a constitutional category and performed the majority of local functions. This act increased the role of municipalities and overlooked local communities. They have been deprived of formal power and reduced to the form of popular participation in decision-­ making on local matters. This is true for the Local Community of Livek, which acts as facilitator between people and the official administrative unit; that is, the municipality (Roš 2020), yet it lacks power and spending autonomy. This deficiency was spontaneously being well taken care of by the Livek Agrarian Community.

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An essential element of agriculture is the ownership situation. Because agriculture in Livek was only on a small scale, it was not affected by institutional limitations imposed through nationalisation under communism. Consequently, after independence, it was not impacted by reprivatisation, except for land owned by the Livek Agrarian Community. The stable land ownership situation helped small farm owners resume cattle farming and thereby once again supplemented the range of tourism options. After several decades of a break, tourism and agriculture succeeded in cohabiting and complementing each other. Due to its vitality, Livek functions as an incubator of activities, mostly in civil society, for the wider area, and especially the cross-border area of Venetian Slovenia, which has been facing intensive depopulation and outmigration (Museo etnografico 2019). Building on centuries-long political, linguistic, and economic ties, Livek is pursuing the concept of a borderless Europe. Social Justice People’s rights to access, use, and control land for farming and settlement depend on the ownership situation. Herein lies the reason there are only a few newcomers. There is also limited housing land available for local people (Slovenians are very hesitant to sell their property). The local population obtains housing plots by passing property down from one generation to the next. Given the vitality of economic development of the Upper Soča Valley, especially in tourism, there are many ways to readily make a living. Following the expansion of car use, the urban-rural divide has narrowed, especially in terms of living standards. Finally, the decision by the Livek Agrarian Community to extend the beneficiary circle from joint owners to the entire local community has contributed significantly to what seems to be a unique example in Slovenia, contributing tremendously to community building and coherence.

Adaptive Capacity and Climate Resiliency Concrete Coping Measures and Strategy Implemented (Mitigation and/or Adaptation) There were no national, municipal, or local systematic measures to directly tackle failed tourism in Livek. However, several indirect measures allowed the local residents, who had already showed their resilience particularly

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due to their frontier location and turbulent history, to remain in the area, and these measures helped them keep and consequently boost internal cohesion. Road infrastructure is vital for passenger and freight transport, allowing daily commuting. Employment options in the vicinity also played an important role. A general national policy of developing a balanced and polycentric settlement system was defined in 1986 (Dimitrovska Andrews 2006), and a regional policy orientation was applied between 1981 and 1991 based on the Law on the Promotion of More Harmonious Regional Development in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia and its subsequent amendments (Nared 2003). After joining the European Union, efforts to achieve better territorial cohesion have intensified. Slovenia has also sought to enhance its polycentric regional development, which makes possible economic efficiency and a balanced distribution of jobs, service activities, and housing (Zavodnik Lamovšek 2003). The goals have not been met, especially in public transport. This is why roads have been so crucial for local populations. The second contextual factor is tourism development in general in Slovenia and a clear orientation toward summer tourism in the Upper Soča Valley. Spillover effects extended from the valley bottom to hilly and remote parts, providing employment opportunities in Kobarid and other towns in the valley as well as bringing daily visitors to the Livek area. Adaptation to tourism went into two directions: one toward nature-based, active/adrenaline activities (kayaking, canoeing, and paragliding) in the river valley, and the other toward heritagisation of the Isonzo Front and its artefacts in situ. Establishing the Walk of Peace trademark and strengthening it have coincided with global trends in the development of niche tourism. However, a local opinion leader (Roš 2020) has raised concerns about the high dependence on seasonal tourism without higher added value in the Soča Valley, which proved to be justified, as demonstrated by the recent situation with Covid-19. To reduce vulnerability due to one type of industry, further adaptation strategies should be considered. There is no research on agricultural development in the Municipality of Kobarid, let alone in the case study area. However, a parallel can be drawn with the national situation. Direct payments through national funding, and then after EU integration in 2004 through EU funding, provided basic income support to farmers and contributed to slowing down the loss of farming. Especially in the last decade, this situation has been reversed by recognising the importance of financially supporting small farms (Galluzzo 2015). This is attributable not only to (supra)national

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agriculture measures but also to tourism development and awareness of the benefits of locally or nationally produced food (Perpar and Udovč 2019). The agricultural situation in Livek is entirely in line with the national situation. However, cattle farming has diversified: dairy cows still prevail, but have been complemented by beef cattle, horses, sheep, and deer. Milk processing has also diversified; it is mostly combined with summer mountain pasturing and collective cheesemaking at a pasture dairy, and individually at home during the winter. Irrespective of the fact that the majority of the land is cultivated, spontaneous shrub and forest overgrowth are threatening common land, which encompasses the steepest parts and edge of cultivated land, leading to shrinking of the traditional agricultural landscape. To prevent this, the Agrarian Community offers usage rights for its common property to locals for fenced pastures, vegetable gardens, and orchards or for setting up simple sheds in return for volunteer work and active involvement in joint activities, such as cleanup operations, clearing forests, and local road maintenance (Drešček 2020). Such an approach is quite unique in Slovenia; it is a kind of privileged sharing of natural resources with local residents that are not members of the Agrarian Community. This activity contributes to social justice and solidarity among local residents, strengthens local cohesion, and improves local identity, which is inherently linked with local culture. It is assumed that all these activities will further enhancing community resilience. Table 4.1 presents several measures that have helped locals overcome the decline in ski tourism and that have contributed to maintaining the vitality of the area. Except for one, all the measures were taken after 1991 and have addressed both locals and tourists. It is notable and not surprising to observe that a bottom-up approach is prevailing (Fig. 4.6), particularly for measures that significantly contribute to better wellbeing and the cultural life of the local community (i.e., at the local level). Some ingrained characteristics have proved to be crucial. Proactiveness and volunteerism are two of them. Other characteristics are mutual synergies and continually evolving strategies to make a living with limited resources. These are the pillars of lessons learned that can be transferred to and implemented in other local communities that would like to act proactively to improve the tangible and intangible aspects of residents’ lives, and they are probably some of the key success factors that differentiate resilient communities from non-resilient ones. Another essential group of measures used a top-­ down approach at the regional level and was mostly related to improving the tourism infrastructure in the Soča Valley. The majority of measures

Tourism

Agriculture

Top-­down

Tourism

 8. Orientation toward and promoting summer tourism in the Upper Soča Valley  9. Creation and promotion of the Walk of Peace brand

10. Direct payments and CAP

Top-­down

Tourism

 7. Jelenov Breg farm tourism

Top-­down

Bottom-up

Private

Private

Private, Livek Agrarian Community Private, Livek Agrarian Community Private, Livek Agrarian Community

Public, municipality

State (partly co-financed by the EU

Investor

Public, municipality and nearby municipalities, state 2000– Private foundation, public and private investors 1995–national,2004– Public EU CAP scheme

2000, 2012 more intensively 1980–

2003

Tourism

Bottom-up

2017–2019

2014–2017

2015, 2018

Communal Bottom-up infrastructure

Communal Bottom-up infrastructure Recreation Bottom-up

 3. Livške Ravne sewage system

2018

1994–2011, 2016–2017

Year(s)

  4. Secondary sports field facilities (community building, event tent)   5. Purchase of a fire truck and firefighting equipment, training for residents   6. Nebesa cottages (Fig. 4.7)

Top-­down

Transport

  2. Cross-border bus connection

Approach Top-­down

Type

  1. Local road reconstruction (9 km Transport stretch + 3 km stretch)

Measures

Table 4.1  Measures implemented after the decline of ski tourism in the Livek area

Local, municipal

Level

Local farmers

Tourists

Tourists

Tourists (high-end market) Tourists

(continued)

Regional, national

Regional, national

Regional, national Regional, national

Regional, national

Local residents Local, municipal

Local residents Local, municipal

Regional, national Local residents Local, municipal

Local population + tourists Tourists

Target group

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Culture

Culture

Recreation

16. Fountain: ‘This land does not want borders anymore’ 17. Celebration with a theatre performance 18. Various sports events

Bottom-up

Bottom-up

Bottom up

Bottom up

21. Drinking water provision during Communal Top-­down summer drought infrastructure

Agriculture

Bottom-up

Culture, recreation

15. Hike across an imaginary line

20. Usage rights for common lands

Bottom-up

Culture

14. Liwkstock festival

Culture

Bottom up

Tourism

13. The Livek Story thematic trail

19. Exhibition: Seven decades of skiing

Top-­down

Culture Bottom-up

Top-­down

Culture

11. Reconstruction of Nježa’s House and conversion into a museum 12. Kolovrat Open Air Museum

Approach

Type

Measures

Table 4.1  (continued)

If needed

1996–

2020

2011–

2011–

2007–2008

1994 onward

2012–

2019–2010

2001–2006

2015

Year(s)

Tourists

Tourists

Tourists

Target group

Local population + tourists (cross-­border) NGO (Rečen Cultural Local Association, Italy) population (cross-­border) Spontaneous Local self-initiative population NGO (Gorenj Konc Local Cultural Association) population NGO (Livek Tourism Local and Sports Club) population NGO (Matajur Ski Club) Local and regional population Livek Agrarian Local Community population Municipality of Kobarid Local population

Public (municipality, EU) NGO (Liwkstock Cultural Association)

Public, NGO

Public (municipality, EU)

Investor

Local, municipal

Local, municipal

Regional, national

Local, municipal

Local, municipal

Local, municipal

Local, cross-­border

Local, cross-­border

Regional, national Local, municipal

Local, municipal

Level

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Fig. 4.6  Measures taken according to approaches (top-down, bottom-up) and for whom they were addressed and designed. The colour signifies the type and level of operation (green for the local, municipal, or cross-border level, and blue for the regional or national level)

Fig. 4.7  The Nebesa cottages at the former ski lodge site (photo: Nebesa.si)

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(seven of them) are in culture, all of which but one were conceived and implemented on the bottom-up principle and primarily targeted the locals. Next are five tourism-related measures that combine both bottom-up and top-down principles. Three communal measures and three recreational measures are also essential for the welfare of local residents, all except one following bottom-up principles targeted at the local community. Two measures refer to agriculture, one using a top-down approach at the national level and another emerging from the bottom-up action at the local level. Another two measures are related to transport infrastructure, both using a top-down approach. Eleven measures address local residents, eight address tourists, and two address both. The prevalence of bottom­up measures is proof of the importance of local initiatives. The number of activities exceeds twenty-one because one measure falls into two categories. Conclusion The Livek area, once an affluent and thriving small ski resort, was impacted by climate change before the media were overwhelmed with threatening images of melting ice and before climate change became a pressing issue of political debate. Therefore the rapid decline in tourism, accompanied by a gradual decline in agriculture, was not addressed at all. The abundance of employment options in factories in the valley filled the immediate gap in income. In the long run, the national and municipal policies pursuing sustainable, balanced polycentric development addressed various sectors (e.g., road infrastructure), which provided a broader context for people to make a decent living and for job options in this peripheral area. Slowly, intensive tourism development in the wider (regional) area closely related to Triglav National Park and the Walk of Peace initiative have improved the tourism potential of the area, leading to limited local entrepreneurial efforts that are promising for reversing the negative economic and demographic development (Roš 2020). Due to its historical development and remote location, the community of Livek is very persistent and resilient. Its border location, its connection to the Friuli Plain, a dialect that distinguishes it from other communities, and its location in the Municipality of Kobarid have helped it develop a distinct identity strengthened by pristine and unspoiled nature and natural beauty. Owing to its strong identity and place attachment, the community has grown more robust, turning it into a cohesive and resilient one building on inner potential, initiatives, and resources. Its entrepreneurial spirit

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remains modest and underdeveloped. However, many NGO activities and citizens’ initiatives in culture, sports, and similar activities are clear proof of internal cohesion. The cultural, sports, other events and activities related to them that have grown out of the local community reflect and are an outcome of political changes over many centuries. The geopolitical situation is deeply embedded in the social memory of the local population, which has enthusiastically embraced European integration processes. Last but not least, the people of the Livek area, like many others in Slovenia, will need to adapt to and mitigate future droughts, which will probably be increasingly frequent. This will be particularly important if they decide to continue pursuing agriculture, which ensures the maintenance of the traditional cultural landscapes that are so crucial for sustainable tourism. Acknowledgment  The authors acknowledge financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding No. P6-010; Geography of Slovenia).

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CHAPTER 5

Contested Bogs in Ireland: A Viewpoint on Climate Change Responsiveness in Local Culture Simo Häyrynen, Caitriona Devery, and Aparajita Banerjee

Abstract  This case deals with the intertwined societal questions of the bogs in the Irish Midlands. The case is a version of a world-wide tension between existing industrial structures and contemporary requirements for greening the economy, and especially of the inequal spatial division of its

S. Häyrynen (*) Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland e-mail: [email protected] C. Devery Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] A. Banerjee College of Business, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_5

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impact. Could culture and cultural activities help us to find alternative community-based solutions to cope with the impacts of climate-change mitigation? The article illustrates a two-phase adaptation to changing environmental conditions and expectations. The first phase is the state-­ level response of the Irish government to climate-change and the requirements of the EU-directives partially at the expense of the local communities depending on the bogs economically (peat-industry, turf-users). The second phase is the local response to the state-level actions and what have local cultures to do with it. Keywords  Peatlands in Ireland: landscape • energy and identity

Peatlands in Ireland: Landscape, Energy, and Identity There are two types of bog, blanket and raised, which form in different environments and vary in depth (Barry 1969). In the middle area of Ireland or the Irish Midlands, spongy raised bogs are a major landscape feature. While typically imagined as dark, bleak flatlands, raised bogs, even those somewhat degraded, can be rich in a distinctive beauty and biodiversity with mosses, lichens, and heathers growing alongside bog cotton, gorse, birch, and other flora giving rich seasonal palettes of purple, brown, and orange. In contrast, unrehabilitated bogs that have been used for peat extraction are brown deserts scarred with industrial incisions and linear drains. Bogs are part of Ireland’s natural heritage, their preservative abilities keeping a record of the environmental, social, and cultural past as far back as the Ice Age (Kelly 2013). Their uniqueness in terms of habitat and heritage is matched by their richness as a natural resource. When bogs are drained of water and the top layers of vegetations are stripped off, the carbon-rich black soil known as peat emerges. Peat consists of the decomposed remnants of vegetation prevented from decaying completely in the oxygen-scarce waterlogged bogs. The use of peat for energy has a long history. Domestic extraction or ‘cutting’ and drying of this peat soil results in brick-like ‘sods’ of hardened peat, called ‘turf’ or as more industrial ‘briquettes’. This turf is used for domestic heating to protect people from the bitter, damp cold of the Irish winters and is still practiced today in many parts of rural Ireland. ‘Taking home the

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Fig. 5.1  Peat bog, County Offaly (Caitriona Devery)

Fig. 5.2  Yellow furze or gorse bushes on post-industrial peatland, County Offaly (Caitriona Devery)

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turf’, i.e. cutting, drying, and stacking was and is still a ritualised family activity, perhaps similar to some farming activities. Though significantly mechanised now, turf cutting still provides livelihood to people, bogland suitable for turf cutting is still a valuable asset, and sods of turf are sold in urban and rural areas alike. Even today, winter evenings in many parts of rural Ireland smell of peat. Many Irish people associate it with the ‘smell of home’. Turf’s iconic nature means it is often burned in pubs aiming for an ‘authentic’ Irish experience for tourists. Therefore, as well as being an everyday fuel for many households, turf also evokes a sensory nostalgia for a romantic idea of rural Ireland. Individual families cut turf domestically for household energy all over Ireland on both raised and blanket bogs. The raised bogs in the Midlands, however, are also associated with industrial extraction. Since 1946, the domestic turf-cutting was followed by industrial-scale ‘peat harvesting’ to produce peat as fuel (Tuohy et al. 2009). The carbon-rich peat soil played a critical role in electricity production and energy security in the country

Fig. 5.3  Domestic turf cutting, County Offaly: turf footings (Caitriona Devery)

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that in many ways, also sustained the Irish Midlands and played a huge role in its social and cultural life. As the country lacked any substantial deposit of gas, oil, or coal, the peat soil that covers 17.2% of the country’s land area was a source of carbon to be burned to generate electricity in the thermal power plants (Tuohy et al. 2009). In retrospect, this project might be questionable due to the many environmental concerns that are discussed later, but during the late 1930s and 1940s, peat-based electricity production helped the nation in securing its energy needs. Exploiting the bogs as a source of fuel and economic activity was part of the post-independence drive for self-sufficiency and native control of industry, particularly evident in the 1930s. One very visible and oft-noted element of the state’s attempt to foster industry and employment was the use of the semi-state organisational model for various key activities, such as sugar, electricity generation, and agricultural credit (Daly 1992). The nascent model was used to establish the Turf Development Board in 1933, which was reconstituted as the more familiar Bord Na Móna, or the ‘Peat Board‘, in 1946. The intention was to develop the bogs for peat extraction and supply the thermal power plants with peat (Tuohy et al. 2009) and in the process to spread industry throughout the regions as a social policy (Daly 1992). Bogland is not greatly suited to agriculture, so for the Midlands region the industry brought jobs and welcome economic activity. The company has grown to be the second-largest peat producer in the world, with around 7.5% of Irish bogs currently under their ownership. Due to the low energy content of the peat soil, large areas of land were acquired from local people and developed to produce peat, creating thousands of direct and ancillary local jobs. The company also made the machinery for peat extraction, and over the years, they were technologically improved, often using foreign expertise, to make peat extraction more efficient and improve the health and safety of the workers. Many who joined Bord Na Móna as an apprentice or for a summer job became permanent employees, and the Company invested in training them to fulfil the different needs for skill sets. What emerged in the next half a dozen decades was that workers felt pride in working for a state-owned enterprise that helped build their lives, families, and the community. People living in the Midlands whose family members for generations have been emigrating to different parts of the world found an opportunity to work locally in decent jobs in the peat industry allowing them to stay at home, close to their family and friends.

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The peat industry did not just produce jobs; it helped people preserve their identity as ‘being from the Midlands’. It diversified the local economy that was traditionally dependent on agriculture and created many small spin-off industries and places of trade. Simultaneously, it created a collective mindset that gave people a sense of security and equality. The bog is enmeshed within ideals of national self-sufficiency, independence and a deep attachment to rurality and nature. It is not just a passive landscape; it is intertwined with social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental aspects of life in the Midlands. The bog therefore is a textbook example of how identity and values have been connected with national endeavours.

Fig. 5.4  Homage to the people of the Peatlands: Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park, County Kildare (Simo Häyrynen)

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Climate Impacts As the twentieth century progressed, however, the environmental services the bog provides became more urgent. Peat, as a significant natural heritage of Ireland, has historically provided solutions to the energy and economic needs of the country and continues to do so. However, there is no denial of the science that peat used for energy has many climate ills and in recent years and no ignoring the many calls for the cessation of peat extraction and burning (Joosten et al. 2012). Peat smoke contains a high concentration of organic carbon and gases like ammonia, potassium, sulphur, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, and other compounds that are also greenhouse gases with global warming consequences. Many of these gases, along with particulate matter in the smoke, also have human health impacts. However, burning peat for electricity and domestic heat has far more severe consequences than just from the greenhouse gas content in the smoke. Bogs also have a highly significant capacity to store carbon; in their natural state peatlands act as long-term ‘sinks’ for atmospheric carbon dioxide, a climate service that is disturbed significantly by mechanised peat extraction. When peatlands are damaged their climate benefitting carbon storing capability is hampered. Industrial peat extraction can also change the chemical composition of the peat soil making it difficult for natural processes of regrowth to happen, hampering for instance the return of native species with carbon storing capabilities like Sphagnum moss (Bullock et al. 2012). In general, the impacts are severe and long-lasting but unfortunately not fully understood by the general public. In particular, people tend not to associate the negative consequences of peat burning with the smoke that comes of the domestic chimney. They imagine that this is nothing when compared to the big emissions from cars and factories all over the world. The peat extraction that Bord na Móna do is popularly known as ‘peat harvesting’ implying that the peat will grow back over time. Though peat can get accumulated constantly in the waterlogged bogs, it has taken perhaps a million years to come to its present level. Therefore, harvested peat will not grow back in the next season as is often envisaged with other types of harvests. New peat accumulation will take a long time, and when the right geophysical conditions are maintained. As peat soil has lower energy content than oil or coal, a large amount of peat is required to produce similar unit of electricity as other carbon-intensive fossil fuels. This

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inefficiency requires large areas of land for peat extraction. Less than 50,000 ha of the original 310,000 ha (16%) of raised bog remains uncut. More critically, only 1% (1639 ha across both designated and non-designated sites) is in an ‘Active’ condition, that means it is sequestering carbon (Wilson 2019).

Ecological Risks The unique peatland landscape is home to a distinctive ecosystem supporting a diversity of flora and fauna. Different types of species thrive in the bogs ranging from microbial organisms to birds and animals differing from one region to another depending on the type and condition of the peatland: fens and bogs, intact and highly degraded. Sphagnum, a type of moss, is critically essential for the peat to grow in turn helping in sustaining life support systems of different microbial organisms, insects, worms, and mites native to the bogs. The peatland provides breeding and wintering grounds for types of birds that thrive on the diverse habitats of the peatlands. Some birds like the Red Grouse and the Eurasian Curlew having high conservation status. Apart from faunal species, many floral species found in Irish peatlands are endemic to the area, with some of them also featuring in the priority conservation list. Today’s peat extraction at different scale and use affects every raised bog of conservation importance in Ireland involving the drainage, burning and ultimately the removal of the peat resource (Irish Peatland Conservation Council). Heavily mechanised peat extraction has had serious impacts on the peatlands of conservation importance and on peatland resources generally in the wider countryside. Not surprisingly, different types of peatlands have been identified as priority habitats under the Habitat Directive of the European Commission (EC Directive on the Conservation of Habitats, Flora and Fauna 92/43/EEC) to protect the landscape from further damage. Bord na Móna industrial sites are mainly located within the midlands raised bog areas

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Fig. 5.5  The case study site: Map of the Irish peatlands (Noora Rämö, UEF)

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Local Aspects of Changing Resource-Doctrine Social Risks For decades, environmental groups and scholars have identified and raised awareness that peat extracted for energy is not a sustainable model to pursue ecologically, but also economically. This vulnerability has been exposed in recent years and have directly affected two communities: a small percentage of domestic turf cutters and those working in commercial peat extraction. The former group were affected by the decision to give designated sites of both blanket and raised bogs were given protected status under these laws as Special Areas of Conservation (designated under EU directives) and Natural Heritage Areas (under Irish law). The main extraction is prohibited on these bogs. What is remarkable is that these sites amount to less than 5% of the bogs available for turf cutting. To help progress the implementation of these prohibitions, the ‘Cessation of Turf Cutting Scheme’ was launched in 1999: Under the voluntary scheme, domestic cutters were given 10 years notice to cease cutting turf and make new arrangements for their fuel supply (applied to 32 raised bogs) and same in 2002 (for the remaining 21). Restrictions on private turf-cutting is a controversial topic in rural Ireland and many bog owners refused compensation. Government actions also included peatland rehabilitation, which supports the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced biodiversity, especially by flooding and redeveloping thousands of acres of bog. However, the most significant step that was taken in recent years was by the government and the energy companies and the decision to wind down commercial extraction of peat and to prioritise rehabilitation of the peatland. In 2016 Bord na Móna announced their ‘Sustainability 2030’ strategy which committed to ceasing peat use by 2030. Further system changes happened in 2019 when Electricity Supply Board (ESB), the Irish state-­ owned electricity company decided that they would stop using peat in their two power plants in Lanesborough, County Longford and Shanonbridge, County Offaly in the Midlands completely at the end of 2020. What it meant for the Bord na Móna that the company could no longer sell peat to the power plants as fuel. One remaining power-station in Edenderry has been permitted to continue using a combination of peat and biomass, until 2023. This ‘accelerated exit from peat’ was underlined by Bord na Móna who announced the bringing forward of cessation of

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peat production entirely to 2027, committing to close 17 active bogs immediately and the remaining 45 within seven years ‘to fight climate change’. Overall, then, the ‘great national project’ that started in the 1930s to provide the country with energy is coming to an end. These actions will affect vast number of local people in the Irish Midlands (e.g. County Offaly, County Kildare, County Galway). Changes in National Project and Their Local Implications To give some historical context, in the 1930s and 1940s, peatlands were developed as a part of the nation-wide endeavour to provide energy to the country that lacked other fuel source. It established a particularly Irish resource doctrine that was integrated with the overall societal development. Land was allocated, factories were built, railroads were constructed, and thousands of people were employed in the Midlands area either seasonally or permanently to participate in this project of national significance of producing energy. Many of the workers who continued working in Bord na Móna are lifelong employees in the company who joined as teenagers and were trained to acquire skills that suit their talents and interest. In other words, these men were shaped by the Bord na Móna that even spilled into their social lives as many employees lived in the same communities where they worked in the nearby Bord na Móna sites. This continued over many years and peat production peaked in the 1990s. However, that nationally important resource doctrine currently has changed and arguably, a new one has taken its place. When in the 1940s, Ireland wanted to carve out an identity of energy secure country not dependent on the United Kingdom for energy, today the pertinent national project is to change Ireland’s status from climate laggard in the EU to that of a climate-responsible country. Initiatives described above have been and are attempting to achieve targets, but there has been both resistance and criticism. Climate groups in Ireland are drawing attention to the government’s failure to enforce these laws. Ireland’s poor reputation in climate-prevention has led to criticism from the EU around various environmental problems concerning not only the bogs but water systems and agricultural emissions. For instance, Ireland had pledged to reduce emissions to 20 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 but the state Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) figures show that 2018 emissions exceed this target by 5 to 6 per cent. Apart from the binding commitments to the EU in terms of emission reduction for which the country

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can face substantial fines, there are also non-binding international commitments made in the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. Domestically, public awareness in the country on climate action and environmental action has increased over the years with series of campaigns organised by the different environmental groups like Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for the Future, and even taking the government to court due to the lack of climate actions. Given this, it is not surprising that the last government and its leader (Taoiseach) Leo Varadkar made promises of huge plans for climate action in order to make Ireland—until recently not known for its commitment to environmental policy—a beacon for the environment: ‘Climate action is not an area where we have a lot of credibility at the moment, and that is something we need to change so that we have credibility in talking to other countries’ (Beesley 2019). Perhaps one of the low hanging fruit or quickest possible steps that could be taken to show the country’s commitment to the climate cause was to close the peat-based power plants. This measure allows deriving multiple benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions in energy production, opportunities to rehabilitate the bogs that turned into carbon sources from being left drained, reduce future peatland destruction thus helping the landscape to act as a carbon sink, and enhance the ecosystem services provided by the bogs in habitat conservation. However, among all this environmental good or greater public good, what emerges currently is that communities depending on the peat industry, directly and indirectly, perceive themselves as ‘sacrifices to the greater public good‘. Reactions in Local Communities In order to understand the multi-layered perceptions of the people in the Midland communities towards the closure of the peat industry, it is essential to look further than just loss of jobs and economic opportunity. It is imperative to understand the context of peat in the Midlands. The soggy terrain and the economic activity it addresses occupy a special place in the Irish imagination, inspiring generations of painters and other artists. Its ability to preserve the past—bog bodies, jewellery, manuscripts, butter— has enchanted generations and has great symbolic power and meaning. For example, in his poem Bogland Seamus Heaney (1969), the Nobel laureate poet symbolically contrasts the marshy bogs to the iconic open American frontier landscape, ‘We have no prairies / To slice a big sun at

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evening / Everywhere the eye concedes to / Encroaching horizon’, perhaps a comment on the heavy weight of history both within the bog and in Irish culture. He also wrote about preserved bodies found in the bog as metaphors for sectarian violence in the North. The romanticised idea of the entire nation working together for the common goal of energy production was rooted in identities forged with the Irish war of independence and the trade war with the UK in the 1930s which brought about a commitment to self-sufficiency and native control (Daly 1992). Revolutionary hero and later the managing director of Bord na Móna, Todd Andrews, declared that peat development is a patriotic endeavour and bolsters national energy security (reducing dependence on imported sources of energy and the UK) (McNally 2008). While years have passed, that sense of pride continued. The closure of Bord na Móna means that the workers are removed from feeling like they contribute to the national project and that in turn took care of them and their families. The assumption that the people in the Midlands are offended due to the loss of jobs is perhaps a shallow understanding of the problem. The issue is also around loss of part of their identity. The winding down of Bord na Mona is a jarring removal of a longstanding industrial player that provided economic support in the otherwise economically deprived area of the Midlands. The abruptness of the closure decision is particularly worthy of attention. People working in Bord na Móna and the communities around the bogs knew for a long time that peat was coming to an end. However, they were not prepared for the suddenness of the decisions that were taken. The perception among communities is that this was taken without sufficient consultation or concern for the welfare of the workers. When an industrial sector with such a deep and multi-layered fabric of economic, political, and cultural factors as this, and a crucial aim of the national project was to draw peripheral communities into a common endeavour, an abrupt change may cause some unexpected consequences at the local level. The decision to them was sudden without providing much scope to them to develop and implement alternative plans, perhaps related to nature-based tourism or other types of work that could be congruent with bog rehabilitation or returning the bogs to nature. Other parts in this development also need analysis. Members of these communities generally perceive that the peat-fuelled ESB power plants to be a good thing in their communities. It is part of the material reality of the place they live and an industrial artefact of the nation. Additionally,

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they do not see any negative health impacts of inhaling the peat smoke, a thing that they have done for generations. For them, ‘the wee power plants’ do not pollute enough so that closing them would make any substantial change in fighting the climate crisis especially when ‘little Ireland’ pollutes nothing when compared to ‘the United States, China or India’. Moreover, they perceive that their rural ways of life are far more climate-­ friendly than the urban lifestyles of the city dwellers in Dublin, yet they are the ones paying the price of urgent climate actions (cf. Häyrynen and Hämeenaho 2020). Also, the fact that the bogs need to be protected to function as carbon sinks and peat extraction is destructive to the bogs that can have significant climate consequence is poorly understood. The mode of delivery of public messages is notable: even the most valid scientific information can provoke a strong backlash, if fed to local people quickly and in an abstract form. The state and the EU have emphasised the principle of ‘just transition’ meaning burden-sharing and that no-one is left behind (e.g. The European Green Deal 2020). However, if the unemployment rate in the Midlands is higher than elsewhere in Ireland and there is no investment surge that has drawn many global companies to Dublin and other big cities, more and more Midlands towns will start to look like the ‘ghost towns’ of the Rust Belt (no shops or other services, no young people, no hope). In this context, local people may be hard to persuade. These developments are analogous with communities in industrial decline, in which people try to find some concrete explanation for declining conditions. However, in those situations people are able to take the reason (natural resource finishes or the market demand diminishes) for granted whereas the imperative of global environmental challenges invoked by the cessation of peat extraction may be harder to grasp. When faced with livelihood loss and perhaps a reshuffling of their way of life, the support for sharing responsibilities for mitigating climate change can decline over time. ‘I do feel let down—there should be a just transition in the workforce like we were promised, but that won’t be the case now.’—Pat Phelan (60), Bord na Móna worker ‘This is not like a factory in Dublin that you close the door and life goes on. This is way bigger than that. This is a community. The community is the bog and ESB’—Pat Phelan

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‘Workers in the Midlands rightly fear their region being abandoned in the years to come.’—Trade Union Official, Patricia King

The abrupt closure of the few of the organisations locally that could provide ‘jobs for life’ may generate a kind of peripheral attitude that preserves ideas that peripheries have been left behind and amplifies the feeling of being mistreated (Farinella et  al. 2018; Häyrynen and Hämeenaho 2020). As the location of the affected communities is far from highly populous urban areas, the community members also perceive that sub-optimal compensation strategies may be worked out for them in the government negotiations as they are not part of a large electorate. Peripheral attitudes also often mean that people are beholden to their ideas of the ‘good ole days’. Resistance to the need for peat cessation is also reinforced by turfcutting’s status as traditional activity handed down through generations (O’Riordan et al. 2015, p. 128). Perhaps this uncertainty about the future of the workers and in turn communities that depended in various extent on the Bord na Móna jobs creates a unique conundrum currently in many communities in the Midlands. Though people acknowledge that Ireland has to take the climate commitments seriously and move away from the exploitation of peat, there is also an amplified anxiety about the decline of villages and towns that Bord na Móna helped to sustain for decades. It does not mean only the loss of relative wealth, shops, and services but loss of collective sense of pride and identity. People fear that closing Bord na Móna operations without subsequent measures to bring new economic opportunities in the area would cut bonds that kept the communities together for generations. Lack of local opportunities would force people to move out to larger cities like Dublin or Galway or make commuting for work a necessity. Political Divisions in Relation to Local Cultures Over the last two decades, largely thanks to Ireland’s relatively laggard status within the ecological issues, a drastic change in public and political attitudes towards the protection and use of the bogs in Ireland began to emerge. A general understanding grew that peat would be phased out gradually over the next decade and be completely replaced by 2030. Risks caused by necessary climate change actions provide a social dimension of the climate impact of the bogs. They require new kind of local capacity and competence of change (often needed in the history of small countries).

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Attempts were made to engage stakeholders and the public on the issue of the bog. In 2011 a Peatlands Council stakeholder forum was set up to ‘respond to commitments set out in the Programme for Government and to assist Ireland in responding in a strategic way to the requirements of the EU Habitat’s Directive which require Ireland to protect and conserve important peatland habitat’. One outcome from that is that the Irish government launched the National Peatland Strategy 2015 which is aimed at promoting conservation. The EPA have also commissioned a large number of studies and reports with recommendations on usage and rehabilitation. It has become a major policy issue with many vested interests in the debate. Nonetheless issues remain. As already mentioned, there is a strong public misperception among local communities that turf cutting for domestic use has a minimal impact on peatland biodiversity and carbon capture compared to industrial extraction. As the state has stepped in to apply the EU regulations around turf cutting on particular, protected habitats, it has become an inflammatory issue with resistance and protests. Some aspects of the emotive debate around peat use for energy are somewhat confused in the public mind. Many people believe that the cessation of turf cutting in line with EU-driven action equates to a ban on turf cutting in every peatland area of Ireland, although the ban actually concerns only 4% of the overall total area of bogland in the country. According to O’Riordan et al. (2015, 133) local people are frustrated with the scientific basis cited in the selection of sites, while officials see these definitions as essential for the credibility and proper application of the EU-Directives. Compensatory actions from the state for people whose bogs lie within protected areas have been seen ‘very much like a window-dressing in the run up to an election’ like one former employee of the peat-industry said (RTE 2019). One issue, familiar from other declining areas of the western world (what Rodriguez-Pose (2018) has called ‘places that don’t matter’), is that a peripheral mentality is easy to manipulate by certain interest groups or populist politicians channelling people’s anxiety or anger for their own good. Some echoes of this kind of operation can be seen maybe in the activities of Turf Cutters and Contractors association (TCCA) that declares that they represent the ‘local voice¨’ in the negotiation of peatlands. For instance, the TCCA leadership during struggles in Galway over illegal turf cutting appealed to class ideas of injustice and inequality (like how the Anglo Irish bankers who were responsible for bankrupting the country with the banking crash went free, while ‘the little people’ could be put in

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jail for carrying out a family tradition on their own land.) Another example of the divisive nature of the issue is the incident in which four men were charged in connection with cutting turf on a special area of conservation in County Galway, western Ireland, in 2013. Scores of people gathered outside Galway Circuit court during proceedings to support accused men. In these contested, complex situations, culture often comes into play. Whenever the issue is too abstract and large to comprehend, discursive mechanisms start to dominate the agenda. Cultural reactions are often based on ‘common knowledge’ or common sense thinking that cannot adequately comprehend the most advanced scientific information and the conceptual system built on this. However, there is a counternarrative. Some argue that a majority in Midlands bog-reliant communities approve necessary actions to prevent climate-change ‘People are more in tune with this issue in this area than maybe others had given credit for’ says a green politician from Offaly green politician from Offaly: ‘They accept the new situation but with mixed emotions.’ Another worker states, ‘a majority [working] in Bord na Móna are not afraid of [tackling] climate change and they honestly do believe it’s for the better [to act] … It’s just that it’s hitting rural Ireland harder than it’s hitting Dublin.’ (Finian O’Neill, a seasonal peat worker and SIPTU union representative). Contextually, the public discourse around climate change in Ireland tends to accept a need for change, although there can be resistance and contention when it comes to particular sensitive topics like the bog and agriculture. Midlands communities, particularly those where there has been high bog-related or Bord na Móna employment feel angry about the rate of withdrawal, and the lack of government support towards a Just Transition. However, there is more acceptance of the need to protect the environment than the media narrative of angry turf-cutters, combined with a strong sense that communities need genuine support in this transition. As it goes with unanimous national projects, emotional attachment and cultural heritage is stronger than with some smaller or not-locally specific industrial sector. This feature makes it particularly interesting in the construction of collective identities and in terms of cultural resilience. At the centre of collective identity stands the collective imagined past, or the group’s mythical past, which refers to ‘common beliefs, their common tradition, the memory of their great ancestors, and the collective ideal of which they are incarnation’ (Misztal 2003, 125, 127). In the Midlands this is built on a combined attachment to being part of the national energy

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project, as well as a family-level pride of being able to heat your own home. These values are fundamentally rural Irish identity values, self-­ sufficiency, home. Therefore, the change was not limited only to livelihoods that can usually be managed through financial compensation. Equally, it hit the pride that people have had about the importance of their own work from the perspective of families, community, and the whole nation. Problem Specification In respect of governmental initiatives so far, some academics and environmentalists have accused the ecological promises of being mainly hot air: too little, too late (Renou-Wilson 2019). According to them, Bord na Móna only closes bogs that were exhausted and no longer profitable. Moreover, it seldom ‘re-wet’ used bogs, so the ravaged land continues to emit greenhouse gases. The social dimension of climate change—prevention schemes is also contested. One clear problem common in all environmental policy is burden sharing: Even if the just burden sharing is publicly announced goal, drastic change in conventional national project can make it very difficult task because of interlinked side-effects to peripheral job markets and local ways of life. Numbers of workers employed by Bord na Móna and tens of thousands of individuals doing private turf-cutting in 128 designated sites around the country are at stake (Bullock et al. 2012). Thus, the effects of an ambitious peat strategy are different at different scales. As has become clear, the bog is deeply rooted in people’s emotional and social landscapes. What happens when the fundamental element of that historical identity has to be abandoned? When these values and histories are being criticised as shameful, it can cause discomfort and defensiveness. Some key points of analysis emerge. There exists a tension between the emphasis on formal scientific knowledge and local participation. The science underpinning climate and environmental issues can be complex. Often, local people do not comprehend abstract modelling of these formal concepts used to explain causal relations in environmental issues. As we have mentioned already, the general public, for example, do not see any contradiction between conservation and what is perceived as small-scale low impact cutting for domestic use (Renou-Wilson et al. 2011). The concept of cultural path dependency gives other insights. There are deep cultural continuities embedded in (traditional) turbary rights;

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although the tools used changed from sleán to hopper, the attachment to tradition remains. It is presented by those who wish to continue cutting turf domestically in terms of rights; cultural rights, sovereignty and the right to use one’s own land as one sees fit, rights that are now being violated by the ‘bureaucrats’ of the European union and the Irish government. Cultural path dependency extends to identity and its capacity to change. How can communities heavily reliant on Bord na Móna take proposed new jobs and industry seriously? How can a community transform its collective identity and way of life? In former mining communities, for instance, people are not sandwiched only between the two periods of mining and post-mining, as Belle Dicks describes (2008). No matter how strict roles they possess in respect of local community, they are also sandwiched between time-specific professional, political, local, family, gender, ethnic, and other positions and routines. In situations of industrial transformation and economic change, how can communities be helped to adapt to these changes?

Adaptation Strategies Bogs are fascinating to all kinds of researchers, particularly natural scientists. The cutaway bogs, those that have had the peat extracted, have been of particular interest in recent years. There have been many experiments with these cutaway bogs to see what can grow there, what happens from an environmental perspective when they re-wetted, and how they can be used as recreation, leisure, and artistic sites. Bio-scientists have found new uses for bogs as they test their various ecological potentials. One aim has been to assess whether duckweed grown in the boglands or regulation of the heights of water in the bog-bonds can act as natural filter to clean the water. There have been many research and community projects on large and small scales to retain bogs as carbon sinks through appropriate rehabilitation. A large scale example would be the Living Bog, funded by EU LIFE and an exemplar local community conservation project might be Abbeyleix bog. Apart from physical ecological reuse and restructuring, adaptation includes social questions of fairness and even burden sharing. The state has committed to a just transition for Midlands industrial communities. The accelerated exit from peat that was prompted by Ireland’s Climate Action Plan in 2019 was responded to in the 2020 budget, announced in late 2019. Here, the government committed €6  million to a plan for Just

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Transition for the Midlands region to assist workers, communities, and businesses to adapt. Funding was also committed to bog restoration and housing upgrades to meet environmental standards. It was hoped that this housing retrofitting could provide work for reskilled Bord na Móna workers, neatly addressing two green objectives in one fell swoop. A variety of other programmes within a broader Just Transition Fund the state commitments amounts to a total investment of €320m between 2020 and 2025. Some ideas of recycling money from carbon taxes back into the projects of restructuring local economies have been introduced. Community response to some of the proposed solutions to the declining Midlands economy have been sceptical. For instance, the idea of reskilling workers to retrofit houses would require considerable reorientation of skills. Eamon Dooley, local Offaly politician and former Bord na Móna worker puts it, ‘These guys are machine operatives. They’re not craftsmen, carpenters, plumbers, electricians. If I was a Bord na Móna worker losing my job I wouldn’t hang my hat on trying to get a job retrofitting houses.’ On a more micro level, the state has attempted to address the lost income and land rights of those domestic turf cutters banned from cutting turf on protected bogs through The ‘Cessation of Turf Cutting Scheme’ included the offer of another turf plot in the area and various payments for compensating financial losses. The European union has also been sensitive for ‘just transition’ and local socio-economic concerns: ‘The commission support the range of measures the Government has taken to accommodate all affected turf-cutters including financial compensation and re-­ location measures’ (O’Riordan et al. 2015, 129). There has been adaptation in terms of governance and fiscal structures also. The budgetary allocation to the Midlands is a strong signal from government of commitment to help the region, but it is early days and communities are nervous of what the future will hold in the transition from brown to green energy. The organisational infrastructure and capacity to redevelop the region is still in its infancy. There is a Midlands Regional Transition Team overseeing the programme, working with many stakeholders like the Education and Training Board, Local Development Companies, Unions, Public Participation Networks. Surprisingly, the bogs have emerged as sites of recreation and pedagogy, in ways that would be unimaginable to anyone who grew up in these landscapes in the preceding decades. The initial lack of inspiration around what to do with these ‘used up’ bogs, both Bord na Mona owned and

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Fig. 5.6  Bog Track sculpture by Johan Sietzema, Lough Boora Sculpture Park (Caitriona Devery)

domestic, has been fully redressed by innovative and unique adaptations of sites. For instance, a unique example is Lough Boora Sculpture Park in County Offaly, a cutaway bog that Bord na Móna had no idea what to do with. Through consultation with local it was transformed into a wildlife sanctuary and later a sculpture park which reflects the bogs’ dual natural and industrial heritage. Previously mentioned, the EU funded Living Bog project includes many local bogs, for instance Clara Bog in Offaly which has a visitors’ centre and boardwalk, runs education and outreach projects for schoolchildren. Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park in County Kildare has a biodiversity boardwalk and offers school tours, birthday parties, international tourist tours. Bogs have emerged as unexpected sites of

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natural education, relaxation, wellbeing, and artistic exploration. Some local communities have come together to rewet small bogland areas, for instance Abbeyleix and Drummin. Overall, general awareness and advocacy for peatland protection has become a bigger public issue with organisations like the Community Wetlands Forum and the Irish Peatland Conservation Council working on bog and wetland conservation and restoration. Both do education, engagement, and community support work. Recreational and pedagogical functions help people relate to the bog in a new way; as a natural environment to be enjoyed for its beauty and biodiversity rather than something to exploit. Lough Boora has helped local communities to re-see the bog as a space of natural wonder. Bogs were often imagined in the past ecologically barren or as ‘wasteland’. The attachment people felt for the bog was a kind of appreciation for it as a material resource, and an attachment to turf cutting as an embedded everyday practice. As communities transition away from turf-cutting and industrial use winds down, locals are learning to appreciate the landscape they previously saw as functional and industrial. These parks and community bogs help people to see the rich natural heritage of the landscape. Education initiatives can help people understand the environmental significance of the bog, its capacity to hold carbon sink, and also its archaeological value as a link to the past. For instance, a Mesolithic settlement was found in Boora recently. As a community resource, parks like Lough Boora and Lullymore, and bogs with boardwalks like Abbeyleix and Clara are assumed to have huge health and wellbeing benefits. Boora, in addition, has giant sculptures which offer another type of engagement with the landscape, reflecting on the industrial heritage of the area. Finally, while the bog was always deeply fixed within Irish cultural and artistic imagination, some recent art has grappled with the changing nature of the bog in Irish society. Artist Rachael Champion worked with a community group in Pollagh, County Offaly and created a site specific sculpture called Carbon Flux which speaks to the bog’s natural and industrial past, its uniqueness as carbon sink and as habitat, and the changing nature of its relationship to the communities around it. Deirdre O’Mahony, a socially engaged artist, made TURF Transitional Understandings of Rural Futures aimed to create a cultural space to examine the regulation of peat bog in Ireland and the decision-making process on the designation of habitats, the loss of property rights and the future economic value of raised bogs as carbon sinks.

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Fig. 5.7  Carbonx Flux sculptures by Rachael Champion (Rachael Champion)

Both community recreation functions and artistic interpretation play a role in rethinking the future of the bog. Of course, they don’t solve the problem of rural economic decline and job loss, but they go some way towards helping people transition to a different relationship with this landscape. These spaces are important in helping communities negotiate a new relationship with the environment. Cultural interventions can facilitate the departure from a previous national project and its associated models of natural exploitation. Local culture as common knowledge was previously criticised of being easy to exploit for manipulative purposes. Yet, it should be stressed here that connecting authentically to local culture may sometimes be important ‘buffer’ filtering and modifying overly abstract concepts into local use. An identity-based political reaction can be either empowering or stigmatising for a community. Both empowering and stigmatising reaction can be good or bad for the climate change actions in question. When combined with

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recreational activities, pedagogical experimentation can bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and local perceptions. Both recreational use and artistic reinvention can help with creating new community identities—that are built on positive values, not shame. The connection is deep but it somehow has to move that attachment towards custodianship rather than being based on extraction and exploitation. It seems important that local, peripheral communities find something inside themselves that is different from the general models of success. In the Nordic sparsely populated areas development strategies emphasise ‘different strengths’ (Gloersen 2009), different from those of urban, densely populated areas: Space, silence, clean air sought by special consumer groups (modern humanists). In Ireland as well, people are interested in seeing birds, cycle or walk around the parklands and to admire the amazing flora and fauna (RTE) outside more urban environment. The big question is, can communities survive economically in these environments? Will recreation and tourism solutions create enough jobs?

Conclusion Ireland’s bogs are contested landscapes; because of the many things they offer. They keep the secrets of human and natural history, are habitats for diverse flora and fauna, provide energy to power industry and heat homes, are generators of economic activity for rural communities, and have an incredible ability to store carbon. The realisation of this latter fact, and the need to protect these terrains has had tumultuous impacts on rural Irish communities, particularly in the Midlands. The state has made various attempts to lessen domestic and industrial impact on the bog. Moreover, the national importance of bogs can be seen in various continuums and trajectories in the field of culture. One big challenge is that many of these functions are somewhat in contrast with the others meaning that fulfilling one task will not necessarily make it easier to solve another one. So, very specific vision of how to deal with interlinked, multi-layered matrix of problems is needed. What, then, could be culture’s potential to ease change in resource-doctrine that is so deeply integrated with all aspects of social life and with different spatial scales? One clear field of development is to use culture and cultural planning to ensure, first, that everyone has a coherent snapshot of the

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situation, and, second, endeavour to take comprehensible and small enough steps to balance the situation (e.g. Stevenson 2005). People are still committed to national endeavour though this time the resource doctrine is based on very different views of consumption and environment. What emerges currently is that communities depending on the peat industry, directly and indirectly, perceive themselves as ‘sacrifices to the greater public good’ meaning that the modern national project feels socially imbalanced. A common denominator of cultural potential could be that it may facilitate acceptance of burden by enhancing new climate-­identity for peripheries (as distinct from the green urban norm) and adoption of new directional concepts (previously expressed as elitist vocabulary). Culture and especially artistic vision can broaden the view and create a new mode of expression (new vocabulary) and balance between scientific knowledge and local perceptions to enhance resilient local nature-relation. Using the elements of localities in cultural production may increase cultural capacity and competence of change. Competence of change depends also on larger societal trends, an overall cultural-ideological landscape: How united society is behind common goals? How easy and effortless it is to be different or is society built on parameters that marginalise minorities, rural people etc.? The economic and industrial realities will not be changed by culture alone. But cultural and artistic vision are hugely important in adaptation. Creative re-uses and adaptations of peat bog sites can play a role in helping communities adjust their expectations of the landscape. They can act as inclusive, positive influence on communities who relied on peat. Culture may not heat homes, but it may help people see the bog in a different light which may change their mindset and behaviour. One that includes its natural environmental capacities, its biodiversity, as well as its deep symbolic resonance in the Irish psyche. This is part of working towards a future where the bog is protected but where the history of its industrial use and the communities involved are respected. Acknowledgement  This work was supported by the Academy of Finland (286733) and by the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under the SFI Strategic Partnership Programme, grant number SFI /15/SPP/E3125.

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References Barry, T. A. (1969). Origins and Distribution of Peat-Types in the Bogs of Ireland. Irish Forestry. Beesley. (2019). Climate Change and the End of Irish Peta Bogs. Retrieved April 24, 2020, from https://www.ft.com/content/7b46d01a-ada6-11e9-8030-53 0adfa879c2. Bullock, C. H., Collier, M. J., & Convery, F. (2012). Peatlands, Their Economic Value and Priorities for Their Future Management: The Example of Ireland. Land Use Policy, 29, 921–928. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. landusepol.2012.01. Daly, M.  E. (1992). Industrial Development and Irish National Identity, 1922–1939. Syracuse University Press. Dicks, B. (2008). Performing the Hidden Injuries of Class in Coal-Mining Heritage. Sociology, 42, 436–457. The European Green Deal. (2020). Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_17. Farinella, D., Kingsolver, A., Vaccaro, I., & Beltran, O. (2018). Comparing Rural Livelihood Transitions in the Catalan and Sardinian Regions of Europe and the Appalachian Region of the United States. In A. Kingsolver & S. Balasundaram (Eds.), Global Mountain Regions: A Dialogue Toward the Future (pp. 285–294). Indiana University Press. Gloersen, E. (2009) Strong, specific and promising: towards a vision for northern sparsely populated areas in 2020. Nordregio, Stockholm. Häyrynen, S., & Hämeenaho, P. (2020). Green Clashes: Cultural Dynamics of Scales in Sustainability Transitions in European Peripheries. Palgrave Communications. Heaney, S. 1969. Door into the Dark. Faber & Faber. Joosten, Hans, Tapio-Biström, Marja-Liisa & Tol, Susanna (eds.) (2012). Peatlands – guidance for climate change mitigation through conservation, rehabilitation and sustainable use. 100 P. FAO and Wetlands International. Kelly, E. P. (2013). An Archaeological Interpretation of Irish Iron Age Bog Bodies. In The Archaeology of Violence. Interdisciplinary Approaches (pp.  232–240). Albany, NY: SUNY Press. McNally, G. (2008). 50 Years of Research Endeavour on the Future Use of Irish Industrial Cutaways. In C.  Farrell & F.  Feehan (Eds.), After Wise Use  – The Future of Peatlands. Jyvaskyla: International Peat Society. Misztal, B. (2003). Durkheim on Collective Memory. Journal of Classical Sociology, 3, 123–143.

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O’Riordan, M., Mahon, M., & McDonagh, J. (2015). Power, Discourse and Participation in Nature Conflicts: The Case of Turf Cutters in the Governance of Ireland’s Raised Bogs designations. Journal off Environmental Policy and Planning, 17(1), 127–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.20114.914895. Renou-Wilson, F., Bolger, T., Bullock, C., Convery, F., Curry, J., Ward, S., et al. (2011). Bogland: Sustainable management of Peatlands in Ireland  – Final Report. ERTDI Project, Strive 75. Wexford, Ireland: Environmental Protection Agency, Johnstown Castle, Co. Retrieved from http://erc.epa.ie/safer/ iso19115/displayISO19115.jsp?isoID=236. Rodriguez-Pose, A. (2018). The Revenge of the Places That Don’t Matter (and What To Do About It). Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 11, 189–209. RTE (2019). RTE: Analysis: Midland Peat Workers Wait on Budget Promises. Retrieved from https://www.rte.ie/news/budget-2020/2019/1009/11082006. Stevenson, D. (2005). Cultural Planning in Australia: Text and Contexts. Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, 35(1), 36–48. Tuohy, A., Bazilian, M., Doherty, R., Gallachóir, B. Ó., & O’Malley, M. (2009). Burning Peat in Ireland: An Electricity Market Dispatch Perspective. Energy Policy, 37(8), 3035–3042. Wilson, F.-R. (2019, October 23). Opening Statement for the Public Session of the Joint Committee on Climate Action on the Subject of ‘Peatlands Restoration & Rehabilitation’.

CHAPTER 6

Climate Resilience on the Island of Pellworm: Balancing Multiple Layers in the Context of Climate Change Daniela Siedschlag and Kira Gee

Abstract  The island of Pellworm is located in the German Wadden Sea off the North Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein. As a low-lying island it has always been threatened by storm surges; climate change is now exacerbating this innate biophysical vulnerability. This case study investigates the climate resilience of the island and its inhabitants in times of climate change. Historically, the threat of the sea has always been present, leading islanders to develop a range of coping strategies that have built up the community’s resilience to natural hazards. In our description of climate resilience, we differentiate between internal (relating to the island and its

D. Siedschlag (*) Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH - UFZ, Leipzig, Germany e-mail: [email protected] K. Gee Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Zentrum für Material- und Küstenforschung HZG, Geesthacht, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_6

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residents) and external factors (relating to the wider regional and national administrative and policy environment). We show that internal climate resilience is related to social, cultural, and economic factors, as well as qualities that relate to individuals and the island community. Sense of place and pride of place both play an important role in this context. Over recent years, a shift can be observed in that external factors contributing to climate resilience have gained greater importance. Keywords  Comparison • Culture • Climate change • Adaptation • Socio-cultural resilience and • Island community • North Sea

The Case Study Island of Pellworm on the German North Sea Coast The case study island of Pellworm is located on the German North Sea coast of North Frisia (see Fig. 6.1). With a size of about 37 km2, it is home to 1510 people, of which 1169 have their primary residence on the island (Municipality of Pellworm 2020). Agriculture and tourism are the most important economic sectors. Agriculture has shaped the island’s landscape for centuries; currently about 20,000 tourists visit the island every year (Tourist Information 2020). As for the German North Sea coast as a whole, protection from storm surges has always been crucial in the lives of the island’s population. Climate change, along with projected sea level rise and increased storminess, makes this an even more important consideration today. Pellworm is an interesting case study due to its smallness, as to some degree, risk, vulnerability, and climate resilience can be observed there ‘under a magnifying glass’ (Ratter and Sandner 1996, p. 64).

Climate Impacts on Pellworm Exposure and Biophysical Vulnerability Over Time Pellworm is a marsh island that lacks any naturally elevated geest areas or sand dunes. As a result, the entire island has been declared as an area potentially at significant risk (MELUR-SH 2013). Storm surges and changing sea levels have influenced the natural, socio-economic, and

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Fig. 6.1  Location of Pellworm on the German North Frisian coast. (D. Siedschlag, based on GfK Geo-Marketing)

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cultural processes on the island for centuries. Climate change is now exacerbating the risks this poses to the island along with its vulnerability. Pellworm is the southernmost North Frisian island in Germany. It is located 8 km off the Nordstrand peninsula (see Fig. 6.1) to which it was connected until the great storm surge of 1634, also known as the second Grote Mandrenke or ‘drowner of men’. In the decades after this event,1 the island was gradually secured by the resident population in a process of gradual poldering (Fohrbeck 1999). A preliminary dyke around the island was completed in 1687; more polders were added subsequently. The current size and shape of Pellworm dates back to the 1930s when the youngest polder (Bupheverkoog) was added in the north-east. Today the island consists of 13 polders, twelve of which surround the ‘Great Polder’ (Großer Koog) at the centre (see Kunz and Panten 1997; Quedens 2008; see Fig. 6.2). During the autumn and winter months, storm surges are common on the German North Sea coast, and the island is affected by several each year. The sea dyke has been instrumental in securing the island as an existential basis; it continues to fulfil this role today. While water does transgress the dyke during heavy storm surges, large-scale inundation has not occurred on Pellworm since 1825 (Fohrbeck 1999; Quedens 2008). As a result the island has not experienced any significant destruction on account of a natural event for a long time. Severe storm surges occurred on the German North Sea coast (as well as the Dutch and Danish Wadden Sea coasts) in 1962 and 1976. Despite ‘some damage’ on Pellworm (Muuß and Petersen 1978, p. 36) in 19622 the sea dykes protecting the mainland and islands generally held. Nevertheless, the decision was taken to strengthen and raise all sea dykes on the German North Sea coast, with demonstrable success: During the next severe storm surge in 1976, when water levels were considerably

1  The 1634 storm surge did much to physically alter the entire North Frisian coast. It also came with a huge cost in terms of lost lives and property. According to today’s estimates, at least 9000 people died in this storm surge, most of them (6000) on the marsh island of Strand which broke apart during the event. On Strand, about 80% of the houses were destroyed and two thirds of the residential and agricultural land was lost (Kunz and Panten 1997; Jakubowski-Tiessen 1999; Fischer 2000). 2  The storm surge of 1962 caused dykes to be breached in many places along the North Sea coast, including in the city of Hamburg. During this traumatic event 340 people lost their lives, 315 of them in Hamburg itself. (Lüth 1971; Steensen 1995).

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Fig. 6.2  Map of the island of Pellworm. (D. Siedschlag, based on ‘kartenwerk’ Kartographie Manufaktur und Verlag)

higher than in 1962, much less damage was caused and there were no fatalities. The above makes clear that vulnerability and resilience in the Wadden Sea region are inextricably linked to coastal protection. The organisation of coastal protection, in particular dyke-building, changed repeatedly over the last centuries, not least because of the high costs associated with it. Initially, in the sixteenth century and subsequently, so-called ‘spade land rights’ (Spadelandrecht) meant that it was the land owners in the outermost polders who were responsible for maintaining ‘their’ stretches of the sea dyke. In the nineteenth century, responsibilities were shared more broadly when the state ruled that land owners in more landward polders also had to contribute. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the state’s influence grew with specially instituted ‘marsh building authorities’ that took on responsibility for dyke construction and maintenance (Kunz and Panten 1997). The latest comprehensive shift towards state control took place in 1953 as a consequence of a severe storm surge in the

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Netherlands. At this point, coastal protection became a federal responsibility in Germany anchored as such in federal legislation, meaning that federal funding is made available for strengthening and maintaining the country’s sea dykes (Steensen 1995; Kunz and Panten 1997; Sterr et al. 2008). Administratively, North Frisia’s sea dykes are the responsibility of the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, which has delegated this responsibility to the Ministry of Energy, Agriculture, the Environment, Nature and Digitalization (MELUR-SH). All other regional dykes, including the second line of older sea dykes which still exists further inland, are within the responsibility of local ‘dyke and sluice associations’ (MELUR-SH 2013). Unlike along other stretches of the North Sea coast, Pellworm’s sea dyke, surrounding the island with a total of 25 km at a height of 8 m, is more than a preventative measure against storm surges. Here, the dyke is also a defence against mean high water levels which would otherwise flood parts of the island. 93% of the island is below mean sea level (Muuß and Petersen 1978),3 leading to high biophysical vulnerability of Pellworm. As a result, houses and buildings were constructed on artificial dwelling mounds, which characterise the pattern of settlement on the island, together with the so-called ‘middle’ dykes (see Fig. 6.3).

Fig. 6.3  Section drawing of the island of Pellworm (not to scale). (D. Siedschlag) 3  There are four reasons why the island is below mean sea level. One is that the boggy ground has gradually lost large parts of its original water content. Another is that the sea dyke prevents regular flooding of the island and with this, deposition of sediment. Dyke construction required artificial drainage, and agriculture associated with heavy machinery caused further compaction of the soil and subsidence.

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With the exception of one dwelling mound, which has several residential houses, each dwelling mound on the island only has one farmstead. Long rows of houses have been built on the middle dykes, leading to a form of settlement resembling a one-sided linear village (see Fig.  6.3). Over the centuries, material has been removed from the middle dykes, meaning they would no longer be able to protect the polders from flooding. In several of the settled polders, water levels would reach at least one metre within an hour if the sea dyke were breached (Grimm et al. 2012; MELUR-SH 2013). Nevertheless, from 1900 onwards, buildings were also constructed at ground level, a tendency that has continued due to the high level of trust people place in the sea dyke (Muuß and Petersen 1978; Fohrbeck 1999). The low middle dykes, plus the fact that the island could not be easily evacuated in the event of a disaster, have led the state to consider additional forms of protection. The current state programme of Schleswig-­ Holstein, the ‘general strategy for coastal protection’ (MELUR-SH 2013), foresees various measures that will become necessary in the coming decades, including strengthening individual sections of the sea dyke and constructing an additional protective dwelling mound (Batscheider 2019a). There are indications that storm surges will become more frequent and severe in the coming century. Over the last 100 years, the mean high sea level on the German North Sea coast has risen by 2 cm, in line with the global mean. It is expected that sea levels in the German Bight will continue to rise, although the final sea level cannot be predicted with any certainty based on current measurements. Long-term changes in the North Sea, however, are unlikely to differ significantly from global changes. Nevertheless, there are indications that storm surge levels in the North Sea could be three to eleven centimetres higher by the end of the century (Woth et al. 2006; Albrecht et al. 2011; Weisse and Meinke 2011; Wahl et al. 2013; Weisse and Meinke 2017). Pellworm residents are aware of this and regard it both as a challenge for coastal protection and a threat to the island (Siedschlag 2018). During a public event on the island, the renowned climate researcher J. Schellnhuber stated that he saw the island facing inundation within 100 or 200 years (Kurzke 2019). Climate Resilience on Pellworm It is obvious that Pellworm has always been exposed to natural hazards, and potential risk levels associated with life on the island have always been

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high.4 In the past, people chose to live with these risks in return for agricultural gains. The highly fertile marshland produced double or even triple the yields that could be achieved on the mainland, offsetting the known risks that storm surges posed to lives and property. High agricultural productivity turned the costs of land reclamation and dyke maintenance into worthwhile and affordable investments. The island and wider region prospered, and a wealthy agrarian society developed along the entire North Sea coast based on the practice of reclaiming fertile land (e.g. Fischer 1997; Knottnerus 1997). Living with the sea has always been a balancing act, but benefits have generally outweighed the costs. Today, these benefits include monetary benefits derived from agriculture and tourism, but also many intangible benefits related to island life. Awareness of their high biophysical vulnerability has led the people on Pellworm to develop protective and adaptive measures, of which dyke-­ building and dwelling mounds are physical examples. These and other tangible measures have enhanced the island’s resilience to natural hazards. Yet resilience, understood here as the capacity of people to knowingly live in, and cope with a high risk environment, is ultimately derived from a particular mindset that characterises the community and drives the development of adaptive measures. On Pellworm, a key element of the ‘island mindset’ are memories of past storm surges and their impacts which are deeply engrained in the collective memory of island society. Memories and knowledge surrounding dyke building and land reclamation, and appreciation of the successes that resulted from creating and maintaining polders and dykes have been passed down the generations (Jakubowski-Tiessen 1999; Rieken 2005; Siedschlag 2018), contributing to a sense that island society has always been able to cope with disaster and setbacks—an important dimension of cultural resilience. Dealing with the aftermath of storm surges has also required the island to be open to social change, reflected for instance in changing ownership structures (see spade land rights) (Jakubowski-­ Tiessen 1999; Fischer 2000). For example, after the Burchardi flood, also known as the second Grote Mandrenke or ‘drowner of men’ in 1634, Dutch dyke builders arrived on Pellworm to support the re-building of the dyke and settled there. The capacity to use these changes to strengthen the

4  For a more detailed description see e.g. von Chamisso (1986); Fohrbeck (1999); Quedens (2008); Siedschlag (2018).

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community is another dimension that can contribute to the creation of socio-cultural resilience. Even today, residents live on the island in the full knowledge that storm surges could occur at any time. They describe their island as a ‘bathtub’ that could easily fill with water during a severe storm surge or if the sea dyke were breached (Siedschlag 2018). On top of damage caused by flooding, drainage is a growing problem on the island even under regular circumstances as the traditional sluices no longer suffice and reliance on pumps is increasing. Coastal protection therefore matters greatly—but not only in terms of people’s lives. In the following we show that coastal protection matters in terms of tangible (including the cultural landscape, property) and intangible assets (including social cohesion, networks, or future economic opportunities). Figure  6.4 summarises the factors that specifically contribute to climate resilience. We consider internal factors, i.e. those related to the island and its residents and community, as well as external factors, i.e. those related to regional administrative structures and policy, and explain how these contribute to socio-cultural resilience and thus to climate resilience. We show that a finely balanced interplay of these factors is necessary to enable islanders to continue living on Pellworm, and also point to recent shifts in the relative importance of these factors and the implications this might have.

Fig. 6.4  Climate Resilience in the context of the Island of Pellworm. (D. Siedschlag, K. Gee)

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Internal Factors Contributing to Climate Resilience on Pellworm Given the precariousness of life in areas vulnerable to natural hazards, one might be justified in asking what drives people to remain in such areas. Research has shown that this is not merely a question of economic necessity or lack of alternative opportunity. People all over the world actively choose life in exposed regions or places. Hazard research and post-disaster studies highlight the importance of place attachment, in other words the ‘deep emotional attachment to the local environment’ (Tapsell and Tunstall 2008, p.  149; see also Erikson, [1976] 2006; Hewitt 1997; Rogan et  al. 2005; Connell 2012; Morrice 2013; Hill 2014). Writing about a bush fire on the East coast of Australia, Helen M. Cox & Colin A. Holmes (2000) for example note: ‘One of the key questions concerned why people who have a choice about where to be, choose to remain in a place where they have experienced great trauma, and which remains just as vulnerable on a hot summer’s day as it was at the time of that terrible fire. The answer appears to lie in the relationship that these people had and have with their chosen environment, both in terms of their built and natural environments—the bushland, the flora and fauna, and the ocean’ (Cox and Holmes 2000, p. 63). On the island of Pellworm, place attachment is strongly linked to the relationship people have with their chosen environment, in particular the tradition of land reclamation and coastal defence. The efforts of past generations to secure a basis for life are held in high esteem, and there is distinct pride in the community’s resilience in the face of a threatening sea. Not only has the community dealt with disasters; over time it has steadily improved its capacity to respond. Considering emotional place attachment on Pellworm in more detail, it becomes clear that it is linked to the cultural landscape that was created by the islanders and the social and physical processes and practices involved in this, both in the past and in the present. Based on qualitative interviews (n = 14) and a household survey (n = 339) conducted on the island by the author, and drawing on other hazard and place-related research, we differentiate between social, economic, cultural, and natural dimensions of place attachment (Siedschlag 2018).

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The Social Dimension of Place Attachment Place attachment is strongly linked to familiarity with a place and the sense of belonging within a community. This encompasses private spaces (homes) as a centre of a person’s private and family life, as well as relations to other people that live in the vicinity and wider community. On Pellworm, much of the significance people ascribe to their ‘home’ is related to their immediate family, friends, neighbours and other community structures and networks on the island. Previous generations and long-standing roots on the island are a strong contributing factor. Just under 57% of the survey participants indicated that they or their partners were the third generation living on Pellworm, with a quarter stating they were at least the fifth generation of islanders (Siedschlag 2018). Private homes on Pellworm are filled with memories and intangibles, such as family heirlooms and photographs, all of which create a sense of continuity with the past. Memories passed down the generations are important, as natural disasters and their consequences not only alter or destroy physical places that have grown over generations, but also the ‘homes of ancestors’ (Tuan, [1977] 2011, p. 157; Siedschlag 2018). The Economic Dimension of Place Attachment Being able to secure an income is a prerequisite for most people to live on Pellworm. Out of the survey participants of working age, 97% (stated that they work on the island. Out of those that were born on the island but had moved away for some time, about three quarters (72%) stated they returned for professional reasons, the majority to take over their parents’ business. Out of those surveyed who were not born on the island, still 31% say they moved to the island for job reasons (Siedschlag 2018). Apart from job opportunities and a secure income, investing money, labour, and time in the island also expresses appreciation of Pellworm as a home. The decision to invest in a property or business on the island cannot be taken lightly, and the connections to Pellworm need to be strong enough to withstand a disaster such as a storm surge. The economic dimension of place attachment to Pellworm is also evident in the high proportion of home ownership on the island: 84% of those surveyed state that the house they live in is either fully or partially owned by them or their family; 32% own agricultural land on the island; and 17% own other residential property but do not live in it (Siedschlag 2018).

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The Cultural Dimension of Place Attachment Place attachment on Pellworm can also be traced back to the various cultural aspects that define island life. This describes the creative, artistic, and inspirational practices and traditions that have often developed over generations. On Pellworm, people particularly appreciate the local dialect that is still widely spoken, the dispersed settlement structure, the festivals and traditions on the island, such as Biikebrennen5 and Ringreiten,6 as well as the religious places and symbols (the old church and lighthouse) (Siedschlag 2018). The Natural Environmental Dimension of Place Attachment While it is clear that social, economic, and cultural aspects are important in creating place attachment, all of these are closely connected to the natural environment and landscape of the island. Landscape is experienced sensually through an active process of connecting with it (Mitzscherlich 2014; Döring and Ratter 2015), which might be ‘walking in the Wadden Sea’, or ‘cycling around the island every morning in the summer’ (Siedschlag 2018, p. 124). Pellworm is defined by the characteristic natural and cultural landscape of the island, including the North Sea and its flora and fauna, as well as the fact that Pellworm is an island and the resulting peace and quiet this affords. The North Sea also has strong symbolic character; people often state they could not live without the constantly changing moods of the sea (Siedschlag 2018). The role of the North Sea in  local place attachment is also confirmed in other research. ‘Physical landscape elements, subjective impressions, and past and present experiences (…) [create] multi-faceted images and often emotional layers of meaning associated with the coast and sea’ (Ratter and Gee 2012, p. 132). The island landscape of Pellworm also acts as a source of strength for the inhabitants, sometimes specifically enabling them to cope with everyday life (Siedschlag 2018). Post-disaster studies show that characteristic landscape elements and perceived aesthetic images of the landscape do help people to come to terms with the consequences of an event. 5  Biikebrennen is an annual bonfire night celebration held on 21 February along the North Frisian coast and on the island. 6  “Ring riding” is a horse-riding competition where riders must use a long lance to spear small rings that are suspended above them on a band. The rider capturing most rings becomes “ring riding king”.

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Landscapes can have calming effects and contribute to healing; their impact on physical and mental well-being and the therapeutic and spiritual impact of the sea have been shown in various contexts (see Wolfenstein 1957; Erikson, [1976] 2006; Cox and Holmes 2000; Tapsell and Tunstall 2008). Implications for Internal Climate Resilience The Pellworm case study shows that place attachment, socio-cultural resilience (understood as the ability of people to cope with and adapt to shocks and stresses), and climate resilience are closely related. On Pellworm, the natural and cultural landscape, and in particular the sea, are regarded as a source of strength; islanders choose their place of residence not least because life on Pellworm contributes to their sense of well-being (Siedschlag 2018). As far as the islanders are concerned, a certain mental strength or mindset is required to be able to cope with storm surges (‘I’ve never been afraid of storm surges’). This is derived from a combination of place attachment, traded knowledge, and past personal experience (‘We’ve experienced this before’). Interviewees describe these aspects vividly. A 48-year-old man born on the island states: As an islander you don’t regard this [storm surges, D.S.] as a danger as such. Well, you do know that there is danger, obviously. But when I’m here, I don’t feel like I’m constantly surrounded by water. I’m on the island, I’m on land. Someone who takes the ferry from the mainland has a very different sense of the island compared to those of us who live here and have grown up here. So, I’m not afraid when there is a storm surge or something. I do know many, also from when I was a child, teachers or so, who were really frightened and nearly panicked during a storm surge. I’ve never felt like that (…). I don’t consider us to be constantly and immediately threatened. And besides: God, if something bad really were to happen, it probably won’t be life-threatening right away. (B_ IX: 88–103)

The following quotes from a 47-year-old women who moved to the island more than 20  years ago and a 34-year-old woman born on the island underline this further: The one thing, also for Pellworm people who have lived here for generations, is this: ‘We’ve seen this before.’ This habituation. It doesn’t unsettle you as quickly as someone who is from, I don’t know, Munich or Cologne. They might notice the

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wind picking up, and when it reaches Beaufort 4 they go: ‘Oh oh oh, tsk tsk tsk.’ At which point we might simply say: ‘Where do you see wind? I can’t see any yet.’ The level at which where we would feel unsettled is a totally different one. One of us might be freaked by a city, when you see all the cars and traffic and perhaps a roundabout and think ‘I might find my way into this but never out again.’ Or something. I think it’s habit, but also love for the place. (B_IV: 152–161) Maybe this is a mentality you need here on Pellworm. Or in North Frisia generally. Or maybe generally in such areas. So I’m simply thinking: ‘Well, whatever happens happens.’ I’m also easy in other respects. I’m always happy to let things happen, and I take things as they come. (…). Especially things you can’t change. Well, that’s the way it is. Things just carry on. (B_VIII: 169–174)

The interviews also highlight the belief that storm surges are not an immediate threat to the lives of islanders, as long as they ‘think a bit’ in such situations and know how to protect themselves. A 76-year-old man born on Pellworm summarises this as follows: Well, that’s the one thing, you need to think a bit when something happens, what do you do then. This is why we have the evacuation plan, isn’t it?! (B_ III: 134–135)

The interviews also make clear that islanders accept the measures that would need to be taken to mitigate the consequences of a storm surge, including reconstruction. An 81-year-old woman who moved to the island four years ago explains: Current technology could simply pump the water from the island, that’s doable, and the dyke would be repaired. And then we dry out people’s things. And then life goes on. (B_XI: 216–218)

The sense of pride islanders have in their personal resilience is evident in the interviews. Climate resilience, however, is not merely an individual matter. On Pellworm, cognitive and psychological constructs of mitigation and adaptation are firmly situated within a group context. Every islander knows that they cannot protect themselves against a storm surge or sea level rise by themselves, and that dealing with threats, disasters and their consequences is a collective task. Examples for re-affirming this collective context include the twice-yearly inspections of the sea dyke or festive speeches during bonfire night (Fänger 2019; Schröter 2019; De

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Pellwormer 2019; Nieszery 2019a). The island community is thus both a community of choice (i.e. actively choosing to live on the island) and of necessity (i.e. having to rely on each other in times of need). In the more recent past, and especially today, it has become clear that climate resilience can no longer be achieved by the islanders themselves. External factors have come to fore that influence the climate resilience of the islanders to a significant degree.

External Factors Contributing to Climate Resilience on Pellworm As already stated in previous sections, the sea dyke, which is the most important adaptive and protective measure for the island, is in external hands as it is within the responsibility of the state of Schleswig-Holstein. Pellworm would be unable to finance this protective measure or its maintenance, in particular if the dyke requires strengthening to cope with rising sea levels. The construction of an additional dwelling mound on the island, which would be large enough for 500 people to seek refuge there in the event of a disaster (Batscheider 2019a), is also within the responsibility of the State Agency for Coastal Defence, National Park and Marine Conservation (LKN-SH). Islanders have different views as to what should be done to protect the island in the future. When asked whether the existing coastal protection measures are sufficient to protect Pellworm from storm surges in the coming decades, only 28% fully or mostly agreed; 73% thought that the planned strengthening and raising of the sea dyke was a suitable coastal protection measure; 27% considered protecting the foreshore and outer sands of the island a suitable measure (Siedschlag 2018). Islanders have mixed feelings about the role of the state in determining their future. The assistance of the state is clearly accepted and welcomed, although the form this should take and what makes for effective coastal protection is a matter of debate. Islanders also recognise that in times of sea level rise, they will increasingly need to rely on some form of physical coastal defence simply for ordinary life to continue. The contentious issue is the loss of agency for the islanders, meaning there is less and less they can do by themselves to make the island climate resilient. While it is still possible for islanders and the community to take some action in the case of a storm surge (e.g. conform to an evacuation plan), the fate of the

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island as such is firmly in the hands of the state—and of German society in terms of the tax payers required to finance coastal defence. Awareness of this has grown on the island, and there is a sense of urgency, with some islanders believing the state could do more. Recently, this has resulted in a situation where three farming families on Pellworm, supported by the NGO Greenpeace, sued the German government. Their case was that government should be forced to implement effective measures against climate change, specifically to reach the 2020 climate targets, as their island home was under acute threat. The case was heard by the administrative court in Berlin and was dismissed in October 2019, based on the contention that the government’s action programme ‘Climate Protection 2020’ represented a political declaration of intent but was not legally binding. In its written statement, the court argued that the 2020 climate targets have since been subsumed by more recent climate protection legislation. The case received widespread attention within Germany. Although the plaintiffs were disappointed by the decision, they decided not to appeal; the fact that they were heard at all was already counted as a success. Their next step will be to critically observe implementation of climate protection legislation in Germany (Backsen 2019). The case of the Pellworm families against the federal government also caused much upheaval on the island and led to controversial discussions. Elected municipal representatives saw good reasons for bringing the case, as climate change is a real and present threat to the island (Nieszery 2019b). Public events and discussions have since taken place (Batscheider 2019b). A proposal was put forward that the municipality should also take the government to court, but this did not find a political majority. There is agreement, however, that the island must make its plight visible nationally, and that protection of people’s home is essential and must not be neglected (Stock 2019).

Conclusion For Pellworm, it is evident that its biophysical vulnerability is high on account of the island’s location in the North Sea and the threat of climate change (expressed as sea level rise together with an increased risk of severe storm surges). Coastal protection measures have reduced this vulnerability to some degree, although the island is below sea level and requires coastal protection even without the prospect of climate change. The sensitivity of the island’s population to storm surge events is also high, with all

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inhabitants equally exposed to a potential storm surge—everyone would experience the impact of a storm surge, independent of their social status or other social variables that might reduce the sensitivity of certain groups in other hazard contexts. The Pellworm case study illustrates that climate resilience is the result of a complex interplay between various factors (see Fig. 6.4). Ultimately, climate resilience is a dynamic balance between internal factors (social, economic, cultural, and natural environmental dimensions), understood in our case as island-inherent, relating to either individuals or the island community, and also under the direct influence of the islanders themselves, and external factors, understood as those factors that are not directly influenced or controlled by the islanders. Internal factors lead to socio-cultural resilience on the island, and come together with external factors such as the wider administrative, social, and political environment to achieve climate resilience. External factors comprise the financial capacity of the state of Schlewsig-Holstein (to fund coastal protection measures), technical expertise (e.g. in dyke construction), and political support for the island (regarding its protection as a priority). Obviously, interrelationships between the two categories are close, and they cannot be considered as entirely separate (see Fig. 6.4). The case study has shown that the internal socio-cultural climate resilience of the people living on Pellworm is high. We identify various contributing factors, of which a shared value base appears to be a key element. Empirical work has identified a high degree of place attachment on the island, which is driven by the daily experience of life in an exposed environment and the knowledge that one will cope in case a storm surge hits. Storm surges are understood as being part of life on the island, and are not considered as life-threatening per se as long as action can be taken to protect oneself (such as drawing up and following an evacuation plan). Living within a landscape that is partly man-made and partly natural contributes to personal well-being and satisfaction, and there is an element of pride in having created Pellworm as a physical as well as a cultural place. Shared cultural values also relate to the sense of community on the island and the knowledge that cohesion and collaboration are essential in dealing with the aftermath of a storm surge. The shared value base on the island also encompasses reference to past experiences—knowing that past generations have also coped with storm surges—as well as the belief in one’s own mental strength, which relates back to past personal experiences of storm surges and feeling safe in the knowledge of what to do in an event. Shared

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beliefs also extend to the fact that climate change is a threat to the island in the medium term, that investment in coastal defence will be required to preserve the island and the islander’s home. The socio-cultural domain is important in that it enables the islanders to cope with the impacts of a storm surge both individually and as a group. At the same time, island society cannot take the full range of measures that would be necessary to prevent or mitigate the effects of an event: On its own, the island cannot afford to build or maintain a modern sea dyke; on their own the islanders cannot finance reconstruction measures after an event. Socio-cultural resilience, while important, therefore only takes the island so far if it is not supported by economic resilience—which, in turn, is dependent on internal as well as external factors (such as the ability to make a living on the island for the former or state programmes for emergency relief for the latter). The growing significance of external factors points to a new compromise or balance that will need to be reached. On the one hand, state responsibility implies greater capacity and, ultimately, better protection from storm surges and sea level rise (the island itself could never afford a state-of-the-art sea dyke); on the other, it requires the island to delegate responsibility, accepting that it is in the hands of regional and national actors with only limited capacity to influence developments. This leads to a loss of agency at the local level, as the island now plays an even smaller part in reaching its own climate resilience. While the Pellworm case study illustrates that different factors contribute to climate resilience, it highlights the importance of socio-cultural resilience which is often overshadowed in the public discourse by the more tangible category of economic resilience. We conclude that full climate resilience at any one point can only be achieved if the various internal and external factors work in synergy and support each other: The state must be willing to invest in coastal defence, and island society must be willing to play their part. Reducing just one of these factors, or inefficiency in its delivery, leads to an overall decrease in climate resilience. The need for synergistic effects obviously also apply to the administrative, legal, and policy context in that this acts as a driver of measures and investments, e.g. the capacity of the state to invest in coastal defence. By the same token, even with the best of intentions and best possible implementation, each element on its own is unlikely to achieve climate resilience: National climate policy may lead the state to invest in sea dykes, but this alone would not lead to climate resilience if the population on the island could not

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cope with life in an exposed environment, did not have past experiences of storm surges, and did not have a strong emotional attachment to their home. Given these factors, it is fair to ask what islanders can do to enhance climate resilience in the face of their dependency on external factors for the long-term survival of the island. One of the most important investments is to build a body of knowledge related to the island as a place and the specific hazards they will need to deal with. This essentially means continuing the tradition of developing and communicating place-specific knowledge within the island community, making sure this knowledge is used to develop targeted coping and adaptation strategies for those aspects that are in the hands of the community, such as the evacuation strategy mentioned above. Given that the island’s dependence on external financial, political, and administrative support is set to grow, willingness to engage in dialogue is essential. Networks need to be created that are informed of the needs and constraints experienced at the various levels, in order to ensure that a balance can be struck between the needs of the island and wider societal needs. Broader societal awareness of the island’s threats and vulnerabilities is also important, which might take some targeted lobbying and also storytelling, using various media or tools such as the publicity generated by the court case described above. Ultimately, however, the future of the island will depend on the continued ability of its inhabitants to make a life there for themselves, which is a question of climate resilience but also of governmental decisions and climate policy.

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CHAPTER 7

Culture and Climate Resilience: A Comparative Analysis of Experiences and Practices in Four Case Studies Across Europe Mimi Urbanc and Grit Martinez

Abstract  The case studies presented in Chaps. 3, 4, 5, and 6 show the biophysical diversity of Europe’s coasts and islands, mountains, and plains in urban and peripheral settings. However, they differ in terms of their culture, institutional organization, political structures, and economies, and hence they portray how cultures—which are understood as values, knowledge, beliefs, and in turn behaviours from individual or institutional standpoints—shape local and regional responses to climate change. The

M. Urbanc (*) Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), Ljubljana, Slovenia e-mail: [email protected] G. Martinez Ecologic Institute, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_7

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historical, social, political, and economic structures are part of the process through which those cultures were formed in specific ecosystems and through which climate change adaptation and eventually building of resilience occurred. We took a practical approach, examining the values, knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours that are especially relevant for social groups’ attitudes toward climate change perceptions and how and why the people in the areas studied have adapted to changing environmental conditions and built resilience or failed to do so. Keywords  Cross-national • Comparison • Culture • Climate Change • Adaptation • Resilience

Brief Overview of the Case Studies Similarities Across Cases Climate change, a global environmental threat, has been locally manifested in various ways (Measham et al. 2011). Nonetheless, it has taken a similar path in both coastal cases studied, and it is apparent in the increase in high-impact extreme weather events (storm surges) and sea-level rises. The economies in all the case studies have already been suffering or are likely to do so in the future, but with some variations. Businesses in shore areas are affected by damage resulting from climate extremes, and inland case studies show a decrease in options for making a living. Tourism holds a prominent position; however, in the Irish case this is seen not yet as a functioning sector, but more as a promising alternative to peat extraction. A comparison suggests that travel and leisure activities are expected to be most vulnerable to climate change because of their direct dependence on weather conditions. Tourism based on a particular climate element (e.g., sunshine or snow), location (e.g., low-lying areas), or a physical characteristic (e.g., built-up infrastructure) is particularly at risk. Related challenges exceed the economic consequences; they extend to social issues and have altered people’s lives in myriad ways (or are likely to do so, as the case of the Irish Midlands suggests). Emerging realities still need to be understood in their full complexity and addressed accordingly.

COUNTRY GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES altitude, landform unit

GEOGRAPHICAL LEVEL Local, regional, national TYPE OF ENVIRONMENT Forest, grassland, wetlands, shoreline/ coast, marine, freshwater (lakes, rivers, watershed, springs), barrens, soil and arable land, built-up (urban/ suburban), mosaic landscape MAIN SECTOR(S) Economic, ecologic and life protection aspects (e.g., tourism/ leisure, agropastoral husbandry, forestry, fishery, water—and energy supply, conservation, nature protection, the security of population and infrastructure) VALUES AND BENEFITS Group identity (identity, memory, sense of place), intangible cultural heritage (myths, legends, rituals) and cultural assets (historical layers of the built environment), recreation and sacredness/ spirituality, nature appreciation (e.g., scenery, aesthetics, wildlife), conservation

1 2

3

6

5

4

Indicator

No.

Table 7.1  Biophysical characteristics

Group identity based on coastal protection, tradition, cultural heritage, local dialect; creative, artistic, and inspirational practices (festivals); places and symbols

Agriculture, tourism

Marsh, polder, sea dyke, shoreline, coast, urban-rural

Local

Germany 0–2 m; island

Pellworm

Group identity (dialectological distinctiveness, historical memory, skiing tourism); recreation; nature appreciation (scenery)

Agropastoral husbandry, forestry, tourism

Forest and grassland, mosaic landscapes, rural

Slovenia 695–1043 m, nearby hills up to 1642 m; hummocks, hills Local

Livek

Unique peatland ecosystem; a mix of linear, dispersed, and nucleated semiurban and rural settlements Energy, environment/ conservation; tourism is suggested as an alternative to peat extraction; livestock farming Ritualised family activities; group identity, attachment to rurality and nature; historical memory; values

Regional

Ireland Low-lying wetlands area; plain

Irish Midlands

No specific local traditions and cultural values; inhabitants seem not to feel like a homogenous community (historical reasons)

Beach, coast, cliffs, lake, landslides, built urban environment, partially man-modified coastline: dykes, groynes, seawalls Tourism, services, maritime industry (and transport) and related cargo and oil distribution/storage activities

Local (municipal)

Bulgaria 0–80 m (city), 0–350 m (municipality); coast

Varna

10

9

Mid 1980s

Livek

Environmental degradation: water scarcity; social challenges: declines in livelihood options, identity issues

Tourism/ leisure, water supply

Increase in high Changed impact extreme precipitation events (storm surges) patterns, a shorter period of snow cover, increased temperatures

Beginning of 2000

Pellworm

Houses on artificial dwelling mounds and low-lying areas, tourism, and agriculture CHALLENGES Environmental risks: environmental degradation (deforestation, storm surges, high water quality decline, water scarcity, land impact events, cover change, air pollution); environmental flooding, drainage risks (extreme weather events); biodiversity problem; social (loss, conservation risks); intensification, challenges: security urbanization; social challenges (security issues issues, poverty, inequitable access to resources, social class differences, declines in livelihood options, loss of traditions, inequity, identity issues)

WHEN WERE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE FIRST DETECTED/ BESPOKEN? WHAT FORM DID CLIMATE CHANGE TAKE? E.g., changed precipitation patterns, a shorter period of snow cover, less precipitation, increased temperatures, storm surges, flooding and erosion, sea-level changes WHO OR WHAT WOULD BE OR WAS MOST HARD HIT? WHICH SECTOR? (see indicator no5)

7

8

Indicator

No.

Table 7.2  Climate change and natural hazards related information

Environmental degradation: land cover change; social challenges: decline in livelihood options, loss of traditions; identity issues

Energy production (by measures for climate change prevention)

Extraction contributes to green gas emissions; extraction decrease the capability of bogs to sequester carbon

The first measure 1999

Irish Midlands

Environmental risks: storm surges, erosion, flash floods, landslides; social challenges: security issues, poverty, social class differences, declines in livelihood options, inequity

Protection aspects, safety, tourism/ leisure

Increase in storminess and floods, heavier rainfalls, temperature rise

Mid 1990s

Varna

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Indicator

WHAT IS THE CULTURAL ASPECT IN SOCIETY: culture (values people attribute to their places; the level of risks they associate with the changes in their environment and the beliefs they hold about control and responsibility to adapt or to mitigate to its effects; common narratives and memories, trust; accumulated social memory related to hazards); POLITICS: administrative practices, functioning public services, centralised vs. decentralised, centre-periphery relations; ECONOMY: production practices, entrepreneurial capacity, ownership

No.

11

SOCIETY: Potential risk levels is high and it is compensated by agricultural gains (affluent agrarian community); POLITICS: Trustworthy welfare system ranging from social security to coastal protection and risk management (dyke building); coastal protection is a federal responsibility; ECONOMY: Strong economy (tourism, agriculture), a high proportion of home ownership.

Pellworm

Table 7.3  Culture and resilience, and their representations

SOCIETY: Moderate risk perception, except within some NGOs; POLITICS: Centralisation applied through state subsystems (e. g. education, social security), policies of balanced regional development employed for decades; ECONOMY: Limited entrepreneurial capacity, job options in the vicinity, small scale ownership and businesses

Livek SOCIETY: Peat burning emissions are considered insignificant, peat is misapprehended as being renewable, inability to see one’s role in a larger picture; POLITICS: Translation of EU environmental obligations (closure of commercial extraction, nature rehabilitation) to the national level; ECONOMY: A planned ban on commercial extraction threatens economic and employment viability

Irish Midlands

(continued)

SOCIETY: Moderate risk perception as other issues (poverty, social and economic insecurity) are considered more urgent; no direct experiences of severe natural hazards; POLITICS: Fragile democracy; gov’t corruption, organized crime, and insecurity became acceptable social norms; ECONOMY: Tourism is the strongest sector (mainly private and limitedly public); state ownership of maritime transport; small entrepreneurial capacity

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Indicator

RELATION BETWEEN SOCIETY, POLITICS AND ECONOMY: e.g. (mis)trust, (lack of) cooperation, mutual learning, (dis)respect, lack of knowledge about other two groups, ignorance of other two groups

HOW DO CULTURAL ASPECTS IMPACT RESILIENCE? Awareness, openness, providing information, capacity building, potential, inner strength, participatory approach; the ability to cope with changes

LESSONS LEARNED What the society has learned from hazard events/climate change and used their accumulated social memory to better contend with future catastrophes? To what extent did this happen?

No.

12

13

14

Table 7.3  (continued)

Coastal protection matters in terms of tangible (including cultural landscape, property) and intangible assets (including social cohesion, networks, or future economic opportunities)

Memories and knowledge of land reclamation and appreciation of the successes of it have passed on from one generation to the next, shaping a sense of competency and ability to cope with disaster and setbacks—an essential dimension of cultural resilience

The assistance of the state is welcomed; awareness of loss of agency (the islanders have less and less power to enhance climate resilience) has grown and there is a sense of urgency; some islanders believe the state could do more

Pellworm Attempts were made to engage the public which doubts both soundness of scientific knowledge and adequacy of EU-Directives (including compensations); peripheralisation, uneven regional development

Irish Midlands

Varna

People have limited access to information on risk mitigation, modest capacities to cope with outcomes, missing skills for a wise disaster response; limited awareness of insufficient (outdated) protection measures The society is noticeably The society conveys a City’s beauties, rich history flexible (gained through strong ability to cope with and culture are a source of history with all border changes; it is proud of its pride; community lacks changes), inner strength is contribution to national coherence due to lack of pronounced, the ability was energy independence; the democratic and trustful weak, no intervention was transition envisioned does participation in the policy implemented to address the not seem to be just and fair process; the network of challenge directly for people employed in the beach businesses peat industry established for practical/ operational purposes The society learned it was up Identity and contribution Low risk perception despite to them to grasp the to county building are recent flash floods with situation; that self-initiative more important than the over a dozen victims and is crucial; they learned it was economy; difficult to make destroyed infrastructure; necessary to diversify options a transition if people society’s realisation of low and stakes. consider their activity institutional capacity to environmentally friendly cope with disaster prevention and recovery

Trust and cooperation exist within the community; people are convinced that the municipality does not perform its duty and believe more could be done

Livek

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16

WHAT ASPECT OF GOVERNANCE IS MENTIONED? Governance modes, policy objectives, policies and policy instruments, process, formal or informal rights, property/ ownership, institutions, actors, challenges, or conflicts

15

Pellworm

Financial capacity of the state of Schleswig-Holstein (to fund protection measures), technical expertise (e.g., in dyke construction), and political support for the island (regarding its protection as a priority PROBLEMS OF GOVERNANCE The state of Difficulties in society: (a) structural Schleswig-Holstein (scale misfit, land tenure, legislative/ has the financial institutional conflict); (b) functional (an capacity to fund adaptation of rules, distribution of coastal protection benefits, inequality, increased measures), technical environmental values); resource decline expertise (e.g., dyke or abandonment, (in)efficiency of construction), and management/ institutions endangered political support for sustainability, land use effects; the island (regarding governance model change (privatisation its protection as a or nationalisation, the balance between priority) the economy and conservation of resources; other (ethical issues, perceptions)

Indicator

No.

Table 7.4  Governance issues

Resource decline: (in)efficiency of management; lack of governance

Policies of balanced regional development, fragmented property, lack of direct measured to tackle climate change; the lack of municipal measures

Livek

Functional problems (an adaptation of rules); governance model change (balancing economy and conservation); other (perceptions and understanding) Intra-nation coreperiphery type uneven regional development

Policy objectives, implementation of EU environmental measures on the national level; a gap between economy and environmental protection, top-down approaches

Irish Midlands

Malpractices (gov’t corruption, organized crime) influence attitudes and behaviour and also become acceptable social norms; treatment of climate change gets less attention than economic, social, and political insecurity by the gov’t and general population

Fragile and weak democracy allowing corruption, ineffective law enforcement and anarchy in development, failure to comply with Integrated Coastal Zone Management strategies

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INTERVENTIONS Top-down versus bottom-up, sectorial versus complex/holistic, public versus private

MAIN INTERVENTIONS

WHAT ACTORS WERE INVOLVED Individual/private actor; Local community/local gov’t (settlement, city, municipality, county); higher-level gov’t (national, international, global); organization that is not part of the formal gov’t structure (NGOs) HOW DID INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICAL DECISION MAKERS CONTRIBUTE TO THE ADAPTATION PROCESSES By concrete investments; soft measures (raising awareness, training, education); did not (ignorance)

17

18

19

20

Indicator

No.

State emergency and coastal protection programs mandatory; the general coastal protection strategy in place (MELUR-SH, 2013)

Bottom-up: the islanders have developed protective and adaptive measures; they carry out evacuation plans; top-down: federal funding available for strengthening and maintaining the dyke Sea dyke (25 km long, 8 m high) surrounds the island is more than a preventative measure against storm surges and flooding Individual/private actor/ households (many); local community, and local and the federal gov’t of the state of Schleswig-Holstein

Pellworm

Table 7.5  Intervention and related issues

Did not (ignorance) directly, but measures related to the idea of balanced regional development tackled the wider region

Individual/ private actors (few); local—and agrarian community, municipality; national gov’t; several culture clubs

A set of mostly small scale interventions primarily targeting at the local level

Mostly bottom-up, but small scale, few top-down on a broader scale; sectorial interventions within the context of balanced regional development; private and public sector

Livek

By concrete investments; soft measures (raising awareness, training, education)

Bord na Mona and the Electricity Supply Board are very important semi-state organizations

National schemes based on EU environmental policies: Cessation of Turf Cutting Scheme (1999, 2002); Sustainability 2030 strategy

Mostly top-down; sectorial public (environmental mainly) interventions; public sector interventions affect private big business and individual employees

Irish Midlands

Limited application of soft measures (raising awareness); limited private investments

The disaster protection system developed by the gov’t; natural coast replaced by engineering structures serving private interests Local and higher-level gov’t; limited participation of NGOs and science

Highly centralised approach to climate change adaptation and risk management; hazard protection is primarily a state matter implemented by relevant ministries and agencies

Varna

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The crucial role of state and public administration is clear in the case studies. It is evident that communities, irrespective of their size and their political and economic strength, need a robust legislative decision-making framework, set goals, and a clear implementation strategy. Commitment at the local level to combating climate change seems to mainly depend on a broader, possibly national, level. Two features making the transition more demanding were identified. The first is the noticeable contribution of a single industry to the local economy (as in the case study of Varna), and the second is the sector most affected being filled with intangible assets and aspects (as in the case study of Ireland). Considering the lessons learned, it is possible to identify several factors facilitating and hindering the transition process. Among them, the following should be mentioned: the length of the tradition of living in a demanding environment; the extent of awareness and risk perception locally and nationally; the level of public investment; the degree of community coherence; the level of constructive cooperation, mutual respect, and trust between the community, politics, and the economy; and the degree of coordination across various scales. A low level or complete absence of these elements can hamper transition efforts.

Differences Across Cases The case studies differ according to their biophysical characteristics. Two cases are sea-related and the other two are continental, yet they are entirely different. One is a mountainous area with a prevailing mosaic landscapes of forest and grassland, and the other has bog landscapes. Even though the German and Bulgarian cases are both shaped by the sea, they nevertheless show considerably different forms of morphological and functional adaptations to the sea. The geographical level also merits attention. The Irish case study encompasses a vast area of the Irish Midlands and thus brings a regional perspective into the analysis. The other three case studies pertain to the local level, but the micro perspective varies according to the size of the territory and the population; the city of Varna stands out considerably. The island of Pellworm, Livek and the surrounding villages, and the Irish Midlands all have a solid base in the primary sector. However, they vary in their direct use of natural resources. Moreover, primary industry is complemented by tourism in the case of Slovenia and Germany, and by conservation and nature protection in the Irish Midlands. Conversely,

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Varna is maritime industry and services oriented focusing on cargo and transport on one hand and on tourism on the other. Taking into account climate change and related impacts, we revealed the growing complexity of addressing these issues as well as the diversified strategies adopted intentionally or performed spontaneously. In the Irish case study, the use of the resource is identified as a human activity leading to the climate crisis and long-term ecological unsustainability, and hence discontinuation of the extraction practices is foreseen, whereas climate-­ induced phenomena have already affected the other three case studies. The global warming implications differ from region to region depending on the type of environment, biophysical characteristics, and elevation. Livek stands out because it first experienced disturbances in weather conditions already in the mid-1980s and has been undergoing a lengthy adaptation process since then, whereas the Irish Midlands have been in an intensive transition process for the last decade. The challenges that they face vary accordingly. Unlike both inland case studies, the coastal case studies involve threats to the safety of people and property. Conversely, the former case studies are in danger of losing identity anchors and thus weakening their inner robustness Understanding identity is therefore crucial for grasping how societies respond and adapt to climate-related risks (Adger et al. 2013). The risk perception differs substantially across selected areas. The level of risk perceived by the Pellworm islanders is high. People have been aware of risks for centuries, which is reflected in protection measures that have become part of the islanders’ everyday practices. In Varna the reverse is true, and basic social necessities are attracting a high level of public notice. Climate change awareness and related environmentally responsible actions and practices are entrenched at different levels in cultural and social norms across the case studies. The risk perception is low in both inland case studies, but this can be attributed to different reasons. In Livek, snowless winters, which abruptly discontinued the skiing tradition a few decades ago, did not lead to long-term and critical issues. The more recent climate-­ induced shortages of potable water have not posed a direct risk to actual livelihood practices and the environment owing to well-functioning communal service. The situation in the Irish Midlands merits special attention. It is not that the resource is threatened by climate change, but the use of peat contributes to it. Nonetheless, people are having difficulty accepting the necessity of discontinuing an almost century-old tradition. Unlike emissions from large industry, intensive farming, and heavy traffic, they

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consider peat-burning emissions insignificant. Moreover, peat is misunderstood as being renewable; peat harvesting is a euphemism for its extraction. The feeling of being a victim of EU and national environmental policies dominates in the society. Given the interactions between society, politics, and the economy and the outcomes of them, the case studies are quite diverse. The relations among this triad of agents are complex ones. The most coherent relationship seems to be on Pellworm, marked by a long-lasting, dynamic coexistence of people and a challenging environment. Supported by a firm democratic tradition, national commitment, and substantial investments, the islanders are both willing and able to deal with climate change and its consequences. Conversely, the inhabitants of Varna lack both the motivation and capacity to grasp the challenge; ill-functioning administration and inadequate policy are reflected in their attitude. The response to climate change to pay attention to cross-scale and multilevel processes (Fidelman et al. 2013). The EU policies are relevant for two case studies, the Irish and Slovenian ones, although through different perspectives. The Irish case is imbued with a lack of understanding of the translation of EU policy to the national level. The issue has been laden with emotions because discontinuation of peat extraction is tied to national energy empowerment. Conversely, the Slovenian case study conveys the benefits of both EU accession and membership, leading to cross-border cooperation and a reliable income support scheme for agriculture through direct payments. It is widely acknowledged that awareness of climate change and perceived risk are stronger in countries that are wealthier (e.g., Knight 2016). Generally, the selected case studies are in line with these principles, except the Irish one. The reason might be that decisions made at the EU and national levels have had practical tangible consequences for people. It is not only an economic issue; there are cultural aspects (identity, pride, etc.) involved that are more important than economic ones (compensation payments, for instance).

Conclusion The communities presented in the four case studies are at different stages of responding to the challenges of the changing climate and hence are at different levels on their way to adapting and strengthening their resiliency. In policy and practice, there is growing concern for supporting and

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empowering the capacities of communities and regions under today’s changing climatic conditions to better cope and to transition to a resilient status. Nevertheless, there is little systematic understanding of why some approaches work at the local level or not, and what makes some communities resilient and others less so. The cases address this shortcoming from a cultural and socio-ecological perspective. They demonstrate how not only values and knowledge but also historical circumstances and path dependencies affect decision making and acceptance in local community settings across various regions in northern, southern, and eastern Europe. It is widely acknowledged that a one-size-fits-all way does not exist; in other words, measures need to be context specific (Moser and Ekstrom 2010).

Reference Adger, W., Barnett, J., Brown, K., Marshall, N. & O’Brien, K. (2013). Cultural dimensions of climate change impacts and adaptation. Nature Climate Change 3, 112–117. Fidelman, P. I. J., Leitch, A. M., & Nelson, D. N. (2013). Unpacking multilevel adaptation to climate change in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Global Environmental Change, 23(4), 800–812. Knight, K.  W. (2016). Public Awareness and Perception of Climate Change: A Quantitative Cross-National Study. Environmental Sociology, 2(1), 101–113. Measham, T. G., Preston, B. L., Smith, T. F., Brooke, C., Gorddard, R., Withycombe, G., & Morrison, C. (2011). Adapting to climate change through local municipal planning: barriers and challenges. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change volume 16, 889–909. Moser, S. C., Ekstrom, J. A. (2010). A framework to diagnose barriers to climate change adaptation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(51), 22026–22031.

Correction to: Livek: A Mountainous Border Area’s Transformation from a Ski Paradise to a Resilient Community Mimi Urbanc and Mateja Šmid Hribar

Correction to: Chapter 4: G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­58403-­0_4 Owing to an oversight on authors’ affilitation of this chapter were initially published with errors. The name of the institution that author is affilitated to is Research Centre and (not Center).

The updated version of this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­58403-­0_4 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0_8

C1



Epilogue Grit Martinez

Despite the overwhelming opportunities for case studies from worldwide regions, we chose to focus on Europe. Because of its moderate climate, its manifold urban-industrialized regions, its typically highly skilled educated population, its successes in science and technology and advanced climate change policies, Europe is typically thought to be well equipped coping with the effects of a changing climate. However, as the cases from Ireland, Germany, Slovenia, and Bulgaria illustrate there is a growing need for understanding the effects values and knowledge but also history and contexts have on communal resiliency and for decision makers and planners to pay attention to the ‘cultural’ details and the complexity of local conditions to enable successful and durable implementations of climate change policies, programmes, and measures. Cognitive anthropologists (Holland and Quinn 1987) have argued for long that an important part of culture is tacit knowledge, values and understanding being taken for granted that they never get questioned unless they are challenged. Climate change is

G. Martinez (*) Ecologic Institute, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0

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such a challenge and policy makers at all levels need to be aware of the power which culture has in influencing communities’ development paths on the way to resiliency or not.

References Holland, D., & Quinn, N. (1987). Culture and Cognition. In N.  Quinn & D.  Holland (Eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought (pp.  3–42). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Index1

A Adaptation, 2, 8–9, 23, 25, 29–31, 34, 35, 38–40, 54, 55, 58–61, 87–93, 110, 115, 127, 128 Adaptive capacity, 18, 40, 56, 58–61 Ad hoc management style, 39 Agrarian community, 55–58, 60 Agriculture, 29, 47, 48, 52–54, 57, 59, 60, 64, 65, 73, 74, 85, 98, 102, 102n3, 104, 129 The Alps, 48 Andrews, Todd, 81 B Beach concession, 28 Beaches, 16, 18–20, 22–24, 28, 32, 33, 35–37, 40 Biodiversity, 25, 29, 32, 70, 78, 84, 89, 90, 93

Biophysical vulnerability, 98–104, 112 Black Sea, 3, 16, 17, 21n9, 23, 27–29, 27n19, 29n25, 33, 34 Bogs (raised), 70, 72, 76, 78, 90 Border, 3, 38, 46–65 Bord Na Móna, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81–83, 85–89 Bottom-up approach, 60, 63 Bulgaria, 3, 16–18, 20, 20n5, 21n9, 24–30, 24n11, 28n23, 29n25, 33, 35, 39–41, 131 C Carbon sink, 80, 82, 87, 90 Centralisation of power, 35 Cessation of Turf Cutting Scheme, 78, 88 Chalcolithic Necropolis, 16 Champion, Rachel, 90, 91 Cliffs, 16

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Martinez (ed.), Culture and Climate Resilience, Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58403-0

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INDEX

Climate change, 1–3, 6, 7, 9–11, 16–41, 46, 48–50, 53, 54, 64, 70–93, 98–115, 120, 122, 127–129, 131 Climate change actions (climate action, climate change prevention), 80, 82, 83, 86, 91 Climate change adaptation, 7, 8, 18, 26–27, 29–30, 38, 39, 46 Climate crisis, 48, 82, 128 Climate resilience, 1–3, 6–11, 18, 38, 40, 41, 98–115, 121–130 Coastal erosion, 19, 21, 21n8, 21n9, 35 Coastal management, 18, 26, 39–41 Coastal municipality, 16, 34 Coastal protection, 32, 33, 35–37, 40, 101–103, 105, 111–113 Cognitive processes, 6 Communities, 2, 3, 6–11, 18, 23, 24, 37, 39, 41, 46–65, 73, 78–88, 90–93, 104–107, 111, 113, 115, 127, 129, 130, 132 Community resilience, 60 Compensation (compensatory mechanism), 78, 83, 86, 88 Conservation, 37, 40, 76, 80, 84–87, 90, 127 Cultural codes, 8–9 Cultural consciousness, 6 Cultural differences, 9–11 Cultural risk perceptions, 18 Culture, 1–3, 6–11, 16, 19–21, 23–24, 48–50, 60, 65, 70–93, 121–132 D Damages, 19, 20, 33, 35, 37, 76, 100, 101, 105, 120 Decision-making process, 18, 56, 90

Demographic crisis, 24 Demographic trend, 51 Depopulation, 48, 53, 57 Disaster risk reduction (DRR), 18, 26–27, 35–41 E Early warning systems (EWS), 33, 34, 41 Electricity Supply Board (ESB), 78, 81, 82 Energy, 10, 18, 29, 70–75, 78–81, 84, 85, 88, 92, 129 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 79, 84 EU-directives, 27, 78, 84 External climate resilience, 111–112 Extraction (extractive industries), 9, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 82, 84, 92, 120, 128, 129 F Flash floods, 17, 22, 34 Flooding, 19, 20, 22, 23, 34, 78, 102n3, 103, 105 G Geopolitical location, 47 German North Sea coast, 98, 100, 100n2, 102–104 Germany, 2, 3, 100, 102, 112, 127, 131 Global warming, 48, 75, 128 Government, 24, 35, 36, 78–80, 83–85, 87, 88, 112 Government corruption, 24 Greenhouse gas, 75, 78, 80, 86 Green winter, 50

 INDEX 

H Habitat, 70, 76, 80, 84, 90, 92 Hard measures, 32, 34, 40 Heaney, Seamus, 80 Hegemony of normality, 7 Highly urbanised coastal city, 16 I Identity, 7, 9, 10, 47, 51, 60, 65, 70–74, 79, 81, 83, 85–87, 92, 128, 129 Illegal construction, 21 Internal climate resilience, 109–111 Internal cohesion, 58, 65 Ireland, 3, 70–93, 127, 131 (Irish) Midlands, 3, 70, 73, 79, 120, 127, 128 J Just transition, 8, 82, 85, 87–88

135

Livek, 3, 46–65, 127, 128 Local community, 23, 46, 55–58, 60, 65, 80–84, 87, 90, 130 M Mild winter, 53 Mitigation measure, 54 N Narratives, 6, 7, 9, 85 National project, 79–81, 85, 86, 91, 93 Natural hazards, 9, 17–22, 38, 48, 103, 104, 106, 122 (Natural) heritage, 70, 75, 90 Non-governmental organisation (NGO), 22, 25, 26, 39, 56, 65 North Sea, 100n2, 102–104, 108, 112

K Kobarid, 46, 48, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 64 Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 6

O Off-farm employment, 54 O’Mahony, Deirdre, 90 Organised crime, 24, 39 Ownership, 36, 48, 57, 58, 73, 104, 107

L Lack of administrative capacity, 39 Lack of community cohesion, 39 Lack of financial support, 25, 35 Lack of social and economic security, 22 Landscape, 8, 10, 37, 60, 65, 70–74, 76, 80, 86, 88, 90–93, 98, 105, 106, 108, 109, 113, 127 Landslides, 17, 19–21, 21n8, 21n9, 23, 28–29, 29n25, 32, 33, 40 Legislative framework, 18, 26–27, 39

P Paris Agreement, 80 Peat extraction/peat industry/peat harvesting, 70, 72–76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 93, 120, 129 Peatland, 70–80, 84, 90 Pellworm, 3, 98–115, 127–129 Peripherality, 50 Place attachment, 65, 106–109, 113 Political and economical changes, 9, 16, 25, 39, 55, 56, 65, 87 Political lobbying, 36, 40

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Polycentric regional development, 54, 59 Poverty, 22, 24, 25, 39 Precipitation, 1, 20, 47–50 Q Qualitative interviews, 106 R Regional policy, 56, 58 Rehabilitation, 36, 78, 81, 84, 87 Resilience, 8–10, 16–41, 46, 53, 58, 85, 101, 104, 106, 110, 114, 123–124 Resource doctrine, 9, 10, 78–87, 92, 93 Risk management plans, 8 Rural, 11, 54, 70, 72, 78, 82, 85, 86, 91–93 S Sea dyke construction, 103 maintenance, 101, 102 Sea level, 19, 98, 102, 102n3, 103, 110–112, 114, 120 Severe storms, 19, 35, 100, 101, 105, 112 Skiing, 47, 50, 52–54, 128 Ski jump device, 52 Ski lift, 52 Slovenia, 3, 46, 50–52, 54–60, 65, 127, 131 Snow cover, 1, 48–50, 53 The Soča Valley, 59, 60

Social justice, 25, 39, 58, 60 Social vulnerability, 2, 22 Society in transition, 16–41 Socio-cultural resilience, 23, 105, 109, 113, 114 Soft measures, 32, 37, 40 Stakeholders, 2, 18, 21, 22, 26, 37–39, 41, 55, 84, 88 State responsibilities, 114 Storm surges, 8, 17, 19, 34, 98, 100–105, 100n1, 100n2, 107, 109–115, 120 Structural change, 52, 53 T Top-down approach, 60, 63 Tourism, 16, 24, 29, 37, 48, 50, 52–62, 64, 65, 81, 92, 98, 104, 120, 127, 128 Turf cutters/turf-cutting, 72, 78, 83, 85, 86, 88, 90 U Uniform Rescue System (URS), 31 UN Sustainable Development Goals, 27, 80 V Varadkar, Leo, 80 Varna, 3, 16–23, 21n8, 26, 27, 32, 35–40, 127–129 W Water supply, 21, 50