Prepared and flexible: Local adaptation strategies for avalanche risk

Abstract

Living with avalanche risk and road closures is part of everyday life for many communities in avalanche prone areas. This paper illustrates the interplay and dynamics of adaptive capacity and social capital through locally developed adaptation strategies to avalanche risk in two case areas in Northern Norway. Social capital includes empirically derived categories that are often connected to adaptation research: social networks and trust, place attachment, local and experiential knowledge, engaged individuals and perception of risk. These play a significant role in activating adaptive capacity, which results in adaptation strategies. The paper illustrates how adaptive capacity and resulting adaptation are outcomes of interacting, rather than individual, attributes of social capital. The adaptation strategies align in three broad categories: preparedness, flexible arrangements and influencing decision-makers. The paper shows that the communities demonstrate high adaptive capacity to deal with risk and that social capital plays a role in ensuring and shaping such capacity. However, there are significant costs associated with adaptation strategies aimed at sustaining the functions of everyday life and critical services. Such costs are relatively similar in the case areas and include limited mobility and participation in social activities, economic losses and the potential for failure to deliver health services, but they manifest in different degrees in each case study. The paper underlines the importance of the local context, which is critical for understanding both the impacts of natural hazards, such as avalanche and the socio-political contexts, which may either enable or hinder activation of adaptive capacity and adaptation strategies.

Keywords

• local communities
• avalanche risk
• northern norway
• arctic
• adaptive capacity
• social capital
• adaptation strategies
• climate change
• multiple stressors