The Power of Perception Around NbS Measures
Negative public perceptions of green measures can act in concert to discourage their use, including their characterization as being weaker and surrounded by uncertainty, requiring more effort, and not being immediately beneficial. (Anderson 2022, p. 13)
Perception trumps experience, really? As part of DEN’s input into the development of the methodology and socio-economic indicators which look to measure effectiveness and efficiency of NbS, we are doing a brief literature review.
Anderson’s papers explore public acceptance of NbS in three specific locations from another EU Horizon Project (OPERANDUM) and compares NbS with more mainstream grey infrastructure as well as hybrid forms. The research is focused on a very local context and, therefore, surveys and discussion groups have small sample sizes. There are some insightful and relevant take-aways for our research in LAND4CLIMATE from two of his academic papers.
According to Anderson and colleagues, public acceptance of NBS is driven not only by having experienced a reduction in climate risk but also by what is valued by local citizens, how they perceive the risks in their local context and how the proposed NbS measure addresses them in their eyes. In addition, the perceptions of nature and place in the context of NbS along with an effective risk reduction are crucial for public acceptance of NbS measures. Simply assuming continued public acceptance of NbS would be unwise.
DEN, with colleagues from BOKU and UNIBO, will be exploring how to measure the co-benefits of NbS, more specifically the socio-economic benefits which go beyond the quantitative hydrometeroligcal risk reduction, so aspects like quality of life, social capital, access to green spaces, recreational and leisure activities, tourism, etc . Anderson and colleagues state that the primary objective both for NbS and for citizens is climate risk reduction, however, the co-benefits are still invaluable. Nonetheless, appreciation of the co-benefits alone cannot offset an inadequate risk reduction. Therefore, the burden of proof through evidence both for climate risk reduction and evaluating impacts of co-benefits is paramount to ensure that perceptions do not negatively influence public acceptance, successful implementation, mainstreaming and scalability of NbS measures.
This article was written by Sara Giorgi from LAND4CLIMATE consortium partner Den Institute.
References
Carl C. Anderson, Fabrice G. Renaud, Stuart Hanscomb and Alejandro Gonzalez-Ollauri (2022), Green, hybrid, or grey disaster risk reduction measures: What shapes public preferences for nature-based solutions?, Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 310, 114727, ISSN 03014797. Link.
Anderson CC, Renaud FG, Hanscomb S, Munro KE, Gonzalez-Ollauri A, Thomson CS, Pouta E, Soini K, Loupis M, Panga D and Stefanopoulou M (2021). Public Acceptance of Nature-Based Solutions for Natural Hazard Risk Reduction: Survey Findings From Three Study Sites in Europe. Front. Environ. Sci. 9:678938. Link.
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