Climate change awareness and strategies for communicating the risk of coastal flooding: A Canadian Maritime case example

Abstract

Rising sea levels, due to thermal expansion of the ocean, and higher frequency and intensity of coastal and inland storms threaten coastal communities worldwide. The implementation of pro-active, planned adaptation to reduce community vulnerability is strongly dependent upon people's perception of the threat posed to their communities at the local scale. Unfortunately, the scarcity of research into effective risk communication limits our understanding of how climate change evidence can most effectively raise risk awareness and inspire community adaptation.With a focus on a case study situated in the Tantramar area of South-East New Brunswick, Canada – an area subject to very large tidal forces from the Bay of Fundy – this study set out to assess public awareness about the link between climate change and elevated risk of regional dyke failure, measure how different multi-media visualizations influence public risk perception, and provide general recommendations for the development of flood risk communication strategies in coastal zones.The results from 14 focus groups (n = 157 participants) revealed that 81% of respondents felt that the problem of climate change was considerable or severe. However, when asked for their assessment of personal vulnerability to dyke failure and subsequent coastal flooding, only 35.6% considered themselves to be at considerable or severe personal risk. Gender, education, and age were found to significantly influence initial risk perception to varying degrees, and were also associated with changes in risk perception following the communication session. While geovisually-enhanced communication strategies, involving 3D flood animations and web-based GIS maps, were no more effective at raising risk awareness than a non-enhanced communication package, qualitative responses suggested that the geovisualizations had greater emotional impact (“shock”), and contributed disproportionately to an expressed desire to become politically and socially active around the issue. In conclusion, in addition to presenting evidence in a clear and compelling way, effective coastal flood risk communication requires a supportive framework capable of building trust and encouraging public dialogue. Recommendations towards creating this framework are provided.