Abstract
The relationship between climate change and water is an obvious and key issue within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This study aims to investigate the social representation created around this relationship in three different territorial contexts in order to evaluate the influence of the territory on the perception of the risk of climate change and its relationship with water. By means of a questionnaire completed by 1709 university students, the climatic literacy of the individual was evaluated in order to relate it to other dimensions on the relationship between climate change and water (information, training previous on climate change and pro-environmental attitudes) in their different dimensions in three different territorial contexts. Three hypotheses have been tested: (1) The denial of the CC is significantly associated with a representation that belittles the consequences of global warming and other extreme phenomena. (2) Territorial contexts with high average rainfall levels and low average annual temperatures tend to minimize the social representation of water risks associated with the CC. (3) There is significant interaction between the socio-cultural context and social representations on the causes, consequences and solutions to the problems of CC and water. The first two hypotheses have been rejected, while the third has been accepted. The research results show high climate literacy in the samples of selected university students. It is noted that students recognize a close relationship between the problem of water and the climate crisis. Likewise, they identify different types of causes, consequences, physical processes and solutions. Different climatological contexts do not show significant differences in the social representations that students show about climate change, while socio-educational variables such as available scientific information, or ideology orientation do show significant differences.
Highlights
Water, that simple molecule composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, is one of the essential elements of the planet
This gives an idea that denialism is a downward trend, and in this specific case, it can be concluded that the H#1 hypothesis is not accepted since denying the existence of climate change (CC) as a scientific phenomenon does not generate an underestimation of the consequences of global warming and other extreme phenomena, and should not affect the social representations that are being generated in relation to the social acceptance of CC, since a minimum part of the sample studied denies the existence of CC
One might ask why the students of the Territorial Context 3 think that CC will not reduce rainfall in their country when, they think that the problems of desertification in the Iberian Peninsula will worsen (O#1 )
Summary
That simple molecule composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, is one of the essential elements of the planet. Rivers depend to a large extent on their interactions with aquifers when they are connected, which is part of the natural response to the annual dry season and eventual droughts, which guarantees the health of the aquatic ecosystems of the Iberian Peninsula both of rivers and of wetlands and aquifers, and constitutes the basis of their state of conservation Both Portugal and Spain have a very high demand for water for different uses related to an unsustainable increase in intensive agriculture that has led to the modification and regulation with large dams of the vast majority of the rivers flowing in the Iberian Peninsula, in order to supply water to irrigators, which has led to the drying of much of the wetlands of both countries, in order to recover fertile land for agriculture
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