Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

Denna kunskapsöversikt kartlägger befintlig forskning om försörjningsberedskap för livsmedel, dricksvatten, energi och transport i relation till klimatextremer. Studien undersöker hur klimatrelaterade extremhändelser påverkar dessa försörjningssystem, vilka vetenskapliga modeller och metoder som har utvecklats och använts i tidigare studier, samt vilka behov och utmaningar som kvarstår för framtida forskning. Studien genomförs som en översiktsstudie (scoping review) baserad på en granskning av 140 vetenskapliga artiklar. Resultaten visar att samtliga undersökta sektorer är sårbara för störningar i försörjningskedjor till följd av extrema naturhändelser. Studien redogör för och exemplifierar hur dessa störningar kan uppstå och vilka konsekvenser de kan få inom de olika sektorerna. Försörjningsberedskapen utmanas särskilt av beroendekedjor, som kan finnas inom en sektor eller sträcka sig över flera sektorer. Därför finns ett stort behov av fortsatt forskning om klimatextremers kaskadeffekter som kan påverka försörjningsberedskapen. Mot bakgrund av den pågående klimatförändringen och den ökad risken för sammanlänkade kriser behövs därutöver mer forskning utifrån ett polykrisperspektiv. Översiktsstudien visar även att det finns ett behov att testa och vidareutveckla vetenskapliga modeller som är särskilt anpassade till nordiska förhållanden för att producera mer relevant data och kunskap för regionen.

This literature review maps existing research on the security of supply for the food, drinking water, energy, and transport sectors in the context of climate extremes. The study examines how climate-related extreme weather impacts these supply systems, what scientific models and methods have been developed and applied in previous research, and what challenges remain for future studies. This study is conducted as a scoping review based on an analysis of 140 scientific articles. The results show that supply chains in all examined sectors are vulnerable to disruptions directly or indirectly caused by extreme weather events. The study describes how climate extremes trigger such disruptions and outlines their potential short and longterm consequences. Existing interdependencies within and across multiple sectors pose a substantial challenge to the security of supply. Therefore, further research is needed on the cascading effects of climate extremes and their implications for preparedness for supply chain disruptions. As the climate continues to change, the risk for compound events – where two or more crises occur simultaneously or sequentially – is increasing. Addressing this risk requires additional research from a polycrisis perspective. Furthermore, the review highlights the importance of testing and further developing scientific models specifically adapted to Nordic contexts to generate more relevant data and knowledge for this region.

This chapter analyses how Nordic health authorities and prime ministers used social media during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research questions address the extent to which they interacted with other actors on social media and what communication objectives they pursued in messages to the public. The data consists of health authorities’ Twitter communication and prime ministers’ Instagram posts. The results show that both the health authorities and prime ministers primarily interacted internally with domestic governmental and administrative actors. Still, they pursued different communication objectives. Whereas the health authorities mainly instructed the public on how to act, the prime ministers provided support and appealed for solidarity. National differences are observed. The Danish case stands out, as both the national health authority and the prime minister clearly focused on communicating support to the public.

The future risk for droughts and water shortages calls for substantial efforts by authorities to adapt at local levels. Understanding their perception of drought hazards, risk and vulnerability can help to identify drivers of and barriers to drought risk planning and management in achanging climate at the local level. This paper presents a novel interdisciplinary drought case study in Sweden that integrates soft data from a nationwide survey among more than 100 local practitioners and hard data based on hydrological measurements to provide a holistic assessment of the links between drought severity and the perceived levels of drought severity, impacts, preparedness, and management for two consecutive drought events. The paper highlights challenges for drought risk planning and management in a changing climate at the local level and elaborates on how improved understanding of local practitioners to plan for climate change adaptation can be achieved.

Introduction: Despite the importance of national-level public health agenciesin times of a pandemic, there is limited comparative understanding of their must-have and forgotten pandemic-related communication topics.

Methods: To fill this gap in the literature, this article presents an analysis of COVID related communication topics by national-level health agencies in Italy, Sweden, and the United States using the IDEA (Internalization, Distribution, Explanation,Action) model on crisis message framing. The public health agencies included in the study are the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità;ISS), the Public Health Agency of Sweden (Folkhälsomyndigheten), and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US.

Results: Based on these agencies’ Twitter posts (n = 856) in the first 3 monthsof the pandemic, the article reveals a greater attention paid to action oriented (e.g., disease prevention) and explanatory messages (e.g., disease trends) than to distribution (e.g., transmission) and internalizing messages (e.g., risk factors) inall three countries. The study also highlights dierences in terms of referrals to other communication channels and communication topics, especially in terms of these agencies’ emphasis on individual risk factors (related to the risk of a personsuering from serious COVID-19-related health consequences) and social risk factors (related to the chance of an individual to become infected with COVID-19 because of the social context).

Discussion: The study’s findings call for better incorporation of information that is directly relevant to the receivers (internalizing messages) by public health agencies.

Action toward strengthened disaster risk reduction (DRR) ideally builds from evidence-based policymaking to inform decisions and priorities. This is a guiding principle for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), which outlines priorities for action to reduce disaster risk. However, some of these practical guidelines conceal oversimplified or unsubstantiated claims and assumptions, what we refer to as 'truisms', which, if not properly addressed, may jeopardize the long-term goal to reduce disaster risks. Thus far, much DRR research has focused on ways to bridge the gap between science and practice while devoting less attention to the premises that shape the understanding of DRR issues. In this article, written in the spirit of a perspective piece on the state of the DRR field, we utilize the SFDRR as an illustrative case to identify and interrogate ten selected truisms, from across the social and natural sciences, that have been prevalent in shaping DRR research and practice. The ten truisms concern forecasting, loss, conflict, migration, the local level, collaboration, social capital, prevention, policy change, and risk awareness. We discuss central claims associated with each truism, relate those claims to insights in recent DRR scholarship, and end with suggestions for developing the field through advances in conceptualization, measurement, and causal inference.

This study explores how disasters are framed and politicised in the media to provide a systematic assessment of discursive dynamics and external political contexts of natural hazards. Utilising an actor-focused approach, it contributes with knowledge on how politicisation of disaster discourses unfolds. Two similar natural hazard events, the United Kingdom floods of 2005 and 2015, are investigated by means of a content analysis and a political claims analysis. The study finds that a tension between the national government and its contestants following the 2015 floods led to a framing contest which was heavily affected by the external political context at the time. The opposition and journalists constructed a narrative of government failure, not least by intertwining the event with the politically tense situation in the United Kingdom to further populist claims about government spending and EU policies. In 2005, the lack of a comparable external context and polarisation between actors in the media prevented a politicisation of the floods in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. These results illustrate the importance of broader political contexts, even those essentially unrelated to the natural hazard, for the politicisation of a disaster.

Communicating during a crisis can be challenging for public agencies as their communication ecology becomes increasingly complex while the need for fast and reliable public communication remains high. Using the lens of communication ecology, this study examines the online communication of national public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, Sweden, and the United States. Based on content analysis of Twitter data (n = 856) and agency press releases (n = 95), this article investigates two main questions: (1) How, and to what extent, did national public health agencies coordinate their online communication with other agencies and organizations? (2) How was online communication from the agencies diversified in terms of targeting specific organizations and social groups? Our findings indicate that public health agencies relied heavily on internal scientific expertise and predominately coordinated their communication efforts with national government agencies. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that agencies in each country differed in how they diversify information; however, all agencies provided tailored information to at least some organizations and social groups. Across the three countries, information tailored for several vulnerable groups (e.g., pregnant women, people with disabilities, immigrants, and homeless populations) was largely absent, which may contribute to negative consequences for these groups.

This article examines patterns of oppositional behaviour in the GermanBundestag’s Committee on European Union Affairs (EAC) for two separate legislative periods (2005–2009 and 2009–2013). The study makes two contributionsto previous research. It, first, shed some much-needed empirical light on politicalopposition in the Bundestag by examining how much and what kind of opposition exists in the German EAC. Secondly, the article examines the differences inoppositional behaviour of the Members of Parliament between the two legislative periods following an institutional reform in 2009 that afforded theBundestag with increased opportunity structures in Europen Union affairs.

What implications do societies’ risk perceptions have for flood losses? This study uses a stylized, socio-hydrological model to simulate the mutual feedbacks between human societies and flood events. It integrates hydrological modelling with cultural theory and proposes four ideal types of society that reflect existing dominant risk perception and management: risk neglecting, risk monitoring, risk downplaying and risk controlling societies. We explore the consequent trajectories of flood risk generated by the interactions between floods and people for these ideal types of society over time. The results suggest that flood losses are substantially reduced when awareness-raising attitudes are promoted through inclusive, participatory approaches in the community. In contrast, societies that rely on top-down hierarchies and structural measures to protect settlements on floodplains may still suffer significant losses during extreme events. This study illustrates how predictions formed through social science theories can be applied and tested in hydrological modelling.