Elderly People's Perceptions of Heat Stress and Adaptation to Heat: An Interview Study.

OBJECTIVES: Heatwaves are having a disproportionate impact on the elderly population, as demonstrated by pronounced mortality and morbidity. The present study aimed to explore elders' subjective experiences of heat impacts and adaptive strategies. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with 19 elderly Swedes were conducted, focusing on their experiences of the extremely hot summer of 2018. RESULTS: Most informants suffered during the heatwave, although some found it pleasant. The readiness to implement adaptive measures was generally high among the healthiest, who were able to avoid excessive heat and adjust their daily routines. In contrast, those highly dependent on care from others had limited options for avoiding the heat, and little capacity to take up adaptive measures. DISCUSSION: With heat becoming an increasing problem, it is important to adjust elderly care so that the most vulnerable elderly people can avoid excessive heat exposure.

Developing transformative capacity through systematic assessments and visualization of urban climate transitions.

Transforming cities into low-carbon, resilient, and sustainable places will require action encompassing most segments of society. However, local governments struggle to overview and assess all ongoing climate activities in a city, constraining well-informed decision-making and transformative capacity. This paper proposes and tests an assessment framework developed to visualize the implementation of urban climate transition (UCT). Integrating key transition activities and process progression, the framework was applied to three Swedish cities. Climate coordinators and municipal councillors evaluated the visual UCT representations. Results indicate that their understanding of UCT actions and implementation bottlenecks became clearer, making transition more governable. To facilitate UCT, involving external actors and shifting priorities between areas were found to be key. The visual UCT representations improved system awareness and memory, building local transformative capacity. The study recommends systematic assessment and visualization of process progression as a promising method to facilitate UCT governance, but potentially also broader sustainability transitions.

VisAdapt: A Visualization Tool to Support Climate Change Adaptation.

The web-based visualization VisAdapt tool was developed to help laypeople in the Nordic countries assess how anticipated climate change will impact their homes. The tool guides users through a three-step visual process that helps them explore risks and identify adaptive actions specifically modified to their location and house type. This article walks through the tool's multistep, user-centered design process. Although VisAdapt's target end users are Nordic homeowners, the insights gained from the development process and the lessons learned from the project are applicable to a wide range of domains.