Public risk perception of air pollution in the general population of Italy and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic: Environmental and socio-demographic drivers.

Air pollution is an important anthropogenic hazard due to its effect on human health and the environment. Understanding how the population perceives the risk associated with air pollution is a crucial aspect to inform future policies and communication strategies. The aim of this study is to examine the association between air pollution concentrations and public risk perception of air pollution, also exploring socio-demographic patterns in the general population of Italy and Sweden. To this end, we derived 3-year PM10 average concentrations from ground monitoring stations and integrated with a population-based survey carried out in August 2021 in both countries. Relative perceived likelihood and impact on the individual were considered as domains of risk perception. In addition this, information on direct experience and socio-demographic factors were included as possible determinants of risk perception. Linear regression models were performed to examine the association of PM10 average concentrations at regional level and individual level factors with risk perception domains. In both countries, respondents who live in the most densely populated regions report a higher perceived likelihood of air pollution. Direct experience is the main driver of risk perception in both countries. Being male and smokers in Italy, older age and having left/centre-left political orientation in both countries are associated with a higher perceived likelihood and impact of air pollution. These findings will inform future health and environmental studies regarding the public risk perception of air pollution highlighting individual's awareness and the socio-demographic patterns.

Drought and society: Scientific progress, blind spots, and future prospects.

Human activities have increasingly intensified the severity, frequency, and negative impacts of droughts in several regions across the world. This trend has led to broader scientific conceptualizations of drought risk that account for human actions and their interplays with natural systems. This review focuses on physical and engineering sciences to examine the way and extent to which these disciplines account for social processes in relation to the production and distribution of drought risk. We conclude that this research has significantly progressed in terms of recognizing the role of humans in reshaping drought risk and its socioenvironmental impacts. We note an increasing engagement with and contribution to understanding vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation patterns. Moreover, by advancing (socio)hydrological models, developing numerical indexes, and enhancing data processing, physical and engineering scientists have determined the extent of human influences in the propagation of drought hazard. However, these studies do not fully capture the complexities of anthropogenic transformations. Very often, they portray society as homogeneous, and decision-making processes as apolitical, thereby concealing the power relations underlying the production of drought and the uneven distribution of its impacts. The resistance in engaging explicitly with politics and social power-despite their major role in producing anthropogenic drought-can be attributed to the strong influence of positivist epistemologies in engineering and physical sciences. We suggest that an active engagement with critical social sciences can further theorizations of drought risk by shedding light on the structural and historical systems of power that engender every socioenvironmental transformation. This article is categorized under:Climate, History, Society, Culture > Disciplinary Perspectives.

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Sweden and Italy: The role of trust in authorities.

BACKGROUND: The success of vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 infection is vital for moving from a COVID-19 pandemic to an endemic scenario. We aimed to unravel the influence of the risk perception of epidemics along with individual and contextual factors on adherence to COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in Italy and Sweden. METHODS: We compared the results of two nationwide surveys carried out in August 2021 across four domains of epidemic risk perception: perceived likelihood, perceived impact on the individual and perceived individual and authority knowledge. The roles of individual and contextual determinants were also explored. RESULTS: The survey included 2144 participants in Sweden (52.3% women) and 2010 in Italy (52.6% women). In both countries, we found that trust in authorities was one of the main drivers of this process, with two-fold increased odds of being vaccinated. Being highly educated and having a higher relative income were associated with a higher adherence to the vaccination campaign (for relative income OR = 1.44, 95% CI 1.23-1.67 in Sweden and OR = 1.18, 95% CI 1.04-1.34 in Italy; for education OR = 1.90, 95% CI 1.30-2.77 in Sweden and OR = 1.47, 95% CI 1.09-1.97 in Italy), whereas a right and centre-right compared with a left and centre-left political orientation was negatively related to vaccination adherence (OR = 0.41, 95% CI 0.25-0.67 in Sweden and OR = 0.47, 95% CI 0.33-0.68 in Italy). CONCLUSIONS: Increasing trust in authorities, along with an equal global distribution of vaccine doses, can contribute to accelerating vaccination campaigns around the world and, in turn, to move towards an endemic scenario.

Exploring disaster impacts on adaptation actions in 549 cities worldwide.

Whether disasters influence adaptation actions in cities is contested. Yet, the extant knowledge base primarily consists of single or small-N case studies, so there is no global overview of the evidence on disaster impacts and adaptation. Here, we use regression analysis to explore the effects of disaster frequency and severity on four adaptation action types in 549 cities. In countries with greater adaptive capacity, economic losses increase city-level actions targeting recently experienced disaster event types, as well as actions to strengthen general disaster preparedness. An increase in disaster frequency reduces actions targeting hazard types other than those that recently occurred, while human losses have few effects. Comparisons between cities across levels of adaptive capacity indicate a wealth effect. More affluent countries incur greater economic damages from disasters, but also have higher governance capacity, creating both incentives and opportunities for adaptation measures. While disaster frequency and severity had a limited impact on adaptation actions overall, results are sensitive to which disaster impacts, adaptation action types, and adaptive capacities are considered.

Epidemic risk perceptions in Italy and Sweden driven by authority responses to COVID-19.

Understanding public risk perception is an essential step to develop effective measures reducing the spread of disease outbreaks. Here we compare epidemic risk perceptions during two different periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and Sweden. To this end, we analyzed the results of two nationwide surveys carried out in both countries in two periods characterized by different infection rates: August (N = 4154) and November 2020 (N = 4168). Seven domains of epidemic risk perception were considered: likelihood along with (individual and population) impact, preparedness, and knowledge. The role of the context and period was explored in stratified and formal interaction analyses. In both countries, we found an intensification in epidemic risk perception from August to November 2020. Being male, older and having a higher relative income were associated with a lower perception of the likelihood of epidemics, while excess mortality was marginally related to higher odds. Compared to Sweden, Italy had a higher increase in perception of likelihood and impact, and a concurrent decrease in preparedness and knowledge. The different authority response to the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with a different change over time in risk perception. Regional differences in terms of excess mortality only marginally explained differences in risk perception.

Do the Benefits of School Closure Outweigh Its Costs?

School closure has been a common response to COVID-19. Yet, its implementation has hardly ever been based on rigorous analysis of its costs and benefits. We aim to first illustrate the unintended consequences and side effects of school closure, and then discuss the policy and research implications. This commentary frames evidence from the most recent papers on the topic from a public-health epidemiology and disaster risk reduction perspective. In particular, we argue that the benefits of school closure in terms of reduced infection rates should be better compared with its costs in terms of both short- and long-term damage on the physical, mental, and social well-being of children and society at large.

Scientists' warning on extreme wildfire risks to water supply.

2020 is the year of wildfire records. California experienced its three largest fires early in its fire season. The Pantanal, the largest wetland on the planet, burned over 20% of its surface. More than 18 million hectares of forest and bushland burned during the 2019-2020 fire season in Australia, killing 33 people, destroying nearly 2500 homes, and endangering many endemic species. The direct cost of damages is being counted in dozens of billion dollars, but the indirect costs on water-related ecosystem services and benefits could be equally expensive, with impacts lasting for decades. In Australia, the extreme precipitation ("200 mm day -1 in several location") that interrupted the catastrophic wildfire season triggered a series of watershed effects from headwaters to areas downstream. The increased runoff and erosion from burned areas disrupted water supplies in several locations. These post-fire watershed hazards via source water contamination, flash floods, and mudslides can represent substantial, systemic long-term risks to drinking water production, aquatic life, and socio-economic activity. Scenarios similar to the recent event in Australia are now predicted to unfold in the Western USA. This is a new reality that societies will have to live with as uncharted fire activity, water crises, and widespread human footprint collide all-around of the world. Therefore, we advocate for a more proactive approach to wildfire-watershed risk governance in an effort to advance and protect water security. We also argue that there is no easy solution to reducing this risk and that investments in both green (i.e., natural) and grey (i.e., built) infrastructure will be necessary. Further, we propose strategies to combine modern data analytics with existing tools for use by water and land managers worldwide to leverage several decades worth of data and knowledge on post-fire hydrology.

Scenarios of Human Responses to Unprecedented Social-Environmental Extreme Events.

In a rapidly changing world, what is today an unprecedented extreme may soon become the norm. As a result, extreme-related disasters are expected to become more frequent and intense. This will have widespread socio-economic consequences and affect the ability of different societal groups to recover from and adapt to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Therefore, there is the need to decipher the relation between genesis of unprecedented events, accumulation and distribution of risk, and recovery trajectories across different societal groups. Here, we develop an analytical approach to unravel the complexity of future extremes and multiscalar societal responses-from households to national governments and from immediate impacts to longer term recovery. This requires creating new forms of knowledge that integrate analyses of the past-that is, structural causes and political processes of risk accumulation and differentiated recovery trajectories-with plausible scenarios of future environmental extremes grounded in the event-specific literature. We specifically seek to combine the physical characteristics of the extremes with examinations of how culture, politics, power, and policy visions shape societal responses to unprecedented events, and interpret the events as social-environmental extremes. This new approach, at the nexus between social and natural sciences, has the concrete advantage of providing an impact-focused vision of future social-environmental risks, beyond what is achievable within conventional disciplinary boundaries. In this paper, we focus on extreme flooding events and the societal responses they elicit. However, our approach is flexible and applicable to a wide range of extreme events. We see it as the first building block of a new field of research, allowing for novel and integrated theoretical explanations and forecasting of social-environmental extremes.

The legacy of large dams in the United States.

The sustainability of large dams has been questioned on several grounds. One aspect that has been less explored is that the development of dams and reservoirs often enables agricultural expansion and urban growth, which in turn increase water consumption. As such, dam development influences, while being influenced by, the spatial and temporal distribution of both supply and demand of water resources. In this paper, we explore the interplay between large dams, patterns of population growth and agricultural expansion in the United States over the past two centuries. Based on a large-scale analysis of spatial and temporal trends, we identify three distinct phases, in which different processes dominated the interplay. Then, we focus on agricultural water use in the Southwest region (Arizona, California and Nevada) and explore chicken-and-egg dynamics where water supply partly meets and partly fuels water demand. Lastly, we show that the legacy of dams in the United States consists of a lock-in condition characterized by high levels of water consumption, especially in the Southwest, which leads to severe water crises and groundwater overexploitation when droughts occur.

Exposure to natural hazard events unassociated with policy change for improved disaster risk reduction.

Natural hazard events provide opportunities for policy change to enhance disaster risk reduction (DRR), yet it remains unclear whether these events actually fulfill this transformative role around the world. Here, we investigate relationships between the frequency (number of events) and severity (fatalities, economic losses, and affected people) of natural hazards and DRR policy change in 85 countries over eight years. Our results show that frequency and severity factors are generally unassociated with improved DRR policy when controlling for income-levels, differences in starting policy values, and hazard event types. This is a robust result that accounts for event frequency and different hazard severity indicators, four baseline periods estimating hazard impacts, and multiple policy indicators. Although we show that natural hazards are unassociated with improved DRR policy globally, the study unveils variability in policy progress between countries experiencing similar levels of hazard frequency and severity.

Public perceptions of multiple risks during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and Sweden.

Knowing how people perceive multiple risks is essential to the management and promotion of public health and safety. Here we present a dataset based on a survey (N = 4,154) of public risk perception in Italy and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both countries were heavily affected by the first wave of infections in Spring 2020, but their governmental responses were very different. As such, the dataset offers unique opportunities to investigate the role of governmental responses in shaping public risk perception. In addition to epidemics, the survey considered indirect effects of COVID-19 (domestic violence, economic crises), as well as global (climate change) and local (wildfires, floods, droughts, earthquakes, terror attacks) threats. The survey examines perceived likelihoods and impacts, individual and authorities' preparedness and knowledge, and socio-demographic indicators. Hence, the resulting dataset has the potential to enable a plethora of analyses on social, cultural and institutional factors influencing the way in which people perceive risk.

The interplay between structural flood protection, population density, and flood mortality along the Jamuna River, Bangladesh.

Levees protect floodplain areas from frequent flooding, but they can paradoxically contribute to more severe flood losses. The construction or reinforcement of levees can attract more assets and people in flood-prone area, thereby increasing the potential flood damage when levees eventually fail. Moreover, structural protection measures can generate a sense of complacency, which can reduce preparedness, thereby increasing flood mortality rates. We explore these phenomena in the Jamuna River floodplain in Bangladesh. In this study area, different levels of flood protection have co-existed alongside each other since the 1960s, with a levee being constructed only on the right bank and its maintenance being assured only in certain places. Primary and secondary data on population density, human settlements, and flood fatalities were collected to carry out a comparative analysis of two urban areas and two rural areas with different flood protection levels. We found that the higher the level of flood protection, the higher the increase of population density over the past decades as well as the number of assets exposed to flooding. Our results also show that flood mortality rates associated with the 2017 flooding in Bangladesh were lower in the areas with lower protection level. This empirical analysis of the unintended consequences of structural flood protection is relevant for the making of sustainable policies of disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change in rapidly changing environments.

Sociohydrology: Scientific Challenges in Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Agenda 2030 represent an ambitious blueprint to reduce inequalities globally and achieve a sustainable future for all mankind. Meeting the SDGs for water requires an integrated approach to managing and allocating water resources, by involving all actors and stakeholders, and considering how water resources link different sectors of society. To date, water management practice is dominated by technocratic, scenario-based approaches that may work well in the short term but can result in unintended consequences in the long term due to limited accounting of dynamic feedbacks between the natural, technical, and social dimensions of human-water systems. The discipline of sociohydrology has an important role to play in informing policy by developing a generalizable understanding of phenomena that arise from interactions between water and human systems. To explain these phenomena, sociohydrology must address several scientific challenges to strengthen the field and broaden its scope. These include engagement with social scientists to accommodate social heterogeneity, power relations, trust, cultural beliefs, and cognitive biases, which strongly influence the way in which people alter, and adapt to, changing hydrological regimes. It also requires development of new methods to formulate and test alternative hypotheses for the explanation of emergent phenomena generated by feedbacks between water and society. Advancing sociohydrology in these ways therefore represents a major contribution toward meeting the targets set by the SDGs, the societal grand challenge of our time.

Nighttime light data reveal how flood protection shapes human proximity to rivers.

To understand the spatiotemporal changes of flood risk, we need to determine the way in which humans adapt and respond to flood events. One adaptation option consists of resettling away from flood-prone areas to prevent or reduce future losses. We use satellite nighttime light data to discern the relationship between long-term changes in human proximity to rivers and the occurrence of catastrophic flood events. Moreover, we explore how these relationships are influenced by different levels of structural flood protection. We found that societies with low protection levels tend to resettle further away from the river after damaging flood events. Conversely, societies with high protection levels show no significant changes in human proximity to rivers. Instead, such societies continue to rely heavily on structural measures, reinforcing flood protection and quickly resettling in flood-prone areas after a flooding event. Our work reveals interesting aspects of human adaptation to flood risk and offers key insights for comparing different risk reduction strategies. In addition, this study provides a framework that can be used to further investigate human response to floods, which is relevant as urbanization of floodplains continues and puts more people and economic assets at risk.

Can weather generation capture precipitation patterns across different climates, spatial scales and under data scarcity?

Stochastic weather generators can generate very long time series of weather patterns, which are indispensable in earth sciences, ecology and climate research. Yet, both their potential and limitations remain largely unclear because past research has typically focused on eclectic case studies at small spatial scales in temperate climates. In addition, stochastic multi-site algorithms are usually not publicly available, making the reproducibility of results difficult. To overcome these limitations, we investigated the performance of the reduced-complexity multi-site precipitation generator TripleM across three different climatic regions in the United States. By resampling observations, we investigated for the first time the performance of a multi-site precipitation generator as a function of the extent of the gauge network and the network density. The definition of the role of the network density provides new insights into the applicability in data-poor contexts. The performance was assessed using nine different statistical metrics with main focus on the inter-annual variability of precipitation and the lengths of dry and wet spells. Among our study regions, our results indicate a more accurate performance in wet temperate climates compared to drier climates. Performance deficits are more marked at larger spatial scales due to the increasing heterogeneity of climatic conditions.