Risk Governance of Climate-Related Hazards in Longyearbyen, Svalbard: A Review of Risk Governance Approaches and Knowledge Gaps

Abstract

Climate-related risks pose challenges to communities globally as changing climatic conditions alter the patterns of natural hazards which threaten human lives and infrastructure. In Longyearbyen, Norway, in the High Arctic Svalbard archipelago, climatic changes presently occur at rates well in excess of global means, with corresponding changes to climate-related risks requiring new and improved risk governance strategies. Here, we present the results from a literature review investigating how recent advances in climate-related risk governance can help inform risk governance strategy development in Longyearbyen. The literature identified in our work indicates recent research into the governance of climate-related risks has focused to a large extent on flooding or landslides. Successful risk governance in the reviewed literature often included data collection of both environmental and social information and emphasized local, context-specific knowledge via bi-directional risk communication throughout the risk governance process. We identified knowledge gaps in the literature review. First, there is a missing societal safety perspective on climate changes and natural hazards: much of the identified literature views the climatic changes and natural hazards either through a physical process-based perspective rooted in the natural sciences, or focuses on physical mitigation measures, without considering the interaction of nature, technology, and society. Second, there is a lack of research on data collection and analysis strategies that combine the acquisition of local knowledge via a discourse-based approach with data and knowledge generated from sensors or physical models via a technical approach. Third, more research is required on uncertainty assessment and handling in the risk governance process. Fourth, there is missing consideration of short-term disaster handling approaches – especially in relation to relatively more frequent consideration of long-term climate adaptation strategies. Finally, as none of the reviewed works specifically addressed risk governance in an Arctic setting, we discuss how the results from this literature review and the proposed risk governance framework can help transfer knowledge to Longyearbyen’s context. Our results help clarify current knowledge related to the governance of climate-related risks and provide a foundation for future work in Arctic locations.