Linking science, policy and practice for climate risk governance in the Marche Region (Central Italy).

Climate change is bringing human societies a variety of new challenges and despite being a phenomenon at the global scale, the adaptive strategies needed to reduce negative impacts require actions tailored to local processes and vulnerabilities. Thus, beyond the study of climate patterns and the forecast of extreme weather events, understanding how citizens and other stakeholders perceive climate risk at the local level, is also important to develop effective communication strategies and to enhance adaptation strategies. This study evaluated about 700 questionnaires and interviews administered to a selected sample of residents, decision-makers and emergency managers from the Marche Region (central Italy). Results revealed widespread awareness of the current and future risks connected to climate change, yet this understanding is not translated into effective governance of climate risk (mitigation of impacts and long-term adaptation plans). Apparently, the inability to define shared collective strategies is the result of a feeble sense of individual and institutional responsibility about climate matters, as well as ineffective information exchange among citizens, public administrators and the scientific community. Possibly, a stronger role of the local civil protection (emergency management agency) in governing climate risk would be helpful; civil protection being an organization at the interface among science, policy and practice, could act as “information broker” facilitating the effective exchange of climate risk knowledge. Enhancing climate risk governance would entail: (i) fostering local emergency planning and long-term adaptation strategies; (ii) identifying and empowering reference figures capable to collect, translate and reverberate climate change knowledge within the local community; (iii) developing data repository on climate risk; and, (iv) promoting children education and training programs aimed at fostering a new culture of disaster risk reduction.