Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Urban Resilience in Trondheim: Governance AR5220 Urban Resilience
Lea Rosenberger – André Kraemer Góes – Varsha Akavarapu 2-3-2018
Table of Contents 1.
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 2
2.
Comprehensive Security and Rule of Law ...................................................................................... 3
3.
4.
2.1.
Description of the Goal ............................................................................................................ 3
2.2.
Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 4
2.3.
Findings of the study ............................................................................................................... 5
2.4.
Suggested projects and activities ............................................................................................ 7
2.5.
Discussion and conclusion ...................................................................................................... 8
Effective Leadership and Management ........................................................................................... 9 3.1.
Description of the Goal ............................................................................................................ 9
3.2.
Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 9
3.3.
Findings ................................................................................................................................. 10
3.4.
Suggested Projects or Activities ............................................................................................ 11
3.5.
Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 14
Discussion and Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 14
References ............................................................................................................................................ 15
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1. Introduction Since human beings have evolved from a nomad lifestyle to living in settlements, one of our main challenges has been dealing with the unpredictability of the sites we chose to live. The history of mankind is full of reports of floods, fires and other types of so-called disasters, and much effort has been put into working on dealing with, as well as preventing these kinds of events.In the last decades, there is a perception that the recurrence of disasters as well as the scale of such events has risen. This can be explained by some factors, like the current processes of climate change due to the excessive amount of greenhouse effect gas in our atmosphere. Inequality also plays a significant role in increasing the susceptibility to significant damage caused by hazards. Together with this rise, came the interest of identifying what the factors are that make a city less vulnerable to hazards, that is, what made a city more resilient. In a broader sense, urban resilience refers to the “ability of an urban system - and all its constituent socio-ecological and socio-technical networks across temporal and spatial scales - to maintain or rapidly return to desired functions in the face of a disturbance, to adapt to change, and to quickly transform systems that limit current or future adaptive capacity” (Meerow et al., 2015). With the intention of systematizing the evaluation of urban resilience, the City Resilience Index was developed. The twelve goals defined in the framework are an attempt to assess to what extend a city can be considered resilient or not. These goals are divided into the four categories: “Health and wellbeing”, “Economy and society”, “Infrastructure and environment” and “Leadership and management”. Each of these covers four goals, each with a multitude of indicators. Although enjoying relatively high levels of human development and low inequality, the city of Trondheim in Norway is not exempt from the possibility of different stressful or threatening events, which can also be called hazards. This report intends to discuss what are the challenges for Trondheim regarding achieving two of the resilience goals defined by the City Resilience Framework developed by Arup and the Rockefeller Foundation, which are the “Comprehensive Security and Rule of Law” and the “Effective Leadership and Management”. These goals pose challenges for the government on the national, but also on the local level. Local security as well as hazard and risk assessment lie in the responsibility of local authorities since these issues need to be handled contextspecific and not on an overarching level. At a local level, communities are able to interact with the authorities and design plans for risk reduction for their area (Hardoy, 2010). Linking these two goals to a resilient urban system, that is a “complex, adaptive [and emergent ecosystem[ ” (Meerow et al., 2016) that consists of the four subsystems “governance networks, networked material and energy flows, urban infrastructure and form, and socioeconomic dynamics” (Meerow et al., 2016) shows that security and government management are only a fraction of the whole system. However, effective leadership of a community plays a crucial role in the implementation of strategies to prevent disasters. Analyzing potential threats and stresses with a long-term focus is the basis for adaptation to future shocks that the city can face.
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2. Comprehensive Security and Rule of Law 2.1.
Description of the Goal
Over the years, urban population has been gradually facing a diverse range of natural and man-made pressures including, but not limited to urbanization, climate change, terrorism and the increasing vulnerability to natural hazards, which though are inter-related, quite complex and difficult to predict for the future. To face such un-announced and unplanned complexities, urban environments must adapt, mitigate and thrive, and simultaneously manage uncertainty and build resilience. As the proportion of the population living in cities is increasing all over world, closer attention should be paid to the appropriate management and division of responsibilities between the local, state and national levels to effectively avert the sudden shocks and stresses with minimal causalities. In this context the City Resilience Framework proposes to qualitatively assess the resilience of a city against a given set of twelve goals and relevant sub indicators integrating with seven qualities of resilient systems (example: robust, inclusive, reflective). In these goals, communities and the building of capacities to prevent or reduce the impact of such disruptions are given priority (Silva and Morera, 2014). Over the past three decades, the planet has become increasingly urbanized. Substantial increase in both the number and size of cities has caused elementary infrastructure problems. By the year 2020, the United nations estimate that nearly 57 % of the world population will live in urban areas (United Nations, 2014). The waves of demographic change can lead to drastic transformations in many countries, bringing a flood of individuals who find themselves in the cities without any means of subsistence. This inconsistency in the quality of life, when coupled with the influence of uncontrolled urbanization, the ever-changing political scenario (often filled with corrupt practices in developing world) (Akcay, 2006) and economic climate can be viewed as a clear threat to the security, social and economic development. This can further create a social environment favorable to violence. While crime, as a man-made event, is a potential threat to in numerous urbanized and urbanizing cities, climate change is another threat which is impending not just in specific areas but on the whole planet. In such scenarios, where both man-made and natural hazards have a high chance of occurrence, relevant governance, which can help avert or reduce the causalities is the most sought after. With the increase in global occurrence of man-made and natural calamities over the last 15 years, the national governments have focused their research on building smart and resilient cities – essentially incorporating smart technologies and resilient systems to mitigate disruptions (Papa et al., 2015). Such cities require a just, stable and secure society, not only to maintain social order, but also for effective enforcement of laws and regulations such as the building codes or environmental regulations that have the potential to strengthen resilience. Addressing this very uncertainty and vulnerabilities that induced crime and climate change can pose, the City Resilience Framework included the goal “Comprehensive Security and Rule of Law” (goal 5) focused especially on the law enforcement, fair justice and prevention of crime and corruption. The indicators of this goal are (Arup, 2015): • • • •
Effective systems to deter crime Proactive corruption prevention Competent policing Accessible criminal and civil justice
An overview of the four indicators suggests that the goal is largely based on understanding the prevalent laws, policies and programs and their role in tackling crime, violence and corruption in the urban areas. High crime rates and corruption practices can lead to long-term social, economic and physical stresses, which would in turn destabilize the communities and degrading the city’s competent advantage in attracting new investments and residents (Silva and Morera, 2014). The goal and its indicators further aim to assess: • •
The extent of role of preventive programs in tackling crime and violence in the city The extent of promotion of urban environment designed to deter crime and violence and
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•
The extent to which the citizens feel comfortable in their surroundings and are included in the processes of crime identification and management – how prepared and aware they are of what to do at the time of emergencies
While the above questions largely directed the research of this goal in Trondheim, the following sections specify the qualitative assessment of the two chosen indicators further outlined in 2.2. presently applicable in the city.
2.2.
Methodology
As it is understood from the description of the goal section and according to the core UEP values, this study is highly subjective. It involves interviews with various stakeholders dealing with emergency situations in the city of Trondheim. The first step in assessing the comprehensive security and rule of law in the city, was to understand the various stresses and shocks that the city and its residents have undergone in the past and those that have a high probability of occurrence in the future. Various reports such as the risk assessment of Trøndelag (2014) were partially translated and studied. Through the report, the consequence of a hazard and its likelihood (Figure 6) of occurrence were analyzed, to identify one or two indicators to elaborate in the goal 5, in the context of Trondheim city.
Figure 1 - Consequences and likelihood of occurrence of various stresses or shocks in Trondheim (Stavnas, 2018)
Through the literature study it was quite evident that the city, though has a high probability of the occurrence of natural disasters (considering its proximity to the coast and the presence of quick clay across major parts of the city), also has a likelihood of crime and terror attacks. In Norway, the police are responsible for preventing and stopping terrorism. This job however requires coordinated efforts involving several operators, including the defense, health care and immigration authorities. Although being the capital city, Oslo most likely has the biggest threatening aspects, an attack on Trondheim is a scenario that cannot be ruled out since the international student festival is scheduled to be held in Trondheim in 2019, which could possibly be a target for terror attacks. In this regard, the policing systems in Norway have undergone major technological and research shifts in terms of deterring crime. Bearing in mind the above context, two indicators were selected to further analyze and assess the law and security aspect: • •
Effective systems to deter crime Competent policing
Effective systems to deter crime & competent policing Both indicators deal with integrated, collaborative and resourceful mechanisms to deter crime. Effective systems to identify crime are quite critical to increase a sense of safety amongst city residents, also indirectly reducing costs associated with fighting crime and to create a secure business environment that will attract inward investment (Silva and Morera, 2014). The indicators consider the 4
exposure of citizens and investments to crime prevention. Moreover, they deal with whether the city has certain systems in place aimed at reducing the opportunity or attractiveness of criminal behavior, preventing crime from happening, helping offenders and affected parties reconcile and reducing recidivisms (Silva and Morera, 2014). Effective and transparent policing plays an important role in instilling the aspect of safety in the residents. An effective force that is trusted by its citizens can help prevent civil unrest and instigate order during times of emergency. The main foci of both the indicators that are relevant and studied in the context of Trondheim are: • • •
To what extent is policing effective in the city? To what extent do the citizens trust the police? What are the technologies utilized to deter crime? And how are they incorporated into the city’s environment?
Both indicators involve extensive research on the available literature and semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders – the research personnel at NTNU, Police department and the residents of the city (national and international). Being a subjective study in nature, certain inferences to statistics were also made to confirm the validity of the answers, which will be presented in the findings of the study.
2.3.
Findings of the study
The findings of the study on two indicators of goal 5 of CRF – “Effective measures to deter crime” and “Competent policing” are divided based on three major heads: • • •
The literature study – involving reports published by the police department The semi-structured interviews with the research personnel at NTNU and the police station The semi-structures interviews with the students – native and the international community
To understand the ways in which police deter crime in Norway, it is only natural to look at how they are trained to face various adversities. Through the literature study, it is understood that the police in Norway are trained in The Norwegian Police University (PHS) – a central educational institution for the police department – which has its own board and directors as the governing body. This university has the responsibility for providing basic education (Bachelor) for those wishing to serve in the police. In addition to Bachelor courses the university also provides further education and training for those already employed in the police. PHS offers its research in four main areas (Politihøgskolen, 2014): 1) 2) 3) 4)
police organization, culture and behavior police strategies, practices and methods police challenges police as a social institution
The ongoing research uses methods connected to social sciences, psychology, sociology, criminology etc. identifying its multi-disciplinary nature towards finding relevant solutions to various issues and cases as faced in the area. With such a background, the police are well-trained in addressing challenges and working towards upholding order and security in the society. While this is the background of almost every police officer in duty, the situation however differs from one context to another. The techniques of policing, according to the ongoing research includes, proactive policing – controlling a situation rather than just responding to it – and predictive policing – which involves various technologies that collect data regarding crime from past databases and analyze or rather predict the spaces susceptible to crime or terror incidences. Since the attacks in 2015 in Paris, Norway has been actively taking steps or reforms towards introducing information and communication technologies and making them a central part in detecting crime. The police department in Oslo uses a program called as SARA (scanning, analysis, responsive assessment) as preventive policy which deals with the cases of pick-pocketing. At the moment, the police departments have a central database assessing crime at a national level, instead of analyzing the districts as a singular entity. This can be attributed to the fact that none of all regions have the same criminal activity, meaning different districts will require wide-ranging technologies to deter crime. 5
The city of Trondheim While understanding crime deterring systems at the national level is quite broad, it is important to focus at the city level and understand how the systems vary at the district level. In Trondheim, crime and most of the emergency services are controlled and overlooked by the Politi, which is further sub divided into various departments according to the designation of work – such as the joint forces or the IT services. Crime in Trondheim is mostly related to theft and traffic offences (Figure 2). However, the crime rates were increasing in the past three years Figure 3. When enquired about the reasons for the increasing crime rates, the majority of the interviewed personnel directed their answers to the increasing immigrants’ population, although this is highly political and debatable (Skardhamar et al., 2014).
Figure 2 – Percentage of various crimes committed in Trondheim (2017) (StrasakTall, 2017)
The police, along with the fire department and Lagevatka, are a part of the Trondheim municipality’s crisis team, which means that they are always “on the go” and reach any required place within 30 minutes. As per the PHS, Trondheim politi as well uses GIS-based technologies to identify places that are susceptible to crime-based activities such as substance abuse, thefts etc. Other crime deterring technologies include CCTV-cameras, GPS systems or alarms in every dwelling unit. The police are also responsible to conduct security patrols in such relevant areas and emergency drills at regular intervals. The crisis team including the police, lagevatka and the fire department have various emergency numbers which can be directly contacted at the time of a crisis.
Figure 3 – Numbeo statistics on crime rates in Trondheim (51 participants in poll) (Doo, 2018)
Interviewing the police though gave an overview of the workings of the department in the city, understanding the people’s perception of the police forces forms an integral part of the study. An equal number of Norwegians and international students were interviewed based on the research questions as mentioned above. Both the study groups though agree on the fact that the police are a reliable force, also admit that they haven’t seen police patrolling often, except for once or twice. Most of the international students have expressed their lack of knowledge and confusion over the emergency numbers in the initial days of their arrival, which is quite opposite from the situation in their home countries, where one service – one number is used for emergency purposes.
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2.4.
Suggested projects and activities
The whole idea of applying the City Resilience Framework in a context is to identify gaps and vulnerabilities to empower the various stakeholders including the residents of the cities to build capacities, to avert crisis. The indicators “Effective systems in deterring crime” and “Competent policing” analyzed in the context of Trondheim, helped in the identification of certain gaps in the policing processes. The PHS though has identified the requirement of further research in ICT in preventing crimes, Norway still has a long way to go in developing predictive policing techniques that are already put in use in majority of the developed nations. California for example, has developed an analytical program called Predpol, a decisionsupport system for patrolling (Figure 4). The program conducts based on type of crime, place and time a risk assessment to predict where and when a similar incident could take place in the immediate future. The program does not use arrest data or information that can be linked to individuals, thus including ethical constraints into the program (Huet, 2015).
Figure 4 – Deputy chief at Santa Cruz Police department explaining how PredPol indicates the risk of new offences (Predpol, 2014)
The program though does not tell the patrols what to do, but ensures that the police resources will be allocated with precision. Additionally, the risk maps also have the feature to be updated before each new patrol shift (Lum and Isaac, 2016). Another example is the city of Memphis, where crime was quite prevalent between 2006 and 2012. The Memphis police department constructed an analytical program called the ‘BLUE Crush’ which produces crime forecasts within a limited geographical area by compiling and analyzing historical crime data from police records integrating the real-time data from the patrols (Tulumello, 2016). This information is then plotted on digital maps and is shared with the patrols through mobile phone devices. The police departments of Bavaria and Zurich as well have sought the help of an analytics software called ‘Precobs’, which predicts the location and time of the next burglary that might take place within a radius of 500 meters, over the next seven days based on the historical anonymized burglary data, portraying it on a digital map (Sommerer, 2017). While the above mentioned analytical software are helpful for the police in deterring crime, another aspect here, which involves the residents of the city is yet to be focused on. The relationship between the people and the police is something that should be worked on. Community policing is one option which has been tried and tested by the US department of justice, where one police officer is allocated to certain communities so that they become engage and become familiar with the local inhabitants (Oliver, 1992). This strategy effectively helps is building partnerships with the governance 7
organizations, thus including the voice of the residents in major security processes or regimes and problem-solving techniques. Following the above areas of interventions, the long-term strategy applicable to the context of Trondheim would be the incorporation of predictive policing techniques, through the information and communication technologies, making way for both smart mechanisms to identify crime and bring about a change in the criminal policies. The short-term intervention would be to engage residents of the city in the policing process by suggesting the community policing technique, which has proved to be beneficial in major developed countries. Another set of interventions, as has been noticed in Trondheim, would be to integrate the three emergency numbers into a single number and conduct more emergency practices and workshops for international students – preferably as a part of the orientation week to avoid miscommunications and confusions in case a sudden shock occurs.
2.5.
Discussion and conclusion
Trondheim is considered to be one of the happiest cities (Dregni, 2018). In such a scenario, crime and policing as indicators might not be as relevant as they would be in a developing country context. Understanding the ways in which crime and terrorism is identified, the ways in which it is handled, has proven to be an educational experience. Although the study aimed to understand the goal 5 of the City Resilience Framework in the context of Trondheim, there are some limitations. The qualitative analysis of the indicators is subjective to the availability of relevant literature in English and not in Norwegian. The analysis carried out is incomplete since all stakeholders – the Trondheim commune, Crisis Centre, Lagevatka and the higher officials in the Politi were unavailable for meetings and hence, the information shown in the report might not be suitable to further build on this study. The semi-structured interviews conducted for the goal 5 only considered to look at crime deterring and policing systems in day-to-day life and has proposed for certain activities applicable to the same.
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3. Effective Leadership and Management 3.1.
Description of the Goal
“Effective Leadership and Management”, as defined by the City Resilience Index, is the capacity of governmental emergency management, hazard and risk assessment, including the participation of stakeholders and the coordination with other authorities. Basis for the establishment of a resilient city concerning these factors is knowledge about past and future events and processes (Arup, 2015). The five indicators are included in City Resilience Index for measuring “Effective Leadership and Management” are as follows (Arup, 2015): • • • • •
Appropriate government decision-making: transparent, inclusive and integrated government decision-making and leadership. Effective co-ordination with other government bodies: Integrated and flexible communication and collaboration between city, state and national government. Proactive multi-stakeholder collaboration: Inclusive and constructive collaboration between all actors involved in city decision-making. Comprehensive hazard monitoring and risk assessment: Effective systems to monitor potential hazards and assess risk. Comprehensive government emergency management: City leadership that has sufficient capacity and flexibility to effectively manage emergencies.
3.2.
Methodology
The indicator chosen initially for further investigation in this chapter was “comprehensive hazard monitoring and risk assessment”. This indicator examines the effectiveness of existing systems to monitor potential hazards and assess risks (Arup, 2015). Risk assessments are a fundamental part of disaster risk reduction since they encompass the estimation of likelihood and magnitude of events. Furthermore, and even more crucial, understanding of interconnections between hazards, vulnerability and exposure are part of the assessment. Risks are defined as the probability of consequences causing harm such as damaged property, loss of livelihoods, casualties, damage to the environment or disruption of economic activity that arise from natural and man-made conditions. Moreover, risk assessment includes the decision to which extend a risk is acceptable (United Nations Development Programme, 2010). In the following it is evaluated which risks and threats that face Trondheim are considered by the authorities in their plans for preparedness and disaster response and which stakeholders are involved in the processes. The way that authorities interact with one another to exchange relevant information and resources influence the effectivity of systems as for example systems to monitor risks competently. However, during the process of investigation, our group realized that the complexity of the interactions between those organizations exceed the extend of possible research in the given time for this report. Taking a further look at Figure 5, which is a representation of how risks in Trondheim are in terms of the amplitude of their consequences and the likelihood of them happening, one can see that most of these risks – the ones represented in light blue – are related to events that are not on the reach of a common citizens action. That is, they are related to sudden natural events of bigger proportions (like volcanoes or solar wind) or the action of public or private institutions, like in the case of a nuclear accident. Considering the purposes of Urban Ecological Planning, a focus on risks that are closer to a citizen’s everyday life was kept in mind for selecting which indicator of the goal “Effective Leadership and Management” would be analyzed for this report – that is, those who are signalized with dark blue (Figure 5).
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Figure 5 - Consequences and likelihood of occurrence of various stresses or shocks in Trondheim (Stavnas, 2018)
Considering the desire to understand how citizens can actively contribute to the increase of urban resilience for these risks, we went through the five indicators presented for the goal in analysis. The choice of the indicator 10.1 “Appropriate government decision-making” (Arup, 2015) is better explained from its subtitle, or description; that is: “transparent, inclusive and integrated government decisionmaking and leadership”. This indicator represents our aim to investigate relevant threats for residents the most.
3.3.
Findings
Many different actors are involved in the process of monitoring hazard and assessing risk in Trondheim, which have varied roles and broadness of action. The police, the fire department, among others, are part of the system responsible for acting when threats or risks are identified, or when hazardous events, like a disaster, happen. The main question we have had in mind for identifying how the goal we selected can be achieved, looking by the eyes of the citizen, is: what are the forms through which the citizens can actively participate on perceiving and preventing the four risks we have mentioned above, as well as to report the occurrence of events related to them. Starting from this point, some different ways through which people can influence in promoting urban resilience, reach information or also provide information have been identified:
Voting Citizens can actively engage in promoting the discussion around preventive measures for disasters by bringing up this subject during electoral periods. Although we have not been able to do proper data collection on the presence of the discussion around urban resilience in the last electoral period (2015), the rise of the Greens – a party strongly identified with environmental issues and the fight against climate change – as the third political force in Trondheim might be a sign of the raising importance of the discussion around questions connected to urban resilience.
Direct participation Our field research did not manage to go identify stances of direct participation for trondheimers. This could be attributed to the complexity of the structures of public administration, the constraints of time, as well as the language barriers. Still on that, through spontaneous interaction and discussion around this possibility with local residents, it was possible to identify that, even if existent, open forums, citizens’ councils or other similar initiatives for direct participation of the citizen are not widely known by the city’s inhabitants.
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Online interaction and participation There are some possible forms of the citizens interacting online with informative and preventive services. One of the services identified by our research was the varsom.no webpage. It is a very intuitive, easy to use source of real-time information about the risk of avalanches, floods and landslides throughout the country, provided by the national government. There is also three service numbers (hotlines) for orientation. These hotlines are available the seven days of the week, but not the 24 hours, however (Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat (NVE), 2018). Sources connected to the people responsible for operating the service have mentioned that these phone numbers have very little demand and that they were open 24 hours a day before, but had their available hours reduced due to its low usage. This is however not true when it comes to citizens proactively identifying risks and/or reporting events.
Calling emergency numbers (110 – 112 – 113) Maybe the most common form of reaching authorities when it comes to reporting events, emergency phone numbers are also widely known by Trondheim’s population as a form of contacting public emergency services. The fact that there are three different numbers to call depending on what kind of situation it is (The Norwegian Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi), 2018), might create confusion in a citizen’s mind on who to notify in the case of an extreme event. It was reported that there is an integration between the three phones’ call centers, which however demands calls to be transferred and might mean a waste of the municipality’s resources, as the city has three different centers for receiving emergency calls. And, considering both things, precious time might be lost for reporting an occurrence.
3.4.
Suggested Projects or Activities
To propose suitable projects that can be implemented in Trondheim in the context of transparent and inclusive decision-making, we looked at a variety of implemented projects in different cities all over the world. The idea is to include citizens into the decision-making processes with a participatory approach since participation is a social process that is active and fosters connection within a community (Pelling, 2010). In the context of including citizens into processes concerning preparation, response and adaptation to hazards, risks and stresses that Trondheim might face, it can be distinguished between long-term and short-term actions that can be taken. Long-term projects focus on lasting effects, whereas short-term proposals have an immediate effect on the situation. Looking at the most likely and relevant risks that Trondheim faces – flooding, landslides, lack of power due to storm events, pandemic diseases and crime – we want to explore possible projects that can help the municipality to include the citizens. Typically, if a disaster hit a place and the damages are recovered after a certain time, the awareness for the risk decreases rapidly as it lies within the human nature to repress bad memories. On this basis, the State Flood Centre of Saxony, Germany, came up with a project to raise awareness amongst their population towards the risk of flooding. Being hit by historical floods from the river Elbe several times in the last centuries, the city of Dresden experienced major damages. As an everyday reminder to the citizens that they live in a flood-prone area, the State Flood Centre of Saxony introduced flood marks within their state. Flood marks are signs in a variety of locations within the city where the flood struck that show the water level with the respective date. The signs are especially for the historic and catastrophic flood events (Figure 6). People being confronted with these reminders in the city are presumably more aware of the risk that they face. Being more aware of threats helps to prepare, respond and adapt to them. The locations of flood marks with details about water level, location and date of occurrence is also available via an interactive map that is freely available online (https://www.umwelt.sachsen.de/umwelt/infosysteme/ida/). Residents are called up to report any flood marks that are missing in the database. For future flood events, the authority plans to collect as much new data about water levels from different locations as possible. For this, they created a guideline for citizens on how they can record data during the next event (Sächsisches Landesamt für Umwelt, 2015). Using this approach, the State Flood Centre of Saxony introduced the possibility for the residents to participate actively in data collection that can be used for future flood forecasts. Being able to improve the forecasts through a higher amount of data, the residents can also benefit from a better preparedness of the municipality towards the possible risk. Moreover, this strategy makes the 11
work of the authority more transparent to citizens, since they can understand the problems within the subject areas better. Being transparent and inclusive in this case is a way to combine the increase of awareness amongst residents as well as to make the population less vulnerable.
Figure 6 - Example for Flood Marks in Dresden, Germany (Sächsisches Landesamt für Umwelt, 2018)
Another approach to strengthen awareness for hazards and risk is to improve the resident’s knowledge about the issue. In many cases, citizens do not know about possible threats since they do not have specific knowledge in this field and there is often a lack of public alert through that. The Geotechnical Engineering Office of the Hong Kong Government launched a program about awareness and response to landslide situation. They offer general information for the public, but also for professionals, students and teachers with more specific information on the topic. Landslides are a long-term issue in Hong Kong. Having quite hilly terrain with a lot of significant constructions close to hillsides and heavy summer rainfalls due to monsoons, they are very prone to landslides (Figure 7). Since landslides cause damage on properties and roads and can also cause casualties, the aim is to reduce the exposure of the public to potential landslide events. Already in the 1970s the government introduced the Geotechnical Engineering Office dealing with slope safety after a few catastrophic events during that time. The office is using real-time rainfall data from rain gauges to monitor possible threats. Citizens can track the conditions around Hong Kong with high-resolution satellite images and other information online. Besides this, the Geotechnical Engineering Office issues general information about the risk to the public. The information consists of several aspects. Citizens are informed about possible indicators for landslides, how they can detect danger on a slope or on a retaining wall. Furthermore, the residents are told what to do if they encounter a suspicious area. There are official flyers and posters that contain the most important information summarized for the residents (Figure 8). The Landslip Warning System informs the public via radio, television, mobile apps and official websites about warnings when a threatened area is detected. (Geotechnical Engineering Office, 2012b, Geotechnical Engineering Office, 2012a). Figure 7 - Baguio Villas landslide, Hong Kong Island (8 May 1992) ((Geotechnical Engineering Office, 2012c)
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Figure 8 – Information flyer about landslides for citizens in Hong Kong (Geotechnical Engineering Office, 2012b)
Referring this to Trondheim, the responsible authority for landslide warning is the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) that is running the website varsom.no. The service of this site encompasses information about avalanches, floods and landslides. Specific up-to-date information about the topics can be retrieved for every region in Norway and warning levels can be viewed in a map (Figure 9). The service also includes free warning alerts via SMS or Email if users subscribe. Additionally, there are information hotlines for each of the three hazards and mobile apps. Generally, the public can receive information about possible threats quite easily through this service (Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat (NVE), 2018). The service kriseinfo.no also offers information about risks to the public. If a disaster happens, it is the contact that provides the citizens with information about the proceeding (The Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning (DSB), 2018). However, as we encountered while speaking to local citizens in Trondheim, the service of varsom.no is not very well known and used only by a few people. Residents are not aware of the possibility to retrieve information about the hazards through this service, neither they seemed very interested in dealing with these issues. What else is different between the Hong Kong Landslide Service and the Norwegian one is that citizens are not incorporated to help detecting suspicious areas. The Norwegian service also gives advice on how to, for example, detect risky areas for avalanches or landslides, however no participation of the citizens towards reporting is expected. To bring more awareness about the issue to the public it might be useful to try to make the website varsom.no and its applications (SMS, Email-service, hotline and mobile app) more popular in the population. This can be done with workshops, for example in schools, flyers, TV advertisements or billboards in the area. In Malaysia, a similar campaign about landslide awareness for citizens was launched. With the motto “Safe Slopes Save Lives” the program increased public attention towards the issue (Ahmad et al., 2017). However, processes like these are continuous and require long-term work. If authorities work on a long-term basis towards more awareness, participation and preparedness then the outcomes will certainly as well be long-lasting.
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Concluding, two possible actions that can be introduced in Trondheim in the context of increasing public awareness for risks and transparent government decisionmaking are the introduction of landmarks of previous disasters and to train the citizens for identifying risks. The installation of marks that remind residents of past catastrophic events is a short-term proposal, since the effects are noticed immediately. Being confronted with the reminder suddenly on an everyday-basis raises awareness right away and might initiate thinking about possible risks. Secondly, programs for the training of citizens towards disastrous situations helps to build long-term awareness. Improving the citizens’ knowledge about relevant risks is a process that takes some time. However, once knowledge is build up and knowledge is established, it is lasting. Figure 9 – Current warning levels for landslides (Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat (NVE), 2018)
3.5.
Discussion
The investigation of government decision-making in Trondheim and the citizens’ possibilities to participate actively in this process showed that the city and the country of Norway already offer a variety of programs and services that the residents can use. However, the problem is that very often these services are not used nor well-known. To increase awareness and to foster resilience for the city of Trondheim in terms of transparent decision-making, the residents should be better informed by authorities about the possibilities. However, as a lot of services are already available and not used, it can also be assumed that residents do not need more information to trust in the authorities’ decisionmaking.
4. Discussion and Conclusion To sum up, in terms of governance goals for building of urban resilience in Trondheim, there is a variety of actions that could be introduced. Trondheim is perceived as a safe city by its residents and the governance structures are well communicated if citizens want to get information. Overall, the decision-making structures as well as the systems to deter crime work well. However, the systems face some limitations such as in the possibility of participation in terms of hazard monitoring by citizens or by crime prevention.
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