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
