3.4. Suggested Projects or Activities

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

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)

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.