3.3. Findings

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.