Reducing the Gap Between Science, Policy and Practice: The Role of Civil Protection

Abstract

Climate change confronts human society with a variety of new challenges. Among the various hazards in prospective scenarios, there is an increasing pressure on soil due to climatic variations, effects and impacts. This paper offers a perspective in the debate about science-policy-practice interface, about climate change and emerging hazards, analyzing a 50 years’ time-series of the Marche Region’s (central Italy) meteorological data and perception data. The analysis of meteorological data highlights a significant increasing trend in temperature both annually and seasonally, and a significant decreasing trend in daily precipitation in all seasons except autumn, which are causing a reduction in soil water availability. Moreover an historical analysis on the number of the regional landslides shows an increasing trend in the number of shallow landslides in the last 30 years. The perception data where obtained through the analysis of approximately 800 questionnaires carried out in the Marche Region in May–June 2011 to residents, policy makers and emergency managers. The analysis of questionnaires revealed a high awareness of climate change and apprehension about it causes and possible effects. Moreover the analysis highlights a differentiated concern about the increase in the number of landslides and their socio-economic impacts among the three groups. This could be due to an ineffective information exchange among scientific community, public administration, emergency managers and citizens. Therefore, we suggest that the “brokerage” role of the Civil Protection Agency in the information exchange process should be increased.