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Subjective realities of climate change: how mental maps of impacts deliver socially sensible adaptation options

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Abstract

This paper discusses the perceived impacts of weather-related extreme events on different social groups in New Delhi, India. Using network statistics and scenario analysis with the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping as part of a vulnerability analysis, the investigation provides quantitative and qualitative measures to compare impacts and adaptation strategies for different social groups. Impacts of rain events and heat waves are considered and differ across groups. Rain events affect the lower income classes more, while heat waves are the bigger burden for higher income classes. Overall, the strength of perceived impacts is larger for lower income classes, directly threatening their daily incomes. Urban managers have no immediate feedback on their livelihood, but often refer to health issues. The strongest effect on ameliorating burdens is investments in schemes to ease traffic, e.g., by improving the sewage and drainage infrastructure paired with other supply side measures to enable transport of goods for lower income classes during rain. During heat events, improving the water supply situation would reduce burden for all, while constant electricity supply is an effective means in reducing burden for the higher income classes in particular. Our analysis suggests that improvements in the water supply and sewage infrastructure would be the most suitable first step to initiate a well-planned adaptation strategy for all social groups.

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Notes

  1. Other studies have applied a Likert scale asking the interviewees about the strength of influence, e.g., very small, small, medium, strong, and very strong. The expressions were only later converted into weights. We let the interviewees use numbers and tried different possibilities, e.g., weights between −10 and 10 and between 0 and 10. The solution to use numbers between 0 and 1 worked best, although using numbers in general seemed to be difficult for a good share of the interviewees.

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Acknowledgments

This work was part of the Climate Science and Policy Program of the TERI University in New Delhi/India. We want to thank MSc students Anubha Agrawal, Deepika Duggal, Tashina Esteves, Shreya Garg, Abhishek Nair, Drishya Nair, Pallavi Sharma, Seema D. Venkatesh, and Padma Wangmo and Dr Kamna Sachdeva as well as Rajiv Seth for their support. We also thank all interviewees. This study was funded partly by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) grant 01LG0506E.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Earth Institute, Columbia University, 406 Schermerhorn Hall, MC 5501, 1190 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Diana Reckien

  2. Umweltforschungsinstitut GLOBAL 2000/Friends of the Earth Austria, Neustiftgasse 36, 1070, Vienna, Austria

    Martin Wildenberg

  3. FCMapper, Syringgasse 3a/15, 1170, Vienna, Austria

    Michael Bachhofer

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  1. Diana Reckien
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  2. Martin Wildenberg
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Correspondence to Diana Reckien.

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Handled by Osamu Saito, Institute for Sustainability and Peace (UNU-ISP), Japan.

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Reckien, D., Wildenberg, M. & Bachhofer, M. Subjective realities of climate change: how mental maps of impacts deliver socially sensible adaptation options. Sustain Sci 8, 159–172 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-012-0179-z

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