Towards more climate-robust socially important services: learning from cloudburst impacts on Swedish municipal welfare

As stated by the IPCC, climate-related risks, vulnerabilities and extreme weather effects are increasing due to e.g. climate change as well as geographical and demographic changes.

This applies not least to vulnerable groups and important welfare services, where the risk of being affected by extreme weather has become more tangible, not least visible by the drastic cloudbursts hitting Swedish municipalities in recent years. There is potentially much to learn from such extreme weather events.

However, the knowledge of impacts and its causes, beyond intensity, exposure and physical factors, is described as deficient.

This lack of understanding of social vulnerability for important welfare services such as school, preschool, home care and elderly care is described generating inadequate decision support and ineffective climate adaptation measures.

The purpose of this project is to increase knowledge about how important welfare services in Sweden have been impacted by cloudbursts, and the reasons for this, by studying 3-4 urban areas affected by cloudburst floods in recent years.

The cases are studied using inspections of damaged buildings and interviews with officials, actors representing key welfare services, and rescue services.

The analyzes of the material aim to; develop decision support prototypes for flood mitigation incorporating vulnerabilities of studied welfare services, tested with practitioners, and facilitate the development of effective adaptation measures.