News
Book chapter on the anticipation of natural hazards
How do temporal expectations shape personal and collective experiences and influence our perspectives and responses in the realm of catastrophe and disaster risk management?
Our colleagues Monika G. Bartoszewicz and Reidar Staupe (UiT) have collected ten essays exploring this topic in their recently published book A Time of Disastrous Anticipations. Essays on life in the shadow of catastrophe. The book includes a chapter on understanding natural hazards through the lens of instrumental realism, by our phd student Leikny Bakke Lie together with Reidar Staupe.
(Disclaimer - review written by AI): In this compelling chapter, Bakke Lie and Staupe offer a fresh and thought-provoking lens for understanding natural hazards—one that goes beyond conventional technical risk assessments. Drawing on the philosophy of technology and the concept of instrumental realism, they illuminate how our knowledge of hazards is fundamentally shaped by the instruments and technologies we use to perceive, measure, and predict them.
Through vivid vignettes from Norway’s dramatic fjord landscapes—such as the notorious Åknes rockslide and the devastating Tafjord tsunami of 1934—the authors explore how local communities experience risk not only as a statistical likelihood but as an embodied and lived reality. They delve into the different relationships people form with technology—embodied, alterity, and transcendental—to show how tools like early warning systems or monitoring devices mediate our engagement with threats we cannot perceive directly.
Crucially, the chapter challenges readers to consider whose knowledge counts in risk governance. While expert-driven models dominate, Bakke Lie and Staupe argue for a more inclusive approach that values local understanding, everyday experience, and the affective dimensions of living with risk. In doing so, they advocate for a more democratic and reflective disaster management regime that recognizes the socio-technical complexity of anticipating natural hazards.
This chapter is essential reading for anyone interested in disaster studies, environmental governance, science and technology studies, and the human dimensions of climate risk. It offers a powerful call to rethink how we know, manage, and live with natural hazards in a world of growing uncertainty.
Bakke Lie, L., & Staupe, R. (2025). Ch. 10: Understanding natural hazard phenomena and risks from the perspective of ‘instrumental realism’: Examples from Geiranger and Lyngen, Norway. In: A Time of Disastrous Anticipations. Essays on life in the shadow of catastrophe. Staupe, R. & Bartoszewicz, M. G. (Eds). Routledge.
Published: 24.06.2025
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Climate change adaptation - Research meets Practice
I Front, the municipal network for climate adaptation, recently gathered in Tromsø for a two-day seminar, and we got the opportunity to present some of the most recent research on municipal climate adaptation in Norway for practitioners across Norway.
The long-standing municipal climate adaptation network, IFront, recently met up in Tromsø for a two-day gathering. The network is coordinated by the Norwegian Environment Agency, and consists of 13 larger municipalities across Norway. Its aim is to contribute to furthering the climate adaptation efforts in Norway through providing an arena for developing and sharing knowledge and competency.
As part of their official program, our PhD student Leikny Bakke Lie was asked to present some of the recent findings from her research project on climate change adaptation in Norwegian municipalities. The presentation and the findings presented resonated with the practitioners from municipalities across Norway, and we had a great discussion on various challenges and potential solutions that the local governance level is facing in adapting to a changing climate.
Hosting the IFront gathering, Tromsø municipality took us on an interesting tour around the city center, where we got the opportunity to discuss current practical adaptation issues and challenges in the area. And on the second day, Astrid Arnslett from CICERO facilitated an engaging workshop on how to improve outreach within the municipalities.
These two days of experience transfer and discussions on municipal climate adaptation in practice, and how networks can assist in facilitating such efforts on a local level, was really interesting and engaging to take part in. As early-career researchers it was a great experience to share some of our research findings and to learn more about climate adaptation from the practitioner's point of view, highly relevant for both Leikny’s focus on building resilience through adaptation efforts and decision-making tools, and our PhD student Laurien de Korte’s ongoing project on climate adaptation networks.
A big thanks to the organizers Johanne Kryger and Anja Johnsen from Tromsø municipality, and Roar Skuterud and Synneva Geithus Laastad from The Norwegian Environment Agency for inviting us to partake in this years' IFront gathering!
Published: 16.06.2025
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Beredt!-project Kick-off
The Beredt!-project is up and running, and after a few online meetings with research partners and stakeholders, we finally got the chance to meet up physically in Oslo for a two-day workshop.
Through the two-day workshop members from our consortium got to know each other better and form a solid foundation to build our further research on.
Our stakeholders from Karlsøy, Tromsø and Vågå municipality, the County Governor of Troms and Finnmark, as well as from the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection (DSB), provided insightful presentations on needs and barriers in their respective work on preparing for and coping with climate-related natural hazards.
The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) presented various data on past events in the two case regions, which provided us with a solid overview of what challenges these regions are facing and ensuring we all have a joint situational awareness before diving into the discussions on how we can approach the challenges through our research project Beredt! - Scalable services and risk-based governance for climate-driven natural hazards in Norway. Ending the first day of the workshop with a presentation from our PhD-student Leikny, giving an overview of climate projections in the two regions to prepare us for what we can expect in terms of climate risk going forward, as well as presenting recent research on how Norwegian municipalities are building resilience to climate-related natural hazards through climate adaptive efforts.
The focus of the second day of the workshop was pointing forward to start planning the activities of our 3-year research project. NGI arranged a very engaging group work session where three groups, one per municipality, discussed the specific challenges that can occur in the three stages of an avalanche- or flooding event; the before - during - and the aftermath of the event. Here we were able to pinpoint a few common barriers and needs, which will form the basis for what to focus on in our project going forward. Lastly, Maria Sydnes from our research group arranged a session for the groups, where we discussed and tried to identify relevant stakeholders and how these could or should be involved in the different stages of our project. And finally, we started planning for our workshops this fall - one in Troms and one in Innlandet, and we are really excited about diving into the details going forward!
Published: 10.04.2025
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