Assessing the local perception of climate change in a small island : a case study

• Autor(a) principal: Benedicto Royuela, José
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Hervías Parejo, Sandra, Ambros, Barbara, Cruz, Azucena De La, Gil, Artur José Freire
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/226394
• topic: Global Change; Local Impacts of Climate Change; Local Perception of Climate Change; Island-scale Mitigation; Adaptation Policy-support; Outermost European Regions; Overseas Countries and Territories; OERs

The effects of climate change are global, but small islands are among the most vulnerable places. Local populations on small islands might have a ground-based perspective of the impacts that threaten them. This study was undertaken on Corvo (Azores), where 34% of the residents of both genders and different education levels were surveyed. Here, their understanding of climate change and their perception of its local impacts, the sense of risk, the local areas at risk, the willingness to propose mitigation and adaptation strategies, and the knowledge of regional procedures was analysed. Education played a crucial role in local understanding. The general perception was that the regional policies were insufficient to address climate change issues at the local level. This fact points out that the efforts to mitigate climate change impacts, and the public participation procedures for supporting policy-making, must be significantly increased and improved, in order to reach a real impact on local island communities.