Grit Martinez

Ecologic Institute · Coastal Studies

Climate information plays a foundational role in achieving a green recovery and climate neutrality in Europe, and a central one for a climate resilient Europe. This role can materialize if climate information is delivered appropriately and used effectively. Climate services, understood as the provision of climate information for use in decision mak...

Ecotourism gives tourists the opportunity to improve knowledge and awareness of environmental issues while on vacation. Recreational environmental education has been proven an effective method to raise perception of human impact on ecosystems. “Glocal Education” is an education project aimed at developing environmental interest in tourists on vacat...

From November 12th to 13th in 1872, an extreme coastal flood event occurred in the south Baltic Sea. An unusual combination of winds created a storm surge reaching up to 3.5 m above mean sea level, which is more than a meter higher than all other observations over the past 200 years. On the Danish, German, and Swedish coasts, about 300 people lost...

This paper deals with how culture is expressed through the interplay of socially, politically, and economically driven processes and practices in place-based biophysical contexts as well as the role played by narrative expressions in the formation of coastal risk management, knowledge and action. It draws upon ethnographic, comparative, and histori...

Climate services were initially established with the aim to make the vast amount of climate data, projections and other climate science output publicly available to support the development of responses to society’s vulnerability to climate change. In Europe embraced the concept was not only embraced to provide access to scientific knowledge and red...

This chapter gives an overview of how cultural analysis is able to tackle spatial dynamics narratives that are connected with different natural resources and their climate impacts. It is divided into five sections: (1) culture and its representations; (2) resilience; (3) cultural codes in relation to the adaptation of climate requirements; (4) cult...

This book addresses why values, knowledge, and identity matter in building community resilience in place-based contexts. Case studies from different geographical regions in Europe illustrate how past and present societal trajectories shape local and regional responses to climate change and why this concerns political decision makers at all levels w...

The case studies presented in Chaps. 3, 4, 5, and 6 show the biophysical diversity of Europe’s coasts and islands, mountains, and plains in urban and peripheral settings. However, they differ in terms of their culture, institutional organization, political structures, and economies, and hence they portray how cultures—which are understood as values...

“This collection centering on the relationship between culture, place and climate change provides essential background for cultural heritage specialists who are mobilising the past to equip communities for the future…” - Dr. Antony Firth, MCIfA, Director of Fjordr Ltd., UK This book addresses the importance of cultural values, local knowledge and...

Recent and historic high-impact events have demonstrated significant flood risks to many coastal areas in Europe and across the globe. Understanding the behavior of humans in relation to risk management poses grand challenges for both natural and social sciences and humanities. The study analyzes the cultural aspects of coastal risk management and...

Profound societal transformations are needed to move society from unsustainability to greater sustainability under continually changing social and environmental conditions. A key challenge is to understand the influences on and the dynamics of collective behavior change toward sustainability. In this paper we describe our approach to (1) understand...

Drawing on anthropological research in North Carolina and the German Baltic Coast, Martinez argues that effective climate-change communication needs to take into account the cultural context of the intended the audience. While climate change is a global threat, local places vary widely in how much trust they place in climate science and how recepti...

About this issue For decades, climate scientists have been producing data demonstrating that climate change is a real, urgent threat to humanity. Yet this has not translated into political action—or even widespread public concern—at the scale needed to tackle the problem in time. Has climate science failed us? This volume tackles the question of w...

Diffuse Water Pollution from Agriculture (DWPA) and its governance has received increased attention as a policy concern across the globe. Mitigation of DWPA is a complex problem that requires a mix of policy instruments and a multi-agency, broad societal response. In this paper, opportunities and barriers for developing co-governance, defined as co...

Soil has the capacity to store or release nutrients. This process varies significantly from one location to another. From 2014-2018, the BONUS Soils2Sea project focused on the retention from N and P between the soils/sewage outlets and the coast for assessing the variation in retention among different surface water systems. The investigations were...

On November 13, 1872 an extreme flood occurred in the coastal areas surrounding the South Baltic Sea. An extreme storm surge in combination with high waves caused the death of about 300 people and more than 15,000 people lost their homes. Along the coast of Scania, southern Sweden, at least 23 people were killed and more than 100 houses were destro...

Anpassung an den Klimawandel kann zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung beitragen, insbesondere wenn sie mit sozialen Innovationen einhergeht. Das Kapitel untersucht transformative Ansätze zur Anpassung, die im Angesicht von tiefgreifenden Klimarisiken notwendig werden und über ein reines mainstreaming von Maßnahmen in bestehende Instrumente hinausgeht. Ges...

This paper illustrates both the potential and challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration amongst researchers from the social sciences/humanities and the natural sciences/engineering in formulating disaster risk reduction measures for coastal regions. The authors aim to share their experiences of working across different scientific and engineerin...

Recent and historic low-frequency, high-impact events have demonstrated the flood risks faced by exposed coastal areas in Europe and beyond. These coastal zone risks are likely to increase in the future which requires a re-evaluation of coastal disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies and a new mix of PMP (prevention, e.g., dike protection; mitigat...

This paper presents a new approach to guiding coastal stakeholders about making informed decisions about Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) measures and alternatives. As part of the RISC-KIT project and tool box, the paper presents a holistic DRR measure approach including the biophysical environment, governance aspects and practical examples from coast...

Final policy brief from the Resilience Increasing Strategies for Coasts - Toolkit (RISC-KIT) summarizing key recommendations for policy makers from the implementation of the toolkit in 10 European cities.

This Synthesis Report provides an overview of the achievements, lessons learned and challenges identified through the RISC-KIT project activities, including the development and application of the tools at ten case study sites in a range of coastal regions across Europe. The lessons learned are then fed into a series of recommendations for improved...

This book is inspired by the positive feedback received by the Adaptation Inspiration Book developed in CIRCLE-2, coordinated by the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. This inspiration book is a culmination of four years extensive case study research carried out within the EU FP7 Project BASE: Bottom-up climate adaptation strategies towards...

High-impact storm events have demonstrated the vulnerability of coastal zones in Europe and beyond. These impacts are likely to increase due to predicted climate change and ongoing coastal development. In order to reduce impacts, disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures need to be taken, which prevent or mitigate the effects of storm events. To drive...

Coastal communities have been repeatedly threatened by the ephemeral character of the coast. Morphological changes derived from climate events and sea level oscillations forced the relocation of coastal communities over the past, but never prevented the occupation of this fragile source of wealth. Moreover, the socio-economic impact of high energy...

This contribution explores the role of culture in relation to local knowledge and values as displayed in the interpretations and actions of distinct groups of residents, concerning adapting to climate change in Dorchester County. Situated in the Mid-Atlantic area on the East Coast of the US, Dorchester County is at risk due to projected high sea le...

Using of the results of survey questionnaires distributed to climate scientists who focus on the German Baltic coast, regional political decision makers on the German Baltic coast and weather observations from the same region, this paper assesses the existence of developing climate-change lore and the implications for the role of climate science in...

Recent and historic high-impact events have demonstrated the flood risks faced by exposed coastal areas. These risks will increase due to climate change and economic development. This requires a re-evaluation of coastal disaster risk reduction DRR strategies and prevention, mitigation and preparedness PMP measures. To this end, the UN Office for Di...

A changing climate is not only a phenomenon addressing the natural world. Social aspects are also a cause of and are affected by climate change, for which reason social dynamics must be considered in climate change adaptation. Being key factors in creating and solving the challenges of climate change, end users, decision makers and local residents...

Der Klimawandel ist nicht nur ein globales Problem, sondern wird auch konkrete Folgen für die Menschen in Deutschland haben. Nur wenn es gelingt, die zukünftigen Klimaveränderungen und ihre voraussichtlichen Folgen zu kommunizieren, ist eine rechtzeitige Anpassung möglich. Nur dann können Gefahren minimiert und Chancen genutzt werden. Wie aber kann...

In diesem Beitrag wird die Verarbeitung von Klimarisiken und die daraus abgeleiteten Maßnahmen zur Anpassung in zwei Küstengemeinden an der deutschen Ostsee erläutert. Schwerpunkte der Betrachtung sind die sozial-kulturell, ökologisch und ökonomisch bedingten Beweggründe, die in den Gemeinden Timmendorfer Strand und Ummanz zu einer unterschiedliche...

Der RADOST Report Nr. 19 befasst sich mit internationalen Fallbeispielen der Klimaanpassung. Entlang der sechs Fokusthemen (Küstenschutz, Tourismus und Strandmanagement, Gewässermanagement und Landwirtschaft, Häfen und maritime Wirtschaft, Naturschutz und Nutzungen sowie Erneuerbare Energien) ergänzt um die Themen Planung und Partizipation werden j...

Presently about 40% of the world’s population lives within 100km of a coastline. Climate Change and sea level rise being a relatively new policy challenge, experience as to the choice and design of appropriate response measures is scarce and fragmented in coastal areas. Increasing the availability and transfer of pertinent knowledge across national...

Ecologic Institute and Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (previously GKSS) conducted an online survey with regional political stakeholders from the German Baltic Sea coast in spring 2011. Eleven hundred actors at the community level in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein were surveyed on their perceptions of climate-induced changes in thei...

Das Ecologic Institut und das Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (früher GKSS) führten im Frühjahr 2011 eine Online-Umfrage bei regionalen politischen Entscheidungsträgern an der deutschen Ostseeküste durch. Befragt wurden 1.100 kommunale Akteure in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Schleswig-Holstein zu ihren Wahrnehmungen von klimabedingten Veränderungen in i...