Filomena Martins

Is it all about awareness? The normalization of coastal risk

Coastal risk is already high in several parts of the world and is expected to be amplified by climate change, which makes it necessary to outline effective risk management strategies. Risk managers assume that increasing awareness of coastal risk is the key to public support and endorsement of risk management strategies – an assumption that underlies a common worldview on the public understanding of science, which has been named the deficit model. We argue that the effects of awareness are not as straightforward. In particular, awareness of coastal hazards might not lead to more technically accurate risk perceptions. Based on research on risk perception normalization, we explored the hypothesis that coastal risk awareness reduces coastal risk perception – in particular the perceived likelihood of occurrence of coastal hazards – through its effect on reliance on protective measures to prevent risk. Individuals can rely on protective measures, even when those are not effective, as a positive illusion to reduce risk perception. This effect might be stronger for higher probability hazards and for permanent residents of costal zones. Data from 410 individuals living in coastal zones corroborated most of our expectations. Global results demonstrated a risk normalization effect mediated by reliance on current measures. Additional analyses made clear that this effect occurred in 2 of the 5 high-probability hazards (flood and storm), and not in the low-probability hazard (tsunami). Normalization might be more likely among high-probability hazards which entail catastrophic and immediate impacts. This effect was also found among permanent residents, but not among temporary residents. Results imply that coastal risk management might benefit from (a) taking risk perception normalization effects into account, (b) tailoring strategies for permanent and temporary residents and (c) promoting a higher public engagement, which would facilitate a more adaptive and effective coping with coastal risk than the use of positive illusions.

Assessing the socio-economic impacts of green/blue space, urban residential and road infrastructure projects in the Confluence (Lyon): a hedonic pricing simulation approach

Urban green/blue spaces are put under pressure as urban areas grow, develop and evolve. It is increasingly recognized, however, that green/blue spaces provide important ecosystem services, stimulate higher real estate prices and prevent flooding problems. This paper aims to assess and compare the socio-economic impacts of potential green/blue space, urban residential and road infrastructure development scenarios in the Lyon Confluence project area (France), using the Sustainable Urbanizing Landscape Development (SULD) hedonic pricing simulation model. Results show four major tendencies regarding the value-added of green/blue spaces in urban landscapes: (1) cities become more compact; (2) population densities increase; (3) real estate values rise; and (4) demographic distribution patterns change. The magnitude of these impacts depends, however, on the quality and size of the intervention, the social classes attracted to the intervention area and on the location of the intervention relative to existing residential areas, urban centres, road infrastructure and environmental amenities.

Construction of a web-based geographical information system – the case of “Ria de Aveiro” region

Abstract “Ria de Aveiro” is a branded tourism region site, in the Central region of Portugal, which comprises a variety of natural and cultural tourist products and resources, which needs to be integrated in a way to enhance the promotion and management of this destination. In this way, Ria de Aveiro web-based Geographical Information System (GIS) was developed, providing an integrated platform aimed to better manage the tourism activity in this region. In this paper, it is pretended to demonstrate the potential use of GISs and spatial analysis in tourism planning, and to evaluate the ability of GIS as a tool to support integrated management of tourism.

Desafios e possibilidades na formação de professores – em torno da análise de relatórios de estágio

Este texto analisa relatorios de estagio produzidos no quadro de um curso de mestrado profissionalizante para o 1o Ciclo do Ensino Basico numa instituicao de ensino superior publico em Portugal (Universidade de Aveiro). Trata-se de compreender, a partir dos relatorios escritos e defendidos por futuras professoras, as potencialidades de formacao de um trabalho pedagogico-didatico que elege a diversidade linguistica como objeto de intervencao. Analisa-se o conteudo do discurso de professoras em formacao inicial, recolhido num dispositivo de acao, investigacao e formacao, para compreensao das potencialidades de construcao de conhecimento profissional que os espacos de redacao dos relatorios de estagio sobre as praticas de educacao para a diversidade abrem, identificando desafios e possibilidades que se colocam atualmente a formacao inicial de professores.

Educar para os direitos culturais e linguísticos

The intense process of cultural change of societies leads to the recognition of its multicultural character. Faced with this reality it becomes necessary educate to a multidimensional citizenship and planetary, consonant with human rights and sustainable development. It is therefore our intention, to present a study from an intervention program in a primary school class. The aim of the study is to understand the importance of a language and cultural awareness, spotlighting modifications in representations of participants in the study, with special focus on affective and ethical dimension of education.