Controlling the water: Collective practices of care as local response to climate change-related landslide risk

In the light of climate change and increasing frequency of climate change-related hazards, such as landslides, climate adaptation work is increasingly on the agenda of municipalities across Norway. The resources for climate adaptation and for hazard prevention, preparedness and response are, however, unevenly distributed. Remote municipalities with small populations meet large challenges since they must cover large areas with comparably little resources. This means that the citizens in small remote communities get more responsibility and a larger and more active role in climate adaptation work than citizens of big cities. This paper investigates how citizens of three small remote communities in Mid-Norway deal with landslides, focusing both on narratives about previous events and about present and future risk of landslides. The paper pays particular attention to the role that the citizens’ relations to and knowledge of the places they live in have for their engagement with climate adaptation. It finds that climate adaptation work can be seen as collective practices of care. Based on long-term connections with and experience-based knowledge about the places they live in, people have developed practices of observing nature and landscapes and controlling the water that may cause landslides, such as small streams or rainwater coming from roofs. Although citizens are aware of the (increasing) risk of landslides, trust in these collective practices of care in addition to trust in local authorities makes them feel safe in the places they live.