Visualization for supporting individual climate change adaptation planning: Assessment of a web-based tool

Homeowners are important actors in implementing climate change adaptation. However, individual socio-cognitive constraints related to risk perceptions and perceived capacity may hamper their action. Climate change visualization could help planning and management overcome such constraints by offering accessible information to increase individual adaptive capacity. Such visualization would require that information be perceived as legitimate and credible by emphasizing the diversity of impacts and alternative options, and simultaneously as salient by highlighting context-specific risks and measures. Based on focus group interviews and test sessions, we analysed how homeowners made sense of and discussed a specific interactive planning support tool - VisAdapt™ - integrating climate scenarios, local risk maps, and adaptation measures for various house types. The tool combines precise and general depictions in visualizing climate change to support adaptation among Nordic homeowners. Results reveal that the tool spurred reflection on concrete local risks and various adaptation actions. The tool was less successful in providing a framework for assessing the magnitude of anticipated changes, making these appear as generally small. Visualization aspects that are important for spurring reflection on adaptive action are specifying various climate parameters, relating climate impacts to established practices for managing weather risks, and emphasizing diverse concrete short- and long-term measures.