Culture, space and climate change: vulnerability and resilience in European coastal areas (1st)

Ways of handling climate change vary worldwide. Differences can be observed in the perception of potential threats and opportunities as well as in the appraisal of adequate coping strategies.

Collective efforts often fail not because of technical restrictions, but as a result of social and cultural differences between the actors involved.

Consequently, there is a need to explore in greater depth those zones of cultural friction which emerge when actors deal with climate change.

This book examines how cultural differences in the handling of climate change can be described and explained.

The work develops the concept of culture as relational space, elaborates explanatory approaches, and investigates them by surveying more than 800 actors responsible for spatial development of the European coastal regions in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Poland.