Is it all about awareness? The normalization of coastal riskCoastal 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.

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The coastal areas, unique spaces of extraordinary natural wealth, are attractive areas for economic and urban activities. These human interventions may easily interfere with their uniqueness and sensitivity, causing conflicts involving several uses and interests. In Portugal, such problems also occur in a specific zone of the coastal areas -

Adaptation to climate change is a process that should engage different participants, including not only researchers and technicians but also other stakeholders and local individuals and, therefore, it is important to understand their beliefs on the local effects of climate change. Recent studies illustrate a linear relation between coastal distance and scepticism, which is lower in coastal zones than in inland. A possible explanation is that people living inland do not experience (or do not perceive) particular natural hazards as being caused by climate change, or attribute the natural hazards to other causes, apart from climate change. This might influence the relative importance of dealing with direct anthropogenic effects and planning adaptation to climate change. Therefore, the goal of this work was to explore this effect by comparing beliefs on the local effects of climate change in Aveiro region (Portugal), specifically in Baixo Vouga Lagunar (BVL, located in the inner side of Ria de Aveiro Coastal Lagoon, 10 km distance from the coast) with the nearby coastal zone between Esmoriz and Vagueira settlements. Stakeholders were interviewed and local individuals were surveyed in order to explore causal attributions towards relevant local environmental problems and compare with data available from the coastal zone. Natural hazards concerned flooding in BVL and shoreline retreat in the coastal zone. Results suggest that in BVL both stakeholders and local residents did not attribute local natural hazards to climate change. However, in the coastal zone, local natural hazards were indeed mostly attributed to climate change. This attribution to climate change was further correlated to a higher risk perception of natural hazards in the coastal zone but not in BVL. Thereby, it is important to consider distance from the shoreline in order to promote local processes of adaptation to climate change.

A procura excessiva pelas  áreas costeiras trouxe consequências desastrosas ao nível do ordenamento do território, com a construção desregrada do edificado, surgindo mesmo inúmeras situações de residências secundárias em áreas de risco costeiro. Apresenta-se o caso do Furadouro, onde se verifica um acentuado recuo da linha de costa e uma excessiva urbanização, sendo 2/3 das habitações ocupadas do tipo residência secundária. Apesar da protecção do aglomerado depender  de  estruturas de defesa costeira, será que esta população tem consciência das alterações da linha de costa e dos riscos costeiros a que está sujeita? É urgente a recuperação da sustentabilidade ambiental e urbana das áreas costeiras, a qual depende largamente da participação e do envolvimento activo da população.