Climate Change Adaptation

 When you open the website klimatilpasning.dk you will be greeted by a site that not only discreetly signals, but loudly cries out 'municipality regulations' and dry facts.

But don’t let that scare you. The page gives you a lot of interesting knowledge, once you have taken the time to make the structure and content delivered by the Ministry of Climate and Energy's Information Center for Climate Change Adaptation transparent (so the ‘municipality’ wasn’t that out of place after all ...)

The website portal provides knowledge on climate change and its impact on our lives in areas like construction, coastlines, agriculture, fisheries, health, research and a number of other areas relevant to climate interested and - worried.

Besides delivering information on climate change, the site also provides information about how 'we' can act to adapt to these changes. This 'we' covers the entire Danish population from ministries, municipalities, businesses to individuals, and depending on who you define yourself as, you can wonder on to the subpages.

Citizens
The citizens subpage provides primarily information for homeowners with tips to ensure your house from being flooded during the winter storms and rise of sea level. But you also find information for all the many pollen plagued red noses (http://www.klimatilpasning.dk/da-DK/Sundhed/Pollen/Sider/Forside.aspx) – unfortunately only in Danish so far.

Immediately you probably would hink 'pollen allergy – how is that climate relevant?’ But indeed, it is. A warmer climate means longer pollen season, with more doctor visits, increased medication, increase in sick leave, reduced working hours and ultimately reduced quality of life.
Klimatilpasning.dk does not provide information on how to avoid a medicine doped, pollen-depressed population, but refers wisely to the experts in the national Asthma and Allergy Association.

Municipality
The municipally headline covers examples, knowledge and answers on how future planning can be made. The data seem equally to address citizens as well as municipal employees, and a nice initiative is the contact information linked to each case, which allows you to dig deeper than the website can offer.

Here you can read about ‘No more overloaded sewer system' , and how the municipality in Aalborg is coping with this, 'Can the roads cope with more water'  - an insight into the problem with flooded roads and 'Climate-adaptive hospitals require collaboration', a discussion on how architects, engineers and developers must collaborate on building the future hospitals in Denmark.

Profession
Perhaps the most interesting subpage is the ‘professions’ page, which is targeted at an audience that may want to develop a more climate-friendly approach, but also must consider the economy on an entirely different level than the municipals and citizens.
Especially for small businesses it is a problematic obstacle to start or turn the business 'green' in the broadest sense of the word.

The business site focuses on both disadvantages and advantages for agriculture, fisheries, construction, forestry and many other professionals in coping with more rain, wind and extreme weather. Maybe most importantly for the production and construction sector is the advice given on 'Climate change on buildings and constructions' and how this will effect future building projects.

Interactivity – more or less
Klimatilpasning.dk is much more than links to relevant executives, reports and fact sheets.

As the title 'climate maps' suggests, you can see an illustration of how the future climate looks on a map. The map shows, for example, how changes in the average number of heat waves in the period 2071-2100 for the A2 climate scenario (it sounds seriously ...) looks ( in a somewhat pixellated, color blob illustration.

I see, however, absolutely no reason why the whole country must be lubricated in a dark purple color, or how it illustrates the number of heat waves - which, luckily, is forecasted not to change during the period.
A little more explanation and technical refinement will certainly raise the information level, but the idea is good.

Klimatilpasning.dk is indeed filled with a lot of information that is worth studying if you are just the slightest interested in how our society will be affected by climate change. And especially the cooperation and references to other experts in the field is good communication with citizens, business people and municipal employees.

The website design however needs a loving review if the user experience shall be enhanced.