Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL

Avalanche bulletin and snow situation
Edition: Mon 23.12., 17:00
Avalanche Bulletin

Media perception of drought 2018

Background

The drought in 2018 was perceived very differently by the population and the media. The following questions arise:

- What issues concern the population with regard to drought?
- How unusual is the perception of drought in 2018? How relevant/cutting is the drought 2018 considered to be for personal everyday life, for the community and for Swiss society? What is the focus of the media? (Drinking water/groundwater; winter tourism/snow; transport/Rhine shipping; agriculture/subsidies)
- What consequences/follow-up risks of drought are considered to be particularly significant?
- What causes of drought are suspected? What is the significance of climate change?
- What measures should be taken to deal with future droughts? Has perception and interest changed since July 2018?

Analysis

The access statistics of the drought.ch platform are evaluated: 1) temporal analysis, which typed maps are considered more often, which less; correlation between accesses and media releases (also regional concerning the nine hydroclimatic major regions, between accesses and meteorological conditions as well as a connection between the colouring of the typed maps and the accesses is recognizable. 2) Search for media articles (Swissdox) as well as the analysis of the occurring terms, their occurrence frequency and the identification of the terms (in which application context they appear; keyword: term clouds). 3) Conduct exploratory interviews with regionally different actors in two to three typical regions of Switzerland, determine random samples in the study regions and evaluate the data statistically (descriptive, group comparisons, correlations).

First results

Number of articles (daily and weekly newspapers) per publication location. The region of northeastern Switzerland most severely affected by the drought is clearly reflected in the articles published.
Comparison of the number of visitors (in red) and the published articles per day (in blue). The heat phase in July and August is clearly recognizable.
Comparison of the print media and the visitor accesses (left) and the integrated dryness situation on drought.ch (right)
Perception of the drought in 2018 in three selected municipalities: Surses GR (Alps), Niederbüren SG (rural lowlands), Birsfelden BL (agglomeration). These selected municipalities represent different topographic and socio-demographic characteristics for data collection.

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