What You Don't Know Can't Help You - Public Awareness About Social and Green Infrastructure

Abstract

Abstract As climate change exacerbates the frequency and severity of natural hazards and as governments face constrained finances, new, more affordable strategies to mitigate and adapt to extreme weather are crucial. Social and green infrastructure - spaces and places where residents build trust and engagement, and actual or biomimicking engineered habitats, respectively - enhance disaster resilience. Funding and implementing social and green infrastructure require public awareness, broader understanding, and societal support. While expert groups are presumed to have a higher level of knowledge of these systems, the general public's awareness and understanding remain less clear. This study uses a new representative survey of approximately 1,000 U.S. adults as well as more than 80 experts in disaster resilience, to assess knowledge of these systems across demographic groups along with different levels of expertise, social capital, and disaster experience. Controlling for a wide variety of factors, experts have more knowledge of social and green infrastructure. Put bluntly, broader public awareness of these strategies is low and occasionally hostile. Additionally, education level is a significant factor for knowledge of social infrastructure. The study underscores the need for educational initiatives and curriculum inclusion to bridge the knowledge gap and build community preparedness against climate-related disasters.

Keywords: Keywords: social infrastructure, green infrastructure, Disaster resilience, Climate change, quantitative stud