Despite a broadened perspective and a stronger consideration of the spatio-temporal dynamics of natural risks both the scholarly and policy debate in natural hazard risk management (NHRM) focuses on urban areas that exhibit socio-economic growth. Although demographic trends across Europe indicate that many hazard-prone regions face sustained population loss or stagnation due to ageing and out-migration, these structurally weak (rural) regions are largely unaccounted for in NHRM. This contribution explores the conceptual and empirical linkages between demographic change and NHRM. Based on an online survey (N=108) and a thematic review of the corresponding sectoral policy documents, the study investigates to which extent demographic change is a relevant factor in Austria’s NHRM and is reflected in regionally-attuned flood risk management strategies. Findings from the thematic analysis show that demographic change currently does not play a significant role content-wise in national strategies and action plans in the policy field of NHRM. However, the expert survey highlights that in particular demographic ageing and population decline, but also ongoing changes in household structure (i.e. increasing share of one-person households and second homes) will become increasingly relevant at different stages of the risk management cycle. For instance, population decline is expected to reduce the efficiency of technical mitigation and increasingly calls into question the readiness to finance and maintain costly mitigation infrastructure. Population decline moreover influences the operational capacities of emergency services, many of which are already struggling to recruit volunteers. Demographic ageing, on the other hand, is considered to reduce the individual and societal capacities to cope with damaging events, while the changing household structures is a relevant factor for post-disaster reconstruction as the capacities for inner-family self-help diminishes and second home owners are often not available to support communal reconstruction efforts.

Since the beginning of 1980s, population age structure in Serbia has started to transform “in favour” of elderly population, while total population number in rural areas has started to decrease. Being a consequence of decreasing birth rates and extensive rural-urban migration, mountain areas, especially villages, became the most influenced and vulnerable area when it comes to demographic trends, structure and future.

The Workshop presentation is going to indicate the basics of transformation of population trends and structures in Serbian mountain areas. Several elements of demographic change will be presented: population growth rate, birth rate, and share of young (0-14), working age population (15-64) and of elderly population (65 and more). An effort will be given to interpretation of migrations, although available data are limited. Comparison between trends of these indicators and trend of total population number and density will serve to explain the demographic change type and characteristics in case of Serbian mountain population. In conclusion, will be addressed spatial pressures that demographic changes bring and on necessary changes required in order to mitigate impacts.

Since the beginning of 1980s, population age structure in Serbia has started to transform “in favour” of elderly population, while total population number in rural areas has started to decrease. Being a consequence of decreasing birth rates and extensive rural-urban migration, mountain areas, especially villages, became the most influenced and vulnerable area when it comes to demographic trends, structure and future.

This poster is going to show the transformation of population trends and structures in Serbian mountain areas and classify them by overlapping different criteria of demographic change. Several elements of demographic change will be analysed and graphically presented, based on data from census years: population growth rate, birth rate, and share of young (0-14), working age population (15-64) and of elderly population (65 and more). An effort will be given to interpretation of migrations, although available data are limited. Comparison between trends of these indicators and trend of total population number and density will serve to explain the demographic change type and characteristics in case of Serbian mountain population. In addition, the poster will present territorial differences in the country and within the mountain area, aiming to conclude on spatial pressures that demographic changes bring and on necessary changes required in order to mitigate impacts.

This exploratory research investigates the interweave of Climate Change, Land Use and Socio-Economic Transformations with respect to Migration Flows in the Maluti-Drakensberg mountains, on the border between Lesotho and South Africa. The focus of the research is on the phenomenon of forced/voluntary and internal/international migration flows from mountain to urban areas, with a peculiar attention to young people moving to the cities, searching for better life and job conditions.

The data have been collected during a qualitative field research conducted in 2019 on a specific region of the Maluti-Drakensberg, through field trips to mountain areas in Lesotho and South Africa, interviews with local residents, direct observation, meeting with local communities and interviews with outmigrated people.

The study considers the pull and push factors for the out migration of young people.

Among the push factors, attention has been paid to the environmental ones, as: climate change; construction of dams and artificial basins; and land exploitation. At the same time, socio-economic push factors have been equally considered: among them the economic dependency on urban areas and neighboring South Africa; the high unemployment; and the mountain populations’ perception of natural risks and degradation of their territory.

Out migration pull factors have been also investigated, with a specific attention to socio-economic ones as the urbanization process in the lowlands and the attractiveness of urban life style; the educational or career opportunities offered faraway from mountain areas; and the migration policies and concrete opportunity for international out migration from Lesotho to South Africa.

Final remarks have been developed in order to discuss how mitigation strategies of climate change effects together with the identification of interventions for the safety and care of mountain territories may have an impact on migration flows, considering their interaction with socio-economic factors and land use.

Carinthia is one of the nine Federal States in Austria, located in the south of the country, bordering Italy and Slovenia and best known as tourist destination. Due to the OECD regional typology, except of the central area Klagenfurt-Villach, the whole region can be classified as predominantly rural. The region is characterized by large mountain ranges: Hohe Tauern, Gailtaler Alps, Carnic Alps, Gurktaler Alps, Karavanke Alps. Carinthia is the only Federal State in Austria whose population is shrinking. What is true for many other mountainous regions, several districts of the region face the challenge of both: birth deficits and outmigration.

Every year, about 5000 people move away from Carinthia. Most of them are young and intelligent, willing to find a good job or start a study program (ORF Kärnten, 30.8.2018). This population development and its consequences is analysed for years by scientists (e.g. study on brain drain and its backgrounds by Aigner-Walder/Klinglmair 2015) and only later discussed by the politics. The media is warning against the loss of intelligence (kleinezeitung.at, 2.8.2015) and further against the loss of Carinthia’s future due to outmigration (addendum.org, 26.2.2018).

As one reaction of this development, entrepreneurs and business representatives have founded the bottom-up “Initiative for Carinthia“. Several activities aim to offer new possibilities for people living in Carinthia. On the other hand, the governing coalition defined in the governmental program as one measure to implement a „Carinthian Welcome Center“.

Based on the case of the mountainous region Carinthia, this contribution analyses scientific, political and medial discussions on the demographic change, population decline, drivers for outmigration and the consequences for the regional development. The contribution aims further to investigate the activities undertaken by the politics and private initiatives to stop or reverse this trend and scrutinizes the dealing with international immigration to a mountainous region.

Phenomena such as that of "returning", "new farmers" or "new highlanders" indicate the mountain is perceived by youth as a context for sustainable growth characterized by quality of life, economic and cultural attractiveness, innovative and evolutive capacity.

The workshop presents a bunch of ongoing projects carried out in Lombardy, Trentino and other regions in the Alps about the redesign of mountain territories by young entrepreneurs who choose to stay or to return, live and work in those places.
Evidences include the number and typology of youth-led enterprises, their performance and impact, their business models and approach to market, as well as the typology and degree of innovation they generate in mountain areas.

The workshop represents the opportunity to share and discuss about emerged key topics such as peer-to-peer and Win-to-Win models, the bottom-up approach to business, the role of women entrepreneurs, the necessity for new tools and knowledge to stimulate more private funding (venture capitalists, investors, etc) and access to alternative funding tools (e.g. crowdfunding models, blockchain, etc).
In spite of the proved positive trend, strategic, economic and governance tools to support and enhance the phenomenon are still lacking.

Young Entrepreneurs and the Innovative Re-borning of Mountains - data from Lombardy Region, Trento and Bozen Autonomous Provinces, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia Regions

The poster pairs the workshop with data concerning young entrepreneurs and innovative enterprises in mountain areas.
Numbers and figures are organized in easy-to-get infographics in order to allow a fast learning about recorded trends and flows.

Particularly, the poster will offer the opportunity to go through the results obtained by researchers within the project Young Entrepreneurs and Innovative Enterprises in Mountain Areas is a project run by Unimont - Centre of Excellence of the University of Milan detached in Edolo (BS, Italy) in 2018 and by «Demographic change in the Alps» Research Group, at the Department of Geography of University of Innsbruck.

The first research team organized its work in three steps: (1) literature search, data collection and consequent data organization and analysis; (2) open survey to get further data and to pair the statistical analysis with the quantitative analysis. This provided relevant insight about elements which influenced the entrepreneurs in starting-up its business in mountain areas, his/her networks and relation with the territory; (3) in situ interviews to obtain qualitative analysis; semantic analysis and text mining were also applied to full transcriptions.

The second one dedicated a particular attention to the socio-economic effects of multi-level dwelling. Data proof the dynamics occured in the Eastern Italian Alps in the last ten years: it has emerged that the incoming of new inhabitants is very keen to create new economic activities. Most of them are interested in generating new opportunities out from the primary sector, creating locally virtuous processes of involvement of other (young) locals. Beside economic data related to the "green jobs", the research activities had the opportunities to investigate which are the spillover effects within and outside the communities of these novel initiatives.
Figures illustrate how most of them could be classified as cases of social innovation settled in mountain territories and potentially able to generate positive contaminations beyond that areas.

Long-term negative demographic trends in many mountain regions (of Europe) have led to a perception of mountains being characterized by places of weak economic performance, few economic potential and finally significant out-migration. As a result of these unfavourable attributions they were seen as areas of backwardness, mainly related to their situation of remoteness. With reference to their environmental sensitivity policies mainly focused on the aspect of „preserving“ its ecological characteristics and aimed at environmentally beneficial action. However, more recent analyses of shifts in policy discourse and observations on demographic trends underpinned a different development trend and guiding parameters.

In particular, in western European mountain areas, and especially in the Western Alps, immigration numbers started to outpace emigration since more than two decades. While the attractiveness for amenity migration is widely acknowledged the immigration due to job, family and education reasons was hardly recognized as relevant. However, recent analyses in many mountain contexts underpin the shift in migratory movements, revealing that mountains constitute one of the areas of “New Immigration Destinations” (NID).

The presentation will introduce a variety of different migration concepts and pathways, leaving a simple one-directional conception of migration behind. In most cases, overlaps and cumulative effects of different drivers and incentives for migration have to be taken into account and migration movements show bi-directional features, including return migration and circular migration elements. Additionally, small scale and place-based differences of migration movement and demographic development lead to areas that can be subsumed as inner peripheries while others profit from demographic growth. The discussion will focus on the particular contribution of mountain characteristics to foster these processes and consequences for regional demographic development.

In the rural hinterland of Norwegian cities, long plagued by outmigration, different habitations of people are emerging through amenity migration. Nowadays, for every local house, three second homes are built in mountain areas and most of the second homes are concentrated in collocated settlements on mountain slopes segregated from the original settlements in the valleys. There are several aspects and seemingly contradictions in this spatial development: out-migration versus the desire for rurality, a registered versus a temporary population, but also a common population in terms of service provisions, infrastructure and industrial development versus segregated living. In addition, territorializing the outdoors involves a number of external and internal stakeholders: landowners, developers, producers, second homeowners, the state and not at least the municipality. While mountain municipalities are peripheral in a national context, second home communities may command central positions in terms of activities, purchasing power and their partial ‘urbanized’ character.

The project takes a critical view on the participation and integration of the second-home segment in planning-, development- and centralization practices in three different municipalities, and explores how various approaches to place development affect and shape the present and possible futures of these communities. The municipalities differ based on historical contingencies and in their planning approaches to coping with this development. The power to influence development lies in the hands of the state, the municipalities and developers / land owners. State oversight is particularly related to preservation areas for wild reindeer and musk. The municipalities carve out areas for second homes usually with large reserves to ensure continued business development, tax revenues and demographic stabilization. External developers buy up tracts of land, use external planning consultants to develop infrastructure and units for sale. Second home associations are sub-divided into small areas, which leaves them with little influence over municipal dispositions.

Demographic changes of ageing and declining populations in rural areas, implies weakened workforces, decreased revenue income, and strained pressure on provision of public services locally. Hence, such communities are dependent on recruitment of new residents, and immigration become crucial for preventing declining population rates. In an ongoing EU project, SIMRA, we address and experiment with ways to integrate refugees and family reunification members into civil society in a rural mountain area of Norway, Gudbrandsdalen.

Gudbrandsdalen has challenges related to depopulation, elderly population and high social benefit costs. While migration of different types (work, refugees, family reunification) has stabilized the population decline in the area, the migrants themselves, particularly the two latter categories, experience challenges with acquiring paid labour and building social capital. This is resulting in a high number living of social welfare or moving away from the rural to urban areas.

In that regard, we see how social innovation can contribute to engaging civil society and connect refugees and local population. We work specifically with a local branch of the Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT) as a social innovation platform that can spur civil society inclusion of settled refugees. The innovation action in Norway of the project SIMRA involves bridging the gap between the local community and newly settled refugees through arranging hikes, activities and trips, hoping to build social networks and cultural capital. This has already been done in urban parts of Norway, so with certain adaptions and modifications we are supporting the trekking association in moving the initiative from the urban to the rural context. The larger aim of this innovation action is to contribute to refugees becoming drivers for local and regional development, making the social innovation a best practice example for rural areas.

Norwegian trekking organisation (DNT) involvement in integrating refugees in Marginalized Rural Areas (MRA) 

DNTs use of volunteers and public sector collaboration in integrating refugees in the MRA by social nudging mechanisms: motivate immigrants to join locals in hiking which enable establishment of social networks, learning and teaching customs and culture of rural areas environments.

Approach: ENRI, along with Local Actors, will be organizing two main workshop. The first with a broader scope in the Gudbrandsdalen to i) find ways to collaborate, and 2) with whom to collaborate. The second with a more local specific scope to plan the specific activities to take place. Several additional meetings with LAs were also scheduled during 2017 and 2018, and some will be planned for 2019.

Triggers: Depopulation, elderly population, unemployment, high number of refugees and a high proportion of inhabitants depending on welfare services and benefits challenge the sustainability of the region. Integration difficulties.

Needs: To improve integration of settled refugees, to maintain local population in the area, to increase the community involvement, to increase the knowledge and involvement in outdoor activities.

Context: The intrinsic value of outdoor activity and the idea of developing networks and social capital by collective outdoor actions has a very strong position in national local culture. There is also a strong presence of an established social innovation platform in the area (DNT) and a public sector service dedicated to integrating refugees.

Agents: DNT, local public refugee- and education services, refugees and volunteers. Possibly also private sector and other volunteer organizations.

Actions: Establishing a collaboration between volunteer organizations and public sector in integrating refugees in the local areas, engaging in social nudging mechanisms.

Activities: Meetings between stakeholders, arranging social nudging collaboration of walks/hikes between refugees and volunteers from local community.

Expected Outputs: Engaging refugees as volunteers and creating networks for the refugees involved.

Expected Outcomes: Improve the demographic sustainability of the MRA, via the integration of immigration fluxes into the rural society. Challenging new impulses to an evolving and diversified outdoor activity culture.

Technological: Make use of expertise outside local agents, providing necessary outdoor equipment to new and low-income groups

Economic: Funding needed to support the collaborative aspect; arrange trips and meetings between the local actors

Collaborative: Public and volunteer sector, refugees and local inhabitants need to collaborate. Overcoming cultural differences in approach and apprehension of the funcion of outdoor hiking («tur»)

The Alps have long been perceived as an area of outmigration and weak economic potential not least because of territory related traits such as altitude, remote and isolated settlements, local communities and distinct traditions. However, due to amenity and labor migrants, returnees and more recently “forced” migrants (asylum seekers and refugees) the numbers of migrants who settle in Alpine regions have risen significantly.

Because of this emerging topic and the fact that there is only little knowledge of panalpine migration dynamics the ForAlps network has been established. This network aims to give the topic of “Foreign immigration in the Alps” a more strategic voice and to gain the attention of the scientific community and of practitioners for the potentials, opportunities and challenges of foreign immigration in Alpine regions. It brings together an international group of researchers, academics, members of non-profit organizations and journalists, who are active in various disciplines and regional contexts. As one outcome of the network a book is going to be published that pays particular attention to the impact of migration upon territorial development.

This presentation concentrates on the main outcomes of the book “Alpine Refugees. Immigration at the core of Europe” which i) reflects on similarities and differences between the countries involved (respectively the mountains of Austria, Italy and Switzerland) with respect to the phenomenon of foreign migrants and refugees in the highlands, ii) presents quantitative data, at national and regional level related to the phenomenon and iii) discusses good practices of welcoming and socio-economic inclusion of migrants. With the title “Alpine Refugees” we want to draw attention to the specificity of the Alps as refuge, for people who will find an opportunity for life and work in a mountain region, and for people who wait to receive a refuge elsewhere (i.e. an asylum).

Foreign immigration in the Alps – an important topic for demographic change 

The Alps have long been perceived as an area of outmigration and weak economic potential not least because of territory related traits such as altitude, remote and isolated settlements, local communities and distinct traditions. However, due to amenity and labor migrants, returnees and more recently “forced” migrants (asylum seekers and refugees) the numbers of migrants who settle in Alpine regions have risen significantly and it becomes obvious that immigration is now an important factor for demographic change particularly since the past two decades.

Because of this emerging topic and the fact that there is only little knowledge of panalpine migration dynamics the ForAlps network has been established. This network aims to give the topic of “Foreign immigration in the Alps” a more strategic voice and to gain the attention of the scientific community and of practitioners for the potentials, opportunities and challenges of foreign immigration in Alpine regions. It brings together an international group of researchers, academics, members of non-profit organizations and journalists, who are active in various disciplines and regional contexts. As one outcome of the network a book is going to be published that pays particular attention to the impact of migration upon territorial development.

This presentation concentrates on the main outcomes of the book “Alpine Refugees. Immigration at the core of Europe” which i) reflects on similarities and differences between the countries involved (respectively the mountains of Austria, Italy and Switzerland) with respect to the phenomenon of foreign migrants and refugees in the highlands, ii) presents quantitative data, at national and regional level related to the phenomenon and iii) discusses good practices of welcoming and socio-economic inclusion of migrants. With the title “Alpine Refugees” we want to draw attention to the specificity of the Alps as refuge, for people who will find an opportunity for life and work in a mountain region, and for people who would like to receive a refuge elsewhere (i.e. an asylum) but who are forced to wait for a response to their request, confined to these mountain areas.