IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ven/wpaper/202609.html

Climate shelters as a social response to heat and climate illiteracy: Evidence from a 2025 Pilot in Venice

Author

Listed:
  • Catarina Midões

    (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; CMCC Foundation – Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change)

  • Anna Pistorio

    (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

  • Roberta Stevenato

    (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

  • Victoire Ambeza

    (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

  • Roberto Cabras

    (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

  • Antonella Mazzone

    (University of Bristol; NICHE Centre for Environmental Humanities)

  • Enrica De Cian

    (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; CMCC Foundation – Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change; NICHE Centre for Environmental Humanities)

Abstract

Climate shelters contribute to heat resilience directly, as cool spaces, and indirectly, as community venues for information provision. In a 2025 pilot project in Venice, Italy, we analyse, through surveys and interviews, four possible bottlenecks to shelter use: heat risk perception, awareness of shelters, accessibility, and motivation. We test, through a treatment-control experiment, the impact of information provision in shelters. We find that awareness of shelters is the easiest bottleneck to address. Accessibility hinges on funding and governance constraints. Motivation is context and place driven: green, outdoor, spaces are the most popular, but less well prepared. Risk perception is a crucial policy target, since it drives use and adoption of protective behaviours. Yet, it is sticky: individuals, particularly the elderly, underestimate risk. Information provision did not change risk perception. It, however, increased awareness of shelters and adaptation knowledge. Peer effects and seamless integration of events within community centers promote effectiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Catarina Midões & Anna Pistorio & Roberta Stevenato & Victoire Ambeza & Roberto Cabras & Antonella Mazzone & Enrica De Cian, 2026. "Climate shelters as a social response to heat and climate illiteracy: Evidence from a 2025 Pilot in Venice," Working Papers 2026: 09, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    • Handle: RePEc:ven:wpaper:2026:09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.unive.it/web/fileadmin/user_upload/dipartimenti/DEC/doc/Pubblicazioni_scientifiche/woking_papers/2026/WP_DSE_midoes_pistorio_stevenato_etal_09_26.pdf
    File Function: First version, anno
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ven:wpaper:2026:09. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sassano Sonia (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dsvenit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.