Abstract. The EU Flood Risk Management Directive 2007/60/EC aims at an active involvement of interested parties in the setting up of flood risk management plans and thus calls for more governance-related decision-making. This requirement has two perspectives. On the one hand, there is (1) the question of how decision-makers can improve the quality of their governance process. On the other hand, there is (2) the question of how the public shall be appropriately informed and involved. These questions were the centre of the ERA-Net CRUE-funded project IMRA (integrative flood risk governance approach for improvement of risk awareness) that aimed at an optimisation of the flood risk management process by increasing procedural efficiency with an explicit involvement strategy. To reach this goal, the IMRA project partners developed two new approaches that were implemented in three case study areas for the first time in flood risk management: 1. risk governance assessment tool: An indicator-based benchmarking and monitoring tool was used to evaluate the performance of a flood risk management system in regard to ideal risk governance principles; 2. social milieu approach: The concept of social milieus was used to gain a picture of the people living in the case study regions to learn more about their lifestyles, attitudes and values and to use this knowledge to plan custom-made information and participation activities for the broad public. This paper presents basic elements and the application of two innovative approaches as a part of an "involvement strategy" that aims at the active involvement of all interested parties (stakeholders) for assessing, reviewing and updating flood risk management plans, as formulated in the EU Flood Risk Management Directive 2007/60/EC.
19 pages, 9 figures, 1 table ; Aerosols are an integral part of the Arctic climate system due to their direct interaction with radiation and indirect interaction through cloud formation. Understanding aerosol size distributions and their dynamics is crucial for the ability to predict these climate relevant effects. When of favourable size and composition, both long-rangetransported-and locally formed particles-may serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Small changes of composition or size may have a large impact on the low CCN concentrations currently characteristic of the Arctic environment. We present a cluster analysis of particle size distributions (PSDs; size range 8-500 nm) simultaneously collected from three high Arctic sites during a 3-year period (2013-2015). Two sites are located in the Svalbard archipelago: Zeppelin research station (ZEP; 474 m above ground) and the nearby Gruvebadet Observatory (GRU; about 2 km distance from Zeppelin, 67 m above ground). The third site (Villum Research Station at Station Nord, VRS; 30 m above ground) is 600 km west-northwest of Zeppelin, at the tip of northeastern Greenland. The GRU site is included in an inter-site comparison for the first time. K-means cluster analysis provided eight specific aerosol categories, further combined into broad PSD classes with similar characteristics, namely pristine low concentrations (12 %-14 % occurrence), new particle formation (16 %-32 %), Aitken (21 %-35 %) and accumulation (20 %-50 %). Confined for longer time periods by consolidated pack sea ice regions, the Greenland site GRU shows PSDs with lower ultrafine-mode aerosol concentrations during summer but higher accumulation-mode aerosol concentrations during winter, relative to the Svalbard sites. By association with chemical composition and cloud condensation nuclei properties, further conclusions can be derived. Three distinct types of accumulation-mode aerosol are observed during winter months. These are associated with sea spray (largest detectable sizes, > 400 nm), Arctic haze (main mode at 150 nm) and aged accumulation-mode (main mode at 220 nm) aerosols. In contrast, locally produced particles, most likely of marine biogenic origin, exhibit size distributions dominated by the nucleation and Aitken mode during summer months. The obtained data and analysis point towards future studies, including apportioning the relative contribution of primary and secondary aerosol formation pro cesses and elucidating anthropogenic aerosol dynamics and transport and removal processes across the Greenland Sea. In order to address important research questions in the Arctic on scales beyond a singular station or measurement events, it is imperative to continue strengthening international scientific cooperation ; This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy through project BIO-NUC (CGL2013-49020-R), PI-ICE (CTM2017-89117-R) and the Ramon y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2012-11922). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 654109, the Danish Council for Independent Research (project NUMEN, DFF-FTP-4005-00485B) and previously from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 262254. The work at Villum Research Station, Station Nord, was financially supported by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency via the MIKA/DANCEA funds for Environmental Support to the Arctic Region. The Villum Foundation funded the construction of Villum Research Station, Station Nord. CCN measurements are supported by a KOPRI program (PN19081), funded by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant (NRF-2016M1A5A1901769). The authors acknowledge financial support (to David C. S. Beddows) from the Natural Environment Research Council's funding of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) (grant number R8/H12/83/011) ; Peer Reviewed