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Olivia Jensen

Olivia Jensen

Deputy Director and Lead Scientist (Environment and Climate), PhD (Development Economics), London School of Economics

lrfonjb@nus.edu.sg
Risk Perception Water Risk Net Zero Coastal Adaptation

Dr Olivia Jensen is a social scientist specialising in water and environmental policy with a focus on urban Asia. She joined IPUR in 2018 as Lead Scientist overseeing the Institute’s work related to Environment and Climate and was appointed Deputy Director in 2023. Before joining IPUR, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Water Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (NUS).

Olivia’s research is concerned with the spectrum of urban environmental risks and the design and evaluation of policy interventions to strengthen the resilience of urban communities. At IPUR, she partners with government agencies and international organisations to develop and deliver policy-relevant research. Her current projects include collaborative assessment of urban water risks; public and expert perceptions of climate risks and responses and the design of interventions to close these perceptions gaps. Past projects have focused on flood and sea level rise risk in Asian cities and the role of citizen science in assessing and managing environmental risks. Prior to joining IPUR, she was based at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy’s Institute of Water Policy as Senior Research Fellow.

Olivia holds a PhD and MSc in Development from the London School of Economics and a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.

published papers

  1. Jensen, O., & Chindarkar, N. (2018). Sustaining Reforms in Water Service Delivery: the Role of Service Quality, Salience, Trust and Financial Viability. Water Resources Management, 33(3), 975-992. doi: 10.1007/s11269-018-2154-7
  2. Jensen, O., & Nair, S. (2019). Integrated Urban Water Management and Water Security: A Comparison of Singapore and Hong Kong. Water, 11(4), 785. doi: 10.3390/w11040785
  3. Mukherjee, M., & Jensen, O. (2020). Making water reuse safe: A comparative analysis of the development of regulation and technology uptake in the US and Australia. Safety Science, 121, 5-14. doi: 10.1016/j.ssci.2019.08.039
  4. Jensen, O., & Ong, C. (2020). Collaborative Action for Community Resilience to Climate Risks: Opportunities and Barriers. Sustainability, 12(8), 3413. doi: 10.3390/su12083413
  5. Jensen, O., & Khalis, A. (2020). Urban water systems: Development of micro-level indicators to support integrated policy. PLOS ONE, 15(2), e0228295. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228295
  6. Wong, C., & Jensen, O. (2020). The paradox of trust: perceived risk and public compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore. Journal Of Risk Research, 23(7-8), 1021-1030. doi: 10.1080/13669877.2020.1756386
  7. Lan, T., Goh, Y., Jensen, O., & Asmone, A. (2022). The impact of climate change on workplace safety and health hazard in facilities management: An in-depth review. Safety Science, 151, 105745. doi: 10.1016/j.ssci.2022.105745
  8. Jensen, O. (2022). Climate risk perceptions and policy ambition. International Journal Of Public Policy, 16(2/3/4), 151. doi: 10.1504/ijpp.2022.10049346

ongoing projects

  1. Community resilience to environmental risk 
    The resilience of a community – its ability to respond and recover from setbacks and disasters – is influenced by its inherent characteristics that allow the system to absorb impacts and cope with an event, and by the presence of adaptive processes after the event which facilitate the ability of the social system to re-organize, change, and learn in response to a difficult or damaging event. This project seeks to co-develop indicators of community resilience and evaluate an intervention of community-led design to manage flood risk and increase community resilience in Singapore.
  2. Mapping water risk in Greater Jakarta This study analyses water risks in the Greater Jakarta mega-city region through a collaborative research methodology. The Jakarta region faces high water-related risks from multiple sources: low access to piped water and sanitation, riverine, surface and coastal flooding, land subsidence and groundwater depletion. The area also provides an illustrative case of multi-level and multi-party governance combining horizontal fragmentation, decentralization and extensive private sector participation. Data collection, analysis and development of policy recommendations was conducted collaboratively with representatives of national and local governments to ensure the policy relevance of the study and support implementation. The study demonstrated the need to study linkages between water risks and across administrative boundaries. Two follow-up projects are planned on (1) the operationalisation of policy recommendations through Integrated Urban Water Management actions and (2) a study of public risk perceptions of water risks and identification of gaps between public and expert risk assessment.
  3. “Using citizen science to fill data gaps in urban water risk assessment” Data gaps hamper the assessment of household level water risks related to intermittent and poor quality water supplies. Without such an assessment, government agencies lack incentives to improve services and to be able to channel scarce human and financial resources effectively to reduce water-related risks. Mobile connectivity creates an opportunity for citizens to be directly involved in collecting data. However, there are concerns over validity and reliability of data collected through ‘citizen science.’ This project sought to demonstrate the value of citizen involvement in water quality data collection in Kathmandu, Nepal, where residents face severe risks in water quality and availability.
  4. “Systematic assessment of climate change risk perceptions, stakeholder analysis and risk communication interventions in relation to drought, flash flood and coastal flood risks” This study adopts a systematic approach to the study of public perceptions of sea level rise, drought and flood and other climate-related risks and related interventions in Singapore to support the design of communications interventions to close the gap between the risk perceptions of experts and lay people. The next phase of this study will test the impact of communications interventions on understanding of risks and motivation to take appropriate protective actions among members of the public.
  5. “Climate change impacts on workplace safety and health in the facilities management sector” This study conducted with NUS School of Design and Environment involves a systematic assessment of climate change impacts on workplace safety and health (WSH) risks in the built environment industry. This industry faces a comparatively high level of WSH risks but stakeholders in SE Asia generally have low awareness of the potential impacts of climate change on the spectrum and level of risk. The study develops a method for climate risk identification and assessment and applies the method to facilities management work in Singapore, with a view to broadening the application to the built environment sector as a whole and to other locations, in particular tropical cities.
  6. “Research on Risk Perception Fundamentals” Since the seminal work by Paul Slovic and his colleagues more than 30 years ago (Slovic 1987; Slovic et al. 1981, 1985), how people perceive risk and what they consider as risk objects may have changed substantially, given the evolving socio-political, economic, cultural, and environmental landscape in Asia. In this research project, the project aim to acquire a revised understanding of the factors and dimensions that have become essential to how people—both the public and experts—perceive risk in Asia today.
  7. "AI for social good: pregnancy monitoring" In collaboration with Bangaldesh Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme of the ICT Division and Cabinet Division of Bangladesh, IPUR will be conducting AI related research to support the Bangladeshi Government in the development of policies promoting and enabling AI policy frameworks and building AI capabilities for social good in pregnancy monitoring. Specifically, IPUR will be investigating the challenges in perceptions and receptions of incorporating AI into continuous pregnancy monitoring systems and related tech challenges.
  8. "Environmental Champions Project" This project aims to identify the factors which motivate individuals to promote environmental change within their communities and to define pathways to amplify the efforts of these individuals. The project focuses on community champions, people who lead and motivate others to take positive environmental action and act as intermediaries between their community members and government agencies, businesses and other organisations.

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