The perception of flooding and water nuisance

In this paper we aim to gain insight in the determinants that control the risk perception of flooding and water nuisance by developing and validating a questionnaire. We also investigate to what extent the risk characteristics of external safety risks apply to perceptions of flooding and water nuisance. We use elements from the psychometric paradigm: risk perception characteristics and their interrelationships have been quantified by developing statements about flooding (38) and water nuisance (12), which were rated by respondents. The state-trait anxiety inventory was applied to determine whether perceptions are related to anxiety characteristics. A focus group session was organized to further explain our findings. Factor analyzing 49 questionnaires resulted in the identification of eight flooding factors (explained variance: 74%) and three water nuisance factors (explained variance: 62%). The internal consistency of the scales measured by Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.54 to 0.82. Like in the perception of external safety risks, ‘dread’ seems to be the most important concept binding different characteristics. Although dread towards both flooding and water nuisance is rather low, it seems more present in the latter case. We hypothesize cautiously that the extent of dread for water nuisance is also determined by the anxiety one experiences at that particular moment. In both cases awareness of ‘increasing risks’ is clearly present, and we find the characteristics ‘(no) dread’, ‘(un)controllable situation’ and ‘does not affect me’ to be related. Also the characteristic ‘risk-benefit trade off’ seems also to be related to ‘no dread’.

Perception and communication of flood risks: a systematic review of empirical research

Flood hazards are the most common and destructive of all natural disasters. For decades, experts have been examining how flood losses can be mitigated. Just as in other risk domains, the study of risk perception and risk communication has gained increasing interest in flood risk management. Because of this research growth, a review of the state of the art in this domain is believed necessary. The review comprises 57 empirically based peer-reviewed articles on flood risk perception and communication from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The characteristics of these articles are listed in a comprehensive table, presenting research design, research variables, and key findings. From this review, it follows that the majority of studies are of exploratory nature and have not applied any of the theoretical frameworks that are available in social science research. Consequently, a methodological standardization in measuring and analyzing people's flood risk perceptions and their adaptive behaviors is hardly present. This heterogeneity leads to difficulties in comparing results among studies. It is also shown that theoretical and empirical studies on flood risk communication are nearly nonexistent. The article concludes with a summary on methodological issues in the fields of flood-risk perception and flood-risk communication and proposes an agenda for future research

Flood preparedness : thoughts, feelings and intentions of the Dutch public

Despite the high levels of flood protection in the Netherlands, absolute\ud safety is not guaranteed. Preparing Dutch society for potential flood disasters,\ud including the preparedness of individual citizens, is one of the great challenges\ud in future flood risk management. This thesis is aimed at increasing the\ud understanding of citizens’ intentions in flood preparation. Knowledge of the\ud determinants of citizens’ behavioural intentions is indispensable for developing\ud well-founded, effective risk communication that is aimed at facilitating citizens’\ud flood preparedness decisions.\ud To study those behavioural intentions, we have adopted the Protective\ud Action Decision Model (PADM, Lindell & Perry, 2000, 2004) which provides a\ud social-psychological perspective on how people decide whether or not to prepare\ud for disasters. This thesis contains four studies. These studies draw from the data\ud that have been collected in three questionnaire surveys that were performed in\ud flood risk areas along the Dutch coast, branches of the rivers Rhine and Meuse,\ud and Lake Marken