Christian Kuhlicke

The Risk Perception Paradox—Implications for Governance and Communication of Natural Hazards

This article reviews the main insights from selected literature on risk perception, particularly in connection with natural hazards. It includes numerous case studies on perception and social behavior dealing with floods, droughts, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, wild fires, and landslides. The review reveals that personal experience of a natural hazard and trust--or lack of trust--in authorities and experts have the most substantial impact on risk perception. Cultural and individual factors such as media coverage, age, gender, education, income, social status, and others do not play such an important role but act as mediators or amplifiers of the main causal connections between experience, trust, perception, and preparedness to take protective actions. When analyzing the factors of experience and trust on risk perception and on the likeliness of individuals to take preparedness action, the review found that a risk perception paradox exists in that it is assumed that high risk perception will lead to personal preparedness and, in the next step, to risk mitigation behavior. However, this is not necessarily true. In fact, the opposite can occur if individuals with high risk perception still choose not to personally prepare themselves in the face of a natural hazard. Therefore, based on the results of the review, this article offers three explanations suggesting why this paradox might occur. These findings have implications for future risk governance and communication as well as for the willingness of individuals to invest in risk preparedness or risk mitigation actions.

Resilience: a capacity and a myth: findings from an in-depth case study in disaster management research

The discussion surrounding resilience to natural hazards and disasters has advanced considerably within the last years. It ranges from ecological to social systems and also covers some socio-ecological spaces in-between. Yet, although the discussion is broad and multifaceted, a common theme runs through most approaches to resilience: Resilience is defined as a system’s capacity to adapt to or respond to singular, unique and most often radically surprising events. This paper seeks to shed some light on a different aspect of resilience; its constructionist dimension. For doing this, it introduces the ‘myth of resilience, which not only considers the functional aspects of resilience (i.e. actors capacities), but also how actors make retrospectively sense of the radically surprising discovery of something entirely unknown. The paper will argue that the ‘myth of resilience’ may become a powerful worldview that enables actors to define what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’, as it may be used as a very intriguing way of changing, creating and consolidating power relations; at least this is the insight a study on disaster management reveals. The case study was conducted in a municipality of a city located in the State of Saxony Germany, which was severely affected by the 2002 August flood. The paper ends with outlining implications for the discussion on resilience.

Economic evaluation of structural and non-structural flood risk management measures: examples from the Mulde River

The concept of flood risk management, promoted by the EU Floods Directive, tries to mitigate flood risks not only by structural, hydraulic engineering measures, but also by non-structural measures, like, e.g., land-use planning, warning and evacuation systems. However, few methods currently exist for the economic evaluation of such non-structural measures and, hence, their comparison with structural measures. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the potential benefits of employing a wider range of economic appraisal methods for flood projects, in particular, it provides examples and applications of methodologies which may be employed to evaluate non-structural measures and their transaction costs. In two case studies at the Mulde River, Germany, two non-structural measures, a resettlement option and a warning system, are evaluated and compared with structural alternatives with regard to their effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and efficiency. Furthermore, a simple approach is tested in order to show the transaction costs of these measures. Case study results show that the choice of evaluation criteria can have a major impact on the assessment results. In this regard, efficiency as an evaluation criterion can be considered as superior to cost-effectiveness and effectiveness as it is also able to consider sufficiently the impacts of non-structural measures. Furthermore, case study results indicate that transaction costs could play an important role, especially with non-structural measures associated with land-use changes. This could explain why currently these kinds of measures are rarely selected by decision makers.

Natural hazards and resilience: exploring institutional and organizational dimensions of social resilience

Policy discourses and academic debates provide evidence that resilience has become one of the leading ideas to deal with uncertainty and change in our times. This applies for numerous and diverse discourses such as flood risk management (Steinfuehrer et al. 2009), urban development policy (Linovski 2010; Mueller 2011), responding to terrorism (Coaffee et al. 2009), and mega-projects like the Olympic Games (Jennings and Lodge 2010), just to name a few. Resilience also appears in a diverse range of publications from institutional (Anderies et al. 2004), organizational (Weick 2009), and climate change adaptation research (Pelling 2011). While the need to build resilience is highlighted, the definitions of resilience are manifold and partially blurred. Given this diversity and accessing the more focused usage of the term ‘‘resilience’’ in ecological research, some authors worry about the health of resilience research (Klein et al. 2003; Brand and Jax 2007). Others see the growth and diversity of discourses and publications as a sign of ‘‘good’’ health (e.g., Van de Ven and Hargrave 2004, p. 291). Despite the wide range of diverse discourses and publications, this Special Issue of natural hazards aims to contribute to these debates with a specific perspective on the overall topic of resilience that might be best described with the term ‘‘social resilience.’’

Adaptation to flood risk - results of international paired flood event studies

As flood impacts are increasing in large parts of the world, understanding the primary drivers of changes in risk is essential for effective adaptation. To gain more knowledge on the basis of empirical case studies, we analyze eight paired floods, that is, consecutive flood events that occurred in the same region, with the second flood causing significantly lower damage. These success stories of risk reduction were selected across different socioeconomic and hydro-climatic contexts. The potential of societies to adapt is uncovered by describing triggered societal changes, as well as formal measures and spontaneous processes that reduced flood risk. This novel approach has the potential to build the basis for an international data collection and analysis effort to better understand and attribute changes in risk due to hydrological extremes in the framework of the IAHSs Panta Rhei initiative. Across all case studies, we find that lower damage caused by the second event was mainly due to significant reductions in vulnerability, for example, via raised risk awareness, preparedness, and improvements of organizational emergency management. Thus, vulnerability reduction plays an essential role for successful adaptation. Our work shows that there is a high potential to adapt, but there remains the challenge to stimulate measures that reduce vulnerability and risk in periods in which extreme events do not occur.

Review of the flood risk management system in Germany after the major flood in 2013

Widespread flooding in June 2013 caused damage costs of €6 to 8 billion in Germany, and awoke many memories of the floods in August 2002, which resulted in total damage of €11.6 billion and hence was the most expensive natural hazard event in Germany up to now. The event of 2002 does, however, also mark a reorientation toward an integrated flood risk management system in Germany. Therefore, the flood of 2013 offered the opportunity to review how the measures that politics, administration, and civil society have implemented since 2002 helped to cope with the flood and what still needs to be done to achieve effective and more integrated flood risk management. The review highlights considerable improvements on many levels, in particular (1) an increased consideration of flood hazards in spatial planning and urban development, (2) comprehensive property-level mitigation and preparedness measures, (3) more effective flood warnings and improved coordination of disaster response, and (4) a more targeted maintenance of flood defense systems. In 2013, this led to more effective flood management and to a reduction of damage. Nevertheless, important aspects remain unclear and need to be clarified. This particularly holds for balanced and coordinated strategies for reducing and overcoming the impacts of flooding in large catchments, cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation, the role of the general public in the different phases of flood risk management, as well as a transparent risk transfer system. Recurring flood events reveal that flood risk management is a continuous task. Hence, risk drivers, such as climate change, land-use changes, economic developments, or demographic change and the resultant risks must be investigated at regular intervals, and risk reduction strategies and processes must be reassessed as well as adapted and implemented in a dialogue with all stakeholders.

Localism and flood risk management in England: the creation of new inequalities?

There has been a noticeable shift in the way in which flood risks are managed in England. This is being driven in part by European developments but also by changes in governance across diverse domains of public policy. A key characteristic is a move to transfer responsibility for the management of flood risk away from the central government and towards the local level. This paper aims to describe and evaluate the potential implications of this shift by focusing on three connected policy areas: flood defence, spatial planning, and emergency management. We draw on an analysis of policy documentation and expert interviews to map out current changes in governance. We then outline a number of potential scenarios for how these changes may play out in the future, emphasising that differences in resource availability and local motivation could result in new patterns of vulnerability and inequality.

Interactions between citizen responsibilization, flood experience and household resilience: insights from the 2013 flood in Germany

Abstract As increasing emphasis is placed on the importance of citizens’ taking responsibility for their own preparedness and protection against flooding, it is important to understand the relationship between responsibility and action and how current practices of responsibilization influence household resilience. Based on a survey of 889 households affected by flooding in 2013 in the states of Saxony and Bavaria, Germany, this study investigates the relationship between action and flood experience and how this experience influences whether citizens feel responsible, and therefore the likelihood that they will take action in the future. These findings have implications for household resilience as well as future research.

Urban Vulnerability Assessment in Flood-Prone Areas in West and East Africa

Vulnerability assessment remains central in discourses on global climatic change and takes a more pertinent meaning considering that natural disasters in developing countries continue to deeply affect human settlements. In recent years, severe weather events affected the social and economic asset of local populations and challenged local institutions to adapt in the face of increasing seasonal events and also unexpected larger disasters.

Vorsorge durch Raumplanung

KurzfassungDie Potenziale und Grenzen der Vorsorge von Umweltrisiken durch die Raumplanung ist das zentrale Thema des Beitrages. These ist, dass Vorbeugung während und im Anschluss an ein Schadenereignis effektiv realisiert werden kann. Jedoch ist dieses „Window of Opportunity” in Deutschland kaum nutzbar, da der Katastrophenschutz keinen Bezug zur Vorsorge hat und es der Raumplanung an aktiver Umsetzungskompetenz mangelt. Daher wird ein Verfahren skizziert, das dieses Zeitfenster in Wert setzt, sowohl auf die kommunale Ebene fokussiert als auch Veränderungen auf der Bundesebene einfordert. Die querschnittsorientierte Raumplanung nimmt bei diesem Verfahren eine tragende Funktion ein.AbstractThe potentials and limitations of the mitigation of environmental risk through spatial planning is the central issue of the article. Mitigation is to be realized productively during and after a disastrous event is the thesis of this article. Nevertheless, this “Window of Opportunity” is not applicable in Germany, since disaster control makes no reference to mitigation and the institution of spatial planning has insufficient competence of implementation. Therefore it will be outlined a procedure, which uses the window, focuses on the level of communities and demands alteration on the federal level. The institution of spatial planning holds an important position in this procedure.