Wim Kellens

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 peoples 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.

An Analysis of the Public Perception of Flood Risk on the Belgian Coast

In recent years, perception of flood risks has become an important topic to policy makers concerned with risk management and safety issues. Knowledge of the public risk perception is considered a crucial aspect in modern flood risk management as it steers the development of effective and efficient flood mitigation strategies. This study aimed at gaining insight into the perception of flood risks along the Belgian coast. Given the importance of the tourism industry on the Belgian coast, the survey considered both inhabitants and residential tourists. Based on actual experts risk assessments, a high and a low risk area were selected for the study. Risk perception was assessed on the basis of scaled items regarding storm surges and coastal flood risks. In addition, various personal and residence characteristics were measured. Using multiple regression analysis, risk perception was found to be primarily influenced by actual flood risk estimates, age, gender, and experience with previous flood hazards.

The Informed Society: An Analysis of the Public's Information-Seeking Behavior Regarding Coastal Flood Risks

Recent flood risk management puts an increasing emphasis on the publics risk perception and its preferences. It is now widely recognized that a better knowledge of the publics awareness and concern about risks is of vital importance to outline effective risk communication strategies. Models such as Risk Information Seeking and Processing address this evolution by considering the publics needs and its information-seeking behavior with regard to risk information. This study builds upon earlier information-seeking models and focuses on the empirical relationships between information-seeking behavior and the constructs of risk perception, perceived hazard knowledge, response efficacy, and information need in the context of coastal flood risks. Specific focus is given to the mediating role of information need in the model and to the differences in information-seeking behavior between permanent and temporary residents. By means of a structured on-line questionnaire, a cross-sectional survey was carried out in the city of Ostend, one of the most vulnerable places to coastal flooding on the Belgian coast. Three hundred thirteen respondents participated in the survey. Path analysis reveals that information need does not act as a mediator in contrast to risk perception and perceived knowledge. In addition, it is shown that risk perception and perceived hazard knowledge are higher for permanent than temporary residents, leading to increased information-seeking behavior among the former group. Implications for risk communication are discussed.

Flood Risk Management in Flanders: Past Developments and Future Challenges

This paper presents the state of the art of flood risk management in Flanders, a low-lying region in the northern part of Belgium which is vulnerable to flooding. Possible flood hazard sources are not only the many rivers which pass through the Flemish inland, but also the North Sea, which is sensitive to the predicted sea level rise and which can affect large parts of the Flemish coastal area. Due to the expected increase in flood risks in the 21st century, the Flemish government has changed its flood management strategy from a flood control approach to a risk-based approach. Instead of focusing on protection against a certain water level, the objective now is to assure protection against the consequences of a flood, while considering its probability. In the first part, attention is given to the reasoning and functioning of the risk-based approach. Recent improvements to the approach are discussed, as well as the GIS-implementation of the entire model. The functioning of the approach is subsequently demonstrated in two case studies. The second part of the paper discusses future challenges for the flood risk management in Flanders. The driving force behind these challenges is the European Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks, which entered into force in 2007. The Flemish implementation of the directive is discussed and situated in the European landscape. Finally, attention is given to the communication of flood risks to the general public, since the “availability” of flood risk management plans is among the requirements of the EU Floods Directive.

A GIS tool for flood risk analysis in Flanders (Belgium)

In recent decades, the low-lying Flanders region (Belgium) has fallen victim to numerous flood events, causing substantial damage to buildings and infrastructure. In response to this, the Flemish government proposed a new approach that considers the level of risk as method of safety measurement. Using geographical information systems, this evolution has led to a comprehensive risk methodology, and more recently to the development of a flood risk assessment tool called LATIS. By estimating the potential damage and the number of casualties during a flood event, LATIS offers the possibility of performing risk analysis in a fast and effective way. This paper presents a brief overview of the currently used methodology for flood risk management in Flanders and its implementation in the LATIS tool. The usefulness of this new tool is demonstrated by a sequence of risk calculations, performed in the framework of climate change impacts on flood risk in Flanders.

Coastal flood risks and seasonal tourism: analysing the effects of tourism dynamics on casualty calculations

Since coastal tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of tourism industry, coastal areas have become increasingly vulnerable in the case of flooding. While in recent years a number of different methods have been put forward to map coastal flood risks, the implications of tourism dynamics for the assessment of human casualties has remained largely overlooked in these models. This chapter examines to what extent the ignorance of (residential) coastal tourism may bias the calculations of human casualties. To this end, a case study has been conducted on the Belgian coast. Both the dynamic nature of coastal tourism and the behaviour of residential tourists in storm surge scenarios are considered. The results of this study show that including tourism dynamics in flood risk management is justified and appropriate, depending on the tourist attractiveness of the flood-prone area and its temporal fluctuations.

Evaluation of web maps for the communication of flood risks to the public in Europe

ABSTRACT Floods are one of the most significant hazards in Europe. This paper describes an iterative approach consisting of designing and evaluating static flood risk maps. In the first step, the use of different colour schemes and background types (e.g. topographic map, street map, and satellite images) is evaluated in an online survey. Next the design is optimized based on the outcomes of dedicated focus groups. The usability tests include the users’ preference, also considering their characteristics (age, gender, and expertise). The obtained results of each step are integrated to optimize the design of evacuation route maps and flood depth maps.