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Despite the prognoses of the effects of global warming (e.g., rising sea levels, increasing river discharges), few international studies have addressed how flood preparedness should be stimulated among private citizens. This article aims to predict Dutch citizens’ flood preparedness intentions by testing a path model, including previous flood hazard experiences, trust in public flood protection, and flood risk perceptions (both affective and cognitive components). Data were collected through questionnaire surveys in two coastal communities ( n = 169, n = 244) and in one river area community ( n = 658). Causal relations were tested by means of structural equation modeling (SEM). Overall, the results indicate that both cognitive and affective mechanisms influence citizens’ preparedness intentions. First, a higher level of trust reduces citizens’ perceptions of flood likelihood, which in turn hampers their flood preparedness intentions (cognitive route). Second, trust also lessens the amount of dread evoked by flood risk, which in turn impedes flood preparedness intentions (affective route). Moreover, the affective route showed that levels of dread were especially influenced by citizens’ negative and positive emotions related to their previous flood hazard experiences. Negative emotions most often reflected fear and powerlessness, while positive emotions most frequently reflected feelings of solidarity. The results are consistent with the affect heuristic and the historical context of Dutch flood risk management. The great challenge for flood risk management is the accommodation of both cognitive and affective mechanisms in risk communications, especially when most people lack an emotional basis stemming from previous flood hazard events.
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Abstract Climate change is likely to lead to an increase in the frequency and/or intensity of certain types of natural hazards, if not globally, then at least in certain regions. All other things equal, this should lead to an increase in the economic toll from natural disasters over time. Yet, all other things are not equal since affected areas become wealthier over time and rational individuals and governments undertake defensive mitigation measures, which requires normalizing economic losses if one wishes to analyze trends in economic loss from natural disasters for detecting a potential climate change signal. In this article, we argue that the conventional methodology for normalizing economic loss is problematic since it normalizes for changes in wealth over time, but fails to normalize for differences in wealth across space at any given point of time. We introduce an alternative methodology that overcomes this problem in theory, but faces many more problems in its empirical application. Applying, therefore, both methods to the most comprehensive existing global dataset of natural disaster loss, in general we find no significant upward trends in normalized disaster damage over the period 1980–2009 globally, regionally, for specific disasters or for specific disasters in specific regions. Due to our inability to control for defensive mitigation measures, one cannot infer from our analysis that there have definitely not been more frequent and/or more intensive weather-related natural hazards over the study period already. Moreover, it may still be far too early to detect a trend if human-induced climate change has only just started and will gain momentum over time.
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This review discusses the ways in which countries are affected by natural disasters, depending on their socioeconomic characteristics, their level of development, and their inherent levels of natural disaster risk. We also explore various aspects of ex ante disaster mitigation such as improvements in natural disaster risk information and natural disaster insurance markets, as well as ex post responses to natural disaster in the form of postdisaster aid and long-run growth prospects. By highlighting some of the recent findings in this literature, we synthesize what we know about the economics of natural disasters and identify research areas of interest for future work.
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Flooding has only relatively recently been considered as an environmental justice issue. In this paper we focus on flooding as a distinct form of environmental risk and examine some of the key evidence and analysis that is needed to underpin an environmental justice framing of flood risk and flood impacts. We review and examine the UK situation and the body of existing research literature on flooding to fill out our understanding of the patterns of social inequality that exist in relation to both flood risk exposure and vulnerability to the diverse impacts of flooding. We then consider the various ways in which judgements might be made about the injustice or justice of these inequalities and the ways in which they are being sustained or responded to by current flood policy and practice. We conclude that there is both evidence of significant inequalities and grounds on which claims of injustice might be made, but that further work is needed to investigate each of these. The case for pursuing the framing of flooding as an environmental justice issue is also made.