Individual Flood Risk Adaptation in Germany: Exploring the Role of Different Types of Flooding

Keywords: risk communication, protection-motivation, flood type, household, survey

Whether and how flood-affected people prepare for flooding is commonly assumed to depend on their perception of risk, options to cope and responsibilities. However, the influence of different flood types, i.e., fluvial, flash and urban pluvial floods, is unclear, but might be relevant for effective risk communications. We use survey data from more than 3000 households affected by different types of flooding in Germany to investigate their influence on adaptive behaviour and influencing factors. We use descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis Tests and single factor ANOVA to identify differences and similarities between respondents. We use linear regressions to identify factors that influence adaptive behaviour of households in the context of fluvial, pluvial and flash flooding.

We found that most respondents were motivated to protect themselves, but that there were flood type specific differences in the factors influencing an adaptive response. For example, those affected by fluvial events have had implemented most often measures before the last flooding, showed signs of emotional coping frequently and were less likely to implement (more) measures, while those affected by flash flooding showed less confidence in the effectiveness of measures, but were less likely to rate their costs as too high and were most likely to implement measures after the event. We argue that inter alia the severity and experience of flooding, as well as the management of flooding, shapes adaptive behaviour. We further found that regardless of the type of flooding, the perception of the effectiveness of adaptive measures and a positive perception of personal responsibility are critical to promote the protection motivation of those affected. We found, that these two key elements can be strengthened by offering financial support for adaptive measures. We also found that communication on a municipality level enhances the sense of self-responsibility. We conclude that communication and management strategies need to involve municipalities and should be tailored to the type of flooding. Up to now, risk communication mainly addresses fluvial flooding situations.