The impact of natural disasters on environmental concern and behaviour - a multilevel analysis of the World Values Survey

Previous research has found that natural disasters affect people's attitudes towards the environment. This covers both environmental concern and environmental behaviour. This paper combines data from the World Values Survey with disaster data from the EM-DAT database to analyse the relationship between the occurrence and impacts of natural disasters. Different disaster types are used to determine whether there are similar patterns among storms, floods, droughts, extreme weather, and wildfires. In addition, different time spans are applied to cover long-term (ten years) and short-term (one year) influences on people's opinions and behaviours. Indicators used for natural disasters in the EM-DAT database include the number of events, the number of reported fatalities, and the number of affected persons. On the national level, several other indicators are included about the economy and the population. On the individual level, the analysis uses the World Values Survey wave six, which covers 60 countries worldwide, including many low-income countries. It includes questions about environmental behaviour, e.g., whether people have donated money to ecological organisations or participated in a protest, and about environmental attitudes, e.g., whether the respondent considers protecting the environment important. Also included are demographic characteristics like age, gender, income, and level of education. By combining the World Values Survey data with the EM-DAT disaster data, it becomes possible to investigate the relationships between natural disasters and environmental attitudes and behaviours in a comparative way across nations.