Effects of coastal flood risk management on risk perceptions and behaviour

Abstract

Coastal flooding resulting in environmental, social or economic disasters are rare, but have occurred multiple times in recent history. The 1953 North Sea storm surge damaged agricultural, infrastructural and economic assets across three European countries, and caused 2551 deaths; the storm surge generated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 led to over 80% of New Orleans being flooded. Despite the infrequency of disastrous coastal flood events, the need to adapt to these extreme events to reduce their impact is evident.

Different actors in flood risk management (FRM) have adopted distinct approaches to coastal flood adaptation that seek to alter physical and legislative landscapes as well as individual and group behaviours. These approaches include but are not limited to (a) flood insurance, (b) engineering through systems engineering or (hard and soft) flood defences, and (c) land-use planning. The success of FRM to reducing flood risk depends not only on the physical or legislative changes, but requires adaptation actors to understand how other coastal stakeholders may (or may not) change their risk perceptions and behaviour as a result of adaptation. However, there is rarely explicit reference to these risk perceptions and behaviours, and little research has been conducted on them, especially not at the individual level, nor regarding the combined effect of these FRM approaches.

I investigate the assumptions regarding individuals’ responses to FRM methods made by those actualising insurance, engineering and land-use planning adaptation to coastal flooding. I aim to understand where there is congruence and conflict in the views of risk of those developing FRM, and other stakeholders at the coast. This will be investigated through semi-structured interviews and quantitative questionnaires conducted in two coastal areas of the UK in 2018. A greater understanding of stakeholders’ risk perceptions and behaviours with regard to land-use planning and engineering and insurance as coastal FRM approaches may expose different visions to those traditionally assumed by adaptation actors, and may therefore reduce unnecessary impacts of coastal flooding that result from coastal FRM built upon potentially flawed assumptions.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Sien Van Der Plank: orcid.org/0000-0001-6650-4111

Catalogue record

Export record