Identifying and characterising individual flood precautionary behaviour dynamics from panel data

Lisa Berghäuser, Philip Bubeck, Paul Hudson, Annegret Thieken

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

t Individual precautionary behaviour in response to flooding can considerably reduce flood impacts. Therefore, understanding its drivers and temporal dynamics is of high interest for risk management and communication. Previous studies are mostly based on temporally limited
data by using cross-sectional surveys. Here we identified and characterised different types of
trajectories of adaptive behaviour after a flood event. We used panel data, where 227 households
were repeatedly surveyed within 45 months after the flood of June 2013 in Germany about their precautions. To identify robust groups, we applied and compared two clustering methods: latent class growth analysis(LCGA) and k-means based cluster analysisfor panel data (kmlShape). Three different groups were consistent across the two methods and showed different dynamic adaptive behaviour over the survey period: a ‘high standard’ (35 % of the sample), a ‘high performer’ (37 %) and a ‘low adaptive’ (28 %) group. The high standard group was characterised by a significantly higher protection motivation and flood experience in comparison to the other groups. The high performer group showed the largest increase in implemented precautionary measures after the flood, but also expressed a general fatalistic attitude towards floods. The low adaptive group trusted their community significantly more in managing floods and reported little
access to information and support. The results indicate that tailored risk communication and funding schemes might be needed to support low adaptive types of flood-prone residents. They also present a starting point for the implementation of empirically based, heterogeneous
adaptation behaviour in socio-hydrological models.
Original languageEnglish
Article number103835
Number of pages12
JournalInternational Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
Volume94
Early online date23 Jul 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2023

Bibliographical note

© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the University’s Research Publications and Open Access policy.

Cite this