TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hudson, Paul
A1  - Botzen, W. J. Wouter
A1  - Poussin, Jennifer
A1  - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.
T1  - Impacts of flooding and flood preparedness on subjective well-being
T2  - Journal of Happiness Studies
N2  - Flood disasters severely impact human subjective well-being (SWB). Nevertheless, few studies have examined the influence of flood events on individual well-being and how such impacts may be limited by flood protection measures. This study estimates the long term impacts on individual subjective well-being of flood experiences, individual subjective flood risk perceptions, and household flood preparedness decisions. These effects are monetised and placed in context through a comparison with impacts of other adverse events on well-being. We collected data from households in flood-prone areas in France. The results indicate that experiencing a flood has a large negative impact on subjective well-being that is incompletely attenuated over time. Moreover, individuals do not need to be directly affected by floods to suffer SWB losses since subjective well-being is lower for those who expect their flood risk to increase or who have seen a neighbour being flooded. Floodplain inhabitants who prepared for flooding by elevating their home have a higher subjective well-being. A monetisation of the aforementioned well-being impacts shows that a flood requires Euro150,000 in immediate compensation to attenuate SWB losses. The decomposition of the monetised impacts of flood experience into tangible losses and intangible effects on SWB shows that intangible effects are about twice as large as the tangible direct monetary flood losses. Investments in flood protection infrastructure may be under funded if the intangible SWB benefits of flood protection are not taken into account.
KW  - Flooding
KW  - Subjective well-being
KW  - Intangible losses
KW  - Tangible losses
KW  - Climate change
KW  - Adaptation
KW  - Climate change adaptation
Y1  - 2017
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/50291
SN  - 1389-4978
SN  - 1573-7780
VL  - 20
IS  - 2
SP  - 665
EP  - 682
PB  - Springer Science
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  -