TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bubeck, Philip
A1  - Botzen, W. J. Wouter
A1  - Laudan, Jonas
A1  - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.
A1  - Thieken, Annegret
T1  - Insights into flood-coping appraisals of protection motivation theory
BT  - Empirical evidence from Germany and France
JF  - Risk analysis
N2  - Protection motivation theory (PMT) has become a popular theory to explain the risk-reducing behavior of residents against natural hazards. PMT captures the two main cognitive processes that individuals undergo when faced with a threat, namely, threat appraisal and coping appraisal. The latter describes the evaluation of possible response measures that may reduce or avert the perceived threat. Although the coping appraisal component of PMT was found to be a better predictor of protective intentions and behavior, little is known about the factors that influence individuals’ coping appraisals of natural hazards. More insight into flood-coping appraisals of PMT, therefore, are needed to better understand the decision-making process of individuals and to develop effective risk communication strategies. This study presents the results of two surveys among more than 1,600 flood-prone households in Germany and France. Five hypotheses were tested using multivariate statistics regarding factors related to flood-coping appraisals, which were derived from the PMT framework, related literature, and the literature on social vulnerability. We found that socioeconomic characteristics alone are not sufficient to explain flood-coping appraisals. Particularly, observational learning from the social environment, such as friends and neighbors, is positively related to flood-coping appraisals. This suggests that social norms and networks play an important role in flood-preparedness decisions. Providing risk and coping information can also have a positive effect. Given the strong positive influence of the social environment on flood-coping appraisals, future research should investigate how risk communication can be enhanced by making use of the observed social norms and network effects.
KW  - Coping appraisal
KW  - floods
KW  - protection motivation theory (PMT)
KW  - risk communication
KW  - social vulnerability
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12938
SN  - 0272-4332
SN  - 1539-6924
VL  - 38
IS  - 6
SP  - 1239
EP  - 1257
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sultana, Zakia
A1  - Sieg, Tobias
A1  - Kellermann, Patric
A1  - Müller, Meike
A1  - Kreibich, Heidi
T1  - Assessment of business interruption of flood-affected companies using random forests
JF  - Water
N2  - Losses due to floods have dramatically increased over the past decades, and losses of companies, comprising direct and indirect losses, have a large share of the total economic losses. Thus, there is an urgent need to gain more quantitative knowledge about flood losses, particularly losses caused by business interruption, in order to mitigate the economic loss of companies. However, business interruption caused by floods is rarely assessed because of a lack of sufficiently detailed data. A survey was undertaken to explore processes influencing business interruption, which collected information on 557 companies affected by the severe flood in June 2013 in Germany. Based on this data set, the study aims to assess the business interruption of directly affected companies by means of a Random Forests model. Variables that influence the duration and costs of business interruption were identified by the variable importance measures of Random Forests. Additionally, Random Forest-based models were developed and tested for their capacity to estimate business interruption duration and associated costs. The water level was found to be the most important variable influencing the duration of business interruption. Other important variables, relating to the estimation of business interruption duration, are the warning time, perceived danger of flood recurrence and inundation duration. In contrast, the amount of business interruption costs is strongly influenced by the size of the company, as assessed by the number of employees, emergency measures undertaken by the company and the fraction of customers within a 50 km radius. These results provide useful information and methods for companies to mitigate their losses from business interruption. However, the heterogeneity of companies is relatively high, and sector-specific analyses were not possible due to the small sample size. Therefore, further sector-specific analyses on the basis of more flood loss data of companies are recommended.
KW  - business interruption
KW  - floods
KW  - Random Forests
KW  - companies
KW  - variable importance
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/w10081049
SN  - 2073-4441
VL  - 10
IS  - 8
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -