TY - JOUR A1 - Bubeck, Philip A1 - Thieken, Annegret T1 - What helps people recover from floods? BT - insights from a survey among flood-affected residents in German JF - Regional environmental change N2 - The number of people exposed to natural hazards has grown steadily over recent decades, mainly due to increasing exposure in hazard-prone areas. In the future, climate change could further enhance this trend. Still, empirical and comprehensive insights into individual recovery from natural hazards are largely lacking, hampering efforts to increase societal resilience. Drawing from a sample of 710 residents affected by flooding across Germany in June 2013, we empirically explore a wide range of variables possibly influencing self-reported recovery, including flood-event characteristics, the circumstances of the recovery process, socio-economic characteristics, and psychological factors, using multivariate statistics. We found that the amount of damage and other flood-event characteristics such as inundation depth are less important than socio-economic characteristics (e.g., sex or health status) and psychological factors (e.g., risk aversion and emotions). Our results indicate that uniform recovery efforts focusing on areas that were the most affected in terms of physical damage are insufficient to account for the heterogeneity in individual recovery results. To increase societal resilience, aid and recovery efforts should better address the long-term psychological effects of floods. KW - Floods KW - Resilience KW - Recovery KW - Natural hazards KW - Climate change KW - Adaptation Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1200-y SN - 1436-3798 SN - 1436-378X VL - 18 IS - 1 SP - 287 EP - 296 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bouwer, Laurens M. A1 - Papyrakis, Elissaios A1 - Poussin, Jennifer A1 - Pfurtscheller, Clemens A1 - Thieken, Annegret T1 - The costing of measures for natural hazard mitigation in Europe JF - Natural hazards review N2 - The literature on the costing of mitigation measures for reducing impacts of natural hazards is rather fragmented. This paper provides a concise overview of the current state of knowledge in Europe on the costing of mitigation measures for the reduction of natural hazard risks (droughts, floods, storms and induced coastal hazards as well as alpine hazards) and identifies knowledge gaps and related research recommendations. Furthermore, it provides a taxonomy of related mitigation options, classifying them into nine categories: (1) management plans, land-use planning, and climate adaptation; (2) hazard modification; (3) infrastructure; (4) mitigation measures (stricto sensu); (5) communication in advance of events; (6) monitoring and early warning systems; (7) emergency response and evacuation; (8) financial incentives; and (9) risk transfer (including insurance). It is found that the costing of mitigation measures in European and in other countries has almost exclusively focused on estimating direct costs. A cost assessment framework that addresses a range of costs, possibly informed by multiple stakeholders, would provide more accurate estimates and could provide better guidance to decision makers. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers. KW - Natural hazards KW - Mitigation KW - Costs KW - Adaptation KW - Risk reduction KW - Floods KW - Droughts KW - Coastal hazards KW - Alpine hazards Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000133 SN - 1527-6988 SN - 1527-6996 VL - 15 IS - 4 PB - American Society of Civil Engineers CY - Reston ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Natho, Stephanie A1 - Thieken, Annegret T1 - Implementation and adaptation of a macro-scale method to assess and monitor direct economic losses caused by natural hazards JF - International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction N2 - As one of the 195 member countries of the United Nations, Germany signed the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR). Among other targets, the SFDRR aims at reducing direct economic losses caused by natural hazards by 2030. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) has hence proposed a methodology for estimating direct economic losses per event and country, based on experiences from developing countries. Since its usability in industrialized countries is unknown, this study presents the first implementation and validation of this approach in Germany. The methodology was tested for the three costliest natural hazard types in Germany, i.e. floods, wind and hail storms, considering 12 case studies between 1984 and 2016. Although the event-specific input data requirements are restricted to the number of damaged or destroyed units per sector, incomplete event documentations did not allow a full validation of all sectors necessary to describe the total direct economic loss. New modules (cars, forestry, paved roads, housing contents and overall costs of urban infrastructure) were developed to better adapt this methodology to German conditions. Whereas the original UNISDR methodology both over-and underestimates the losses of the tested events by a wide margin, the adapted methodology is able to calculate losses accounting well for all event types except for flash floods. Hence, this approach serves as a good starting point for macro-scale loss estimations. By implementing this approach into damage and event documentation and reporting standards, a consistent monitoring of the SFDRR could be achieved. KW - Germany KW - Direct economic loss KW - Natural hazards KW - Flood KW - Storm KW - Hail KW - Loss modelling Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.03.008 SN - 2212-4209 VL - 28 SP - 191 EP - 205 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -