Knowing what to do substantially improves the effectiveness of flood early warning
- Flood warning systems are longstanding success stories with respect to protecting human life, but monetary losses continue to grow. Knowledge on the effectiveness of flood early warning in reducing monetary losses is scarce, especially at the individual level. To gain more knowledge in this area, we analyze a dataset that is unique with respect to detailed information on warning reception and monetary losses at the property level and with respect to amount of data available. The dataset contains 4,468 loss cases from six flood events in Germany. These floods occurred between 2002 and 2013. The data from each event were collected by computer-aided telephone interviews in four surveys following a repeated cross-sectional design. We quantitatively reveal that flood early warning is only effective in reducing monetary losses when people know what to do when they receive the warning. We also show that particularly long-term preparedness is associated with people knowing what to do when they receive a warning. Thus, risk communication,Flood warning systems are longstanding success stories with respect to protecting human life, but monetary losses continue to grow. Knowledge on the effectiveness of flood early warning in reducing monetary losses is scarce, especially at the individual level. To gain more knowledge in this area, we analyze a dataset that is unique with respect to detailed information on warning reception and monetary losses at the property level and with respect to amount of data available. The dataset contains 4,468 loss cases from six flood events in Germany. These floods occurred between 2002 and 2013. The data from each event were collected by computer-aided telephone interviews in four surveys following a repeated cross-sectional design. We quantitatively reveal that flood early warning is only effective in reducing monetary losses when people know what to do when they receive the warning. We also show that particularly long-term preparedness is associated with people knowing what to do when they receive a warning. Thus, risk communication, training, and (financial) support for private preparedness are effective in mitigating flood losses in two ways: precautionary measures and more effective emergency responses.…
Author details: | Heidi KreibichORCiDGND, Paul HudsonORCiDGND, Bruno MerzORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0262.1 |
ISSN: | 0003-0007 |
ISSN: | 1520-0477 |
Title of parent work (English): | Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society |
Publisher: | American Meteorological Soc. |
Place of publishing: | Boston |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2021/07/01 |
Publication year: | 2021 |
Release date: | 2023/11/30 |
Tag: | adaptation; damage assessment; emergency; emergency preparedness; flood events; response |
Volume: | 102 |
Issue: | 7 |
Number of pages: | 14 |
First page: | E1450 |
Last Page: | E1463 |
Funding institution: | German Research Network Natural Disasters [German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)]Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) [01SFR9969/5]; MEDIS project (BMBF)Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) [0330688]; project "Hochwasser 2013" (BMBF)Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) [13N13017]; German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ, Duesseldorf; University of Potsdam, Duesseldorf; Deutsche Rueckversicherung AG, Duesseldorf |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 55 Geowissenschaften, Geologie / 550 Geowissenschaften |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |