Item

The impact of flood action groups on the uptake of flood management measures

Dittrich, R
Wreford, Anita
Butler, Adam,
Moran, D
Date
2016-10
Type
Journal Article
Fields of Research
ANZSRC::040104 Climate Change Processes , ANZSRC::040604 Natural Hazards
Abstract
Household flood management measures can significantly reduce the risk from flooding. Understanding the factors that influence the uptake of measures has important implications for the design of measures to induce people to take charge of risk mitigation. We investigate the impact of flood action groups in communities in Scotland on the uptake of four measures: insurance, flood warnings, sandbags and floodgates applying regression analysis using a cross-sectional survey (n = 124). The groups were formed in response to the threat from flooding in those communities, and offer information and training on household flood management measures. We use the theoretical framework of Protection Motivation Theory, and compare uptake of the measures before and after the foundation of the flood action groups, as well as in the near future. The models show positive adoption effects for flood warnings, floodgates and to an extent for insurance, and a positive correlation with increased confidence of implementing and belief in the effectiveness of the measures. The effect is significant if specific information on the measures was provided, indicating the importance of tailored content. We conclude that appropriately designed flood action groups can be a cost-effective way of increasing the uptake of household flood management measures.
Rights
© The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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