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Insights into Flood Risk Misperceptions of Homeowners in the Dutch River Delta
Author(s) -
Mol Jantsje M.,
Botzen W. J. Wouter,
Blasch Julia E.,
Moel Hans
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/risa.13479
Subject(s) - flood myth , floodplain , flooding (psychology) , heuristics , natural disaster , heuristic , environmental science , risk assessment , risk analysis (engineering) , geography , environmental planning , water resource management , environmental resource management , business , computer science , psychology , cartography , computer security , meteorology , archaeology , artificial intelligence , psychotherapist , operating system
Flooding is one of the most significant natural disasters worldwide. Nevertheless, voluntary take‐up of individual damage reduction measures is low. A potential explanation is that flood risk perceptions of individual homeowners are below objective estimates of flood risk, which may imply that they underestimate the flood risk and the damage that can be avoided by damage reduction measures. The aim of this article is to assess possible flood risk misperceptions of floodplain residents in the Netherlands, and to offer insights into factors that are related with under‐ or overestimation of perceived flood risk. We analyzed survey data of 1,848 homeowners in the Dutch river delta and examine how perceptions of flood probability and damage relate to objective risk assessments, such as safety standards of dikes, as well as heuristics, including the availability heuristic and the affect heuristic. Results show that many Dutch floodplain inhabitants significantly overestimate the probability, but underestimate the maximum expected water level of a flood. We further observe that many respondents apply the availability heuristic.