Glaus Anik, Mosimann Markus, Röthlisberger Veronika, Ingold Karin
Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Hochschulstrasse 4, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Reg Environ Change. 2020;20(4):120. doi: 10.1007/s10113-020-01705-7. Epub 2020 Oct 11.
Despite an increasing number of people exposed to flood risks in Europe, flood risk perception remains low and effective flood risk management policies are rarely implemented. It becomes increasingly important to understand how local governments can design effective flood risk management policies to address flood risks. In this article, we study whether high flood exposure and flood risk perception correlate with the demand for a specific design of flood risk management policies. We take the ideal case of Switzerland and analyze flood risk management portfolios in 18 flood-prone municipalities along the Aare River. We introduce a novel combination of risk analysis and public policy data: we analyze correlations between recorded flood exposure data and survey data on flood risk perception and policy preferences for selected flood risk management measures. Our results indicate that local governments with high flood risk perception tend to prefer non-structural measures, such as spatial planning and ecological river restoration, to infrastructure measures. In contrast, flood exposure is neither linked to flood risk perception nor to policy preferences. We conclude that flood risk perception is key: it can decisively affect local governments' preferences to implement specific diversified policy portfolios including more preventive or integrated flood risk management measures. These findings imply that local governments in flood-prone areas should invest in raising their population's awareness capacity of flood risks and keep it high during periods without flooding.
尽管欧洲面临洪水风险的人数不断增加，但人们对洪水风险的认知仍然较低，有效的洪水风险管理政策也很少得到实施。了解地方政府如何设计有效的洪水风险管理政策以应对洪水风险变得越来越重要。在本文中，我们研究高洪水暴露和洪水风险认知是否与对特定洪水风险管理政策设计的需求相关。我们以瑞士的理想案例为例，分析了阿勒河沿岸18个易发生洪水的市镇的洪水风险管理组合。我们引入了风险分析和公共政策数据的新颖组合：我们分析记录的洪水暴露数据与关于洪水风险认知以及选定洪水风险管理措施的政策偏好的调查数据之间的相关性。我们的结果表明，洪水风险认知较高的地方政府倾向于选择非结构性措施，如空间规划和生态河流修复，而不是基础设施措施。相比之下，洪水暴露既与洪水风险认知无关，也与政策偏好无关。我们得出结论，洪水风险认知是关键：它可以决定性地影响地方政府实施包括更多预防性或综合性洪水风险管理措施在内的特定多样化政策组合的偏好。这些发现意味着，易发生洪水地区的地方政府应投资提高其民众对洪水风险的认识能力，并在无洪水时期保持这种高认识水平。
