Economic motivation of households to undertake private precautionary measures against floods

Abstract

Abstract. Flood damage is on the increase due to a combination of growing vulnerability and a changing climate. This trend can be mitigated only through significantly improved flood risk management which, alongside the efforts of public authorities, will include improvements in the mitigation measures adopted by private households. Economically "reasonable" efforts to self-insure and self-protect should be expected from households before the government steps in with publicly-funded relief programmes. To gain a deeper understanding of the benefits of households' precautionary measures, telephone interviews with private home owners were conducted in the Elbe and Danube catchments in Germany after the floods of 2002 and again after the floods in 2005 and 2006. Only detached, solid single-family houses were included in this study, which is based on 759 interviews. In addition, market-based cost assessments were solicited based on a "model building". Expert interviews and a literature review -including catalogues and price lists for building materials and household applianceswere used as back-up information for the cost assessments.

The determinants of private flood mitigation measures in Germany — Evidence from a nationwide survey

“…According to current German legislation, every potentially affected person has to do whatever is 'possible and reasonable' in order to mitigate flood damage (Wasserhaushaltsgesetz 2009:8, translated by author), and in the national climate adaptation strategy, the federal government states with regard to floods that the 'own precaution behaviour of the population must be strengthened ' (Die Bundesregierung 2008:23, translated by author). Empirical analyses from areas which have been flooded in the past have shown that mitigation can indeed effectively reduce economic flood damage considerably and is cost-efficient in many cases (Kreibich, Christenberger, and Schwarze 2011;Kreibich and Thieken 2008).…”

Preface: Flood-risk analysis and integrated management

“…Moreover, there is an increasing demand for risk assessments that evaluate insights into hazards, consequences and vulnerabilities in an integrated way Thieken et al, 2014;Merz et al, 2014). Also, a good understanding of perceptual and behavioural aspects, possibly leading to higher or lower exposure and vulnerabilities, is needed for a comprehensive and sustainable risk management (Ludy and Kon-dolf, 2012;Bubeck et al, 2012Bubeck et al, , 2013Kreibich et al, 2011Kreibich et al, , 2015Collenteur et al, 2014;Holub et al, 2011;Di Baldassarre et al, 2013). Further complexity is added by the (projected) changes in climate, exposure and vulnerability (Merz et al, 2014;Bubeck et al, 2011;Jongman et al, 2015).…”

When is it beneficial for insurers to engage in climate change adaptation – a cross country comparison

“…Several studies demonstrated the effectiveness of these kinds of adaptation measures (Hudson et al, 2014;Kreibich et al, 2005Kreibich et al, , 2011Poussin et al, 2015), but also showed that the effectiveness of each measure very much depends on local 20 circumstances, for example, the characteristics of the flood (Hudson et al, 2014;Poussin et al, 2015). It is easy to imagine that mobile water barriers on doors and windows will have no effect once they are surpassed, whereas securing oil tanks against buoyancy will be effective, independent of flood water depth (Kreibich et al, 2011).…”