Flood Risk and River Conservation: Mapping Citizen Perception to Support Sustainable River Management

Abstract

Involving citizens in river and flood risk management is critical for risk reduction and sustainable development within river basins, but local community input is often limited. This is partly due to the difficulty of quantifying the perceived values and risks related to the rivers, because these are based on personal knowledge and opinions. There is a need for more data on locals’ opinions and how they are spatially distributed across the river basin. Studies analyzing how perceived risks match evidence-based data can be a first step to including local knowledge in the decision-making process and pose the basis to enhance preparedness. Here, we present a blueprint questionnaire to characterize the perception of flood risk and its spatial distribution across the river basin. Respondents are asked their perception of the role of the river in terms of flood risk and management, as well as to pinpoint on a map the areas they identify as the most dangerous during floods. The approach is tested on the Tagliamento River in the Italian Alps, characterized by debates regarding flood protection, flood management and ecological conservation. The flood risk perception map shows good agreement between perceived risk and existing flood risk assessment maps in the lower basin, where major floods happened in recent memory (1966). In the upper basin, despite having suffered frequent floods, participants are more uncertain about the risks. There is interest in being involved in the risk management debate, and most respondents believe that risk reduction and river conservation are compatible. Land use planning is identified as a factor that can increase flood risk. The results point to the necessity to tackle together conservation, risk management and land use planning in order to develop risk-oriented river management strategies. Our study demonstrates how online participatory mapping can be used to improve the understanding of citizens’ perceptions and expectations with regards to their river, and support participation in sustainable river management.

What locals want: citizen preferences and priorities for the Tagliamento River

“…In terms of management choices, all groups identified conservation as the highest priority for river management. This is confirmed by the fact that more than 88% said that it is possible to tackle both conservation and risk mitigation (Scaini et al 2021b). Based on these results, management options that address the challenge of conservation and flood protection are required here, pointing to the importance of nature-based solutions (or other management options that could allow for river conservation).…”

“…The questionnaire, in Italian and English, was prepared using the software Questionpro and was available online between 23 November 2020 and 5 January 2021. To reach a comprehensive picture of the different relationships, values and opinions of people, the questionnaire was shared widely, where the only condition for participation was some knowledge of the TR (Scaini et al 2021b).…”

“…The free-text comments were used to map the most recurring words through word clouds as well as to apply the method described in Scaini et al (2021b). The categorization of free-text was performed through the use of tags.…”

“…The questionnaire was filled in by 4100, and completed by 2220 respondents, corresponding to a 53.6% completion rate, with 94% of responses coming from Italy. For a breakdown of the detailed information regarding participants profiling, see Scaini et al (2021b). 58% of the respondents reside in the river basin and 32% in other municipalities of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.…”

“…Some differences across management priorities occur across participants from profiled groups, with only some link to age, residence, and the relation to the river (a proxy of stakeholder groups). Residents from the lower course give more importance to flood protection, which is likely related to the higher perceived risk of floods in the lower course (Scaini et al 2021b). Flood protection is also given the second highest priority by technicians, who also rank conservation first.…”