The two faces of social capital in private flood mitigation: opposing effects on risk perception, self-efficacy and coping capacity

Abstract

Impacts of flooding are expected to increase, most notably in residential areas. As a consequence, private households are increasingly encouraged to engage in private flood mitigation complementary to public measures. Despite the growing literature on private flood mitigation, little is known about how social capital influences households' perception of and coping with flood risks. This study draws on survey data of 226 flood-prone households in two Austrian Alpine municipalities, both recently affected by riverine flooding. We show that social capital cuts both ways: on the positive side, social capital increases perceived self-efficacy and provides critical support during and most notably after flood events. On the negative side, social capital reduces flood risk perceptions of private households. While social ties are effective when responding to and recovering from floods, the expectation of social support downplays risk, making precautionary action by households less likely. The results also show that floodaffected households receive more social support than they provide to others. In the long-run, this can lead to a problematic reciprocity imbalance, challenging the long-term stability of the interpersonal exchanges underlying social capital. Among the various sources of social support, informal social networks (neighbours, friends and relatives) provide the most important workforce in the response and recovery phase of a flood event. It is therefore crucial for flood risk management to recognise and promote the protective quality of social capital alongside conventional structural and non-structural measures.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Geographic and Social Predictors of Flood Risk Awareness

“…Perceptions of social capital and expected support in the event of an emergency may be even more pertinent to disaster preparedness than the tangible resources that are actually received. We know that greater perceptions of accessible social support bolster feelings of self‐efficacy and coping capacity for flood risk (Babcicky & Seebauer, ). A survey by Reininger et al.…”

“…The literature reveals that several demographic factors are robust predictors of risk perception, including income (Babcicky & Seebauer, 2017;Cutler, 2016), gender (Enarson & Scanlon, 1999;Henwood, Pidgeon, & Parkhill, 2014;Milnes & Haney, 2017;Morioka, 2014), race and ethnicity (Spence, Lachlan, & Griffin, 2007), occupation (Kouabenan, 2002), age (Kellens, Zaalberg, Neutens, Vanneuville, & De Maeyer, 2011;Tuohy & Stephens, 2012), ability/disability (Alexander, Gaillard, & Wisner, 2012), educational attainment, and access to information (Park & Vedlitz, 2013). It is of note that age is a significant factor regarding how people wish to receive warnings and risk-related information, with younger people preferring newer forms of media (i.e., social media) and older people preferring traditional forms of media (i.e., television) (Feldman et al, 2016).…”

Allocation of risk and benefits—distributional justices in mountain hazard management

“…The central responsibility within the natural hazard management discourse would be organised by individuals instead of the public administration. The changes would request that the private property owners have to strengthen the individual resilience capacity to response to future natural hazard events, also in terms of collecting information about the risk (Djordjevic et al 2011;Kuhlicke et al 2011;Babcicky and Seebauer 2017). The consequences were that main losers would be householders with a high social vulnerability and a low individual capacity to response to natural hazard events (Chakraborty et al 2014;Montgomery and Chakraborty 2015;Maldonado et al 2016) or especially tenants without any possibilities for implementing risk reduction measures, while utilitarian and libertarian principles show similar static implications.…”

Capturing the multifaceted phenomena of socioeconomic vulnerability

“…Wilhelmi and Hayden (2010) proposed a framework for the analysis of local vulnerability to urban heat stress based on a multilayered, top-down and bottom-up approach, based also on household data through interviews. The integration of local practices and knowledge base is essential when aiming to strengthen climate change adaptation (IPCC 2014) since "social capital influences households' perception of and coping with flood risks" (Babcicky andSeebauer 2016: 1017).…”