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AbstractExtreme heat poses severe health threats, as the increased numbers of hospitalizations and fatalities during heat waves show, though little is known about adaptive behavior toward heat. We conducted a household survey on individual perceptions of heat stress and individual heat protection in the summer and autumn of 2019. In total, 1417 people from three medium‐sized German cities participated via telephone or online. Based on the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM), which we adapted to heat stress, we analyzed links between risk perception, environmental and demographic factors, perceptions of stakeholders, different heat warning messages, as well as actual and intended adaptive behavior. Overall, the PADM constructs explained around 16% of the variance in protection motivation, 19% in protective response, and 23% in emotion‐focused coping. Context factors (i.e., temperature, risk communication, gender, age, and homeownership) were significant predictors of the addressed outcome variables as were psychological factors (i.e., perceived personal vulnerability, response efficacy, response costs, preparedness, and perceived external responsibility). We further explored the effect of different warning messages on situational knowledge and intended behavioral adaptation in an experimental setting. Results showed that respondents felt significantly better informed after receiving a warning with action recommendations and reported more intended specific behaviors. Our research gives insights into individual protective action decision‐making processes. Based on our findings, we recommend tailoring risk communication strategies and combining heat warnings with action recommendations whenever possible to increase understanding and individual adaptation.

Abstract
Research suggests that providing weather forecast end users with additional information about the forecast uncertainty of a possible event can enhance the preparation of mitigation measures. But not all users have the same threshold for taking action. This paper focuses on the question of whether there are influencing factors that determine decision thresholds for numerical weather forecast information beginning at which the general public would start to take protective action.
In spring 2014, 1342 residents of Berlin, Germany participated in a survey. Questions related to the following topics: perception of and prior experience with severe weather, trustworthiness of forecasters and confidence in weather forecasts, and sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Within the questionnaire a scenario was created in order to determine individual decision thresholds and see whether subgroups of the sample lead to different thresholds.
Results show that people's willingness to act tends to be higher and decision thresholds tend to be lower if the expected weather event is more severe or the property at risk is of higher value. Several influencing factors of risk perception have significant effects such as education, housing status, and ability to act, whereas classic sociodemographic determinants alone are often not sufficient to fully grasp risk perception and protection behavior.

Improving society's ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from flooding requires integrated, anticipatory flood risk management (FRM) . However, most countries still focus their efforts on responding to flooding events if and when they occur rather than addressing their current and future vulnerability to flooding. Flood insurance is one mechanism that could a more ex-ante approach to risk by supporting risk reduction activities. This paper uses an adapted version of Easton's System Theory to investigate the role of insurance for FRM in Germany and England. We introduce an anticipatory FRM framework, which allows to consider flood insurance as part of a broader policy field. We analyse if and how flood insurance can catalyse a change towards a more anticipatory approach to FRM. In particular we consider insurance's role in influencing five key components of an anticipatory FRM: risk knowledge, prevention through better planning, property-level protection measures, structural protection and preparedness (for response). We find that in both countries FRM is still a reactive, event-driven process, while anticipatory FRM remains underdeveloped. However, collaboration between insurers and FRM decision-makers has already been successful, for example in improving risk knowledge and awareness, while in other areas insurance acts as a disincentive for more risk reduction action. In both countries there is evidence that insurance can play a significant role in encouraging anticipatory FRM, but this remains underutilized. Effective collaboration between insurers and government, should not be seen as a cost, but as an investment to secure future insurability through flood resilience.

Abstract. Urban growth and an increase in urban poverty are important drivers of disaster risk. However, to what extent these processes influence the dynamics of exposure and vulnerability remains uncertain. We hereby contribute to this discussion by presenting key lessons learned from the multi-hazard event that hit the North Coast of São Paulo (NCSP), Brazil, in February 2023. While the event was triggered by rainfall amounts of over 500 mm a day, urban development processes also influenced the impacts of the disaster. In this paper, we quantify these influences through a data integration approach combining empirical evidence on the historical evolution of urban settlements with damage mapping. We also evaluate the factors driving urban growth and spatial segregation in the region. We found that the impacts of the disaster were largely attributed to historical built-up land use changes, as 46 % fewer buildings would have been damaged if the same event had happened around 2 decades earlier, i.e., in 2001. Moreover, precarious urban settlements were considerably more exposed and vulnerable to the event, as evidenced by the density of damaged buildings, i.e., 12 times higher than in non-precarious settlements. We also observed strong patterns of spatial segregation in the NCSP. For instance, precarious settlements are much more frequent at hazardous locations, including on and at shorter distances from steep slopes. While this paper presents an analysis at the local level, the challenges of urbanization and growing intra-urban inequalities are global. Thus, these results reinforce the importance of accounting for such urban processes in disaster risk reduction interventions and the urgent need for research efforts that go beyond the hazard component, e.g., through an improvement of methods to simulate urban scenarios in the scope of disaster risk.

Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) has become a widely-used theoretical framework to explain the risk-reducing behavior of individuals toward flooding and other natural hazards. Despite a quickly growing body of literature applying PMT in the context of flooding, insights into changes in PMT components and risk-reducing behavior are largely lacking due to a predominant use of cross-sectional research designs. In this study, we examine how various intrapersonal sources of information relate to changes in PMT components and risk-reducing behavior, using unique panel data ( n = 2,680) from a survey in Germany and a fixed-effects regression modeling approach. In line with PMT, we find that various intrapersonal sources of information, like prior experience, relate to changes in PMT components. We also find that coping appraisals of PMT change in a direction negatively related to risk-reducing behavior over time, posing a challenge for risk communication and the envisaged shift to integrated flood risk management.

Abstract. River floods are among the most damaging natural hazards that frequently occur in Germany. Flooding causes high economic losses and impacts many residents. In 2016, several southern German municipalities were hit by flash floods after unexpectedly severe heavy rainfall, while in 2013
widespread river flooding had occurred. This study investigates and compares the psychological impacts of river floods and flash floods and potential consequences for precautionary behaviour. Data were collected using computer-aided telephone interviews that were conducted among flood-affected households around 9 months after each damaging event. This study applies Bayesian statistics and negative binomial regressions to test the
suitability of psychological indicators to predict the precaution motivation of individuals. The results show that it is not the particular flood type but rather the severity and local impacts of the event that are crucial for the different, and potentially negative, impacts on mental health. According to the used data, however, predictions of the individual precaution motivation should not be based on the derived psychological indicators – i.e. coping appraisal, threat appraisal, burden and evasion – since their explanatory power was generally low and results are, for the most part, non-significant. Only burden reveals a significant positive relation to planned precaution regarding weak flash floods. In contrast to weak flash floods and river floods, the perceived threat of strong flash floods is significantly lower although feelings of burden and lower coping appraisals are more pronounced. Further research is needed to better include psychological assessment procedures and to focus on alternative data sources regarding floods and the connected precaution motivation of affected residents.

Integrated flood management strategies consider property-level precautionary measures as a vital part. Whereas this is a well-researched topic for residents, little is known about the adaptive behaviour of flood-prone companies although they often settle on the ground floor of buildings and are thus among the first affected by flooding. This pilot study analyses flood responses of 64 businesses in a district of the city of Dresden, Germany that experienced major flooding in 2002 and 2013. Using standardised survey data and accompanying qualitative interviews, the analyses revealed that the largest driver of adaptive behaviour is experiencing flood events. Intangible factors such as tradition and a sense of community play a role for the decision to stay in the area, while lacking ownership might hamper property-level adaptation. Further research is also needed to understand the role of insurance and governmental aid for recovery and adaptation of businesses.

Abstract. Experience has shown that river floods can significantly hamper the reliability of railway networks and cause extensive structural damage and disruption. As a result, the national railway operator in Austria had to cope with financial losses of more than EUR 100 million due to flooding in recent years. Comprehensive information on potential flood risk hot spots as well as on expected flood damage in Austria is therefore needed for strategic flood risk management. In view of this, the flood damage model RAIL (RAilway Infrastructure Loss) was applied to estimate (1) the expected structural flood damage and (2) the resulting repair costs of railway infrastructure due to a 30-, 100- and 300-year flood in the Austrian Mur River catchment. The results were then used to calculate the expected annual damage of the railway subnetwork and subsequently analysed in terms of their sensitivity to key model assumptions. Additionally, the impact of risk aversion on the estimates was investigated, and the overall results were briefly discussed against the background of climate change and possibly resulting changes in flood risk. The findings indicate that the RAIL model is capable of supporting decision-making in risk management by providing comprehensive risk information on the catchment level. It is furthermore demonstrated that an increased risk aversion of the railway operator has a marked influence on flood damage estimates for the study area and, hence, should be considered with regard to the development of risk management strategies.

Abstract. The devastating floods that swept through the Ahr valley in July 2021 left indelible marks on the region's landscape and communities. Beyond the visible damage, experience from other events suggests an increase in mental health issues among those affected. However, there is a lack of data and understanding regarding the impact of flooding on mental health in Germany. Therefore, this study aims to determine how much the flooding in 2021 affected the population's mental wellbeing. For this purpose, a household-level survey (n=516) was conducted in the district of Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate – Germany's most-affected region – 1 year after the flood event, specifically in June and July 2022. The survey employed a short epidemiological screening scale to assess the prevalence of individuals showing indications of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Using binary logistic regression analyses, we identify risk and protective factors that may have played a role in the development of PTSD to find intervention points for supporting those affected. Our findings indicate significant mental health issues 1 year after the flood event, with 28.2 % of respondents showing indications of PTSD. Furthermore, this study has uncovered essential risk factors for developing indications of PTSD after flooding: female gender, being seriously injured or becoming sick during the event, and feeling left alone to cope with flood impacts. The study emphasizes that severe flooding, such as the 2021 flood, results in new health-related needs that demand attention. As a result, care methods should be adapted to tackle the prevalence and risk factors connected with PTSD in the affected population, e.g., by providing targeted aftercare for individuals who were injured or became sick during the flood event.

Abstract. Models for the predictions of monetary losses from floods mainly blend data deemed to represent a single flood type and region. Moreover, these approaches largely ignore indicators of preparedness and how predictors may vary between regions and events, challenging the transferability of flood loss models. We use a flood loss database of 1812 German flood-affected households to explore how Bayesian multilevel models can estimate normalised flood damage stratified by event, region, or flood process type. Multilevel models acknowledge natural groups in the data and allow each group to learn from others. We obtain posterior estimates that differ between flood types, with credibly varying influences of water depth, contamination, duration, implementation of property-level precautionary measures, insurance, and previous flood experience; these influences overlap across most events or regions, however. We infer that the underlying damaging processes of distinct flood types deserve further attention. Each reported flood loss and affected region involved mixed flood types, likely explaining the uncertainty in the coefficients. Our results emphasise the need to consider flood types as an important step towards applying flood loss models elsewhere. We argue that failing to do so may unduly generalise the model and systematically bias loss estimations from empirical data.

AbstractHeat waves are increasingly common in many countries across the globe, and also in Germany, where this study is set. Heat poses severe health risks, especially for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and children. This case study explores visitors' behavior and perceptions during six weekends in the summer of 2018 at a six-month open-air horticultural show. Data from a face-to-face survey (n = 306) and behavioral observations (n = 2750) were analyzed via correlation analyses, ANOVA, and multiple regression analyses. Differences in weather perception, risk awareness, adaptive behavior, and activity level were observed between rainy days (maximum daily temperature < 25°C), warm summer days (25 - 30°C), and hot days (> 30°C). Respondents reported a high level of heat risk awareness, but most (90 %) were unaware of actual heat warnings. During hot days, more adaptive measures were reported and observed. Older respondents reported taking the highest number of adaptive measures. We observed the highest level of adaptation in children, but they also showed the highest activity level. Based on our results we discuss how to facilitate individual adaptation to heat stress at open-air events by taking the heterogeneity of visitors into account. In order to mitigate negative health outcomes for citizens in the future, we argue for tailored risk communication aimed at vulnerable groups.

AbstractInsights into the dynamics of human behavior in response to flooding are urgently needed for the development of effective integrated flood risk management strategies, and for integrating human behavior in flood risk modeling. However, our understanding of the dynamics of risk perceptions, attitudes, individual recovery processes, as well as adaptive (i.e., risk reducing) intention and behavior are currently limited because of the predominant use of cross‐sectional surveys in the flood risk domain. Here, we present the results from one of the first panel surveys in the flood risk domain covering a relatively long period of time (i.e., four years after a damaging event), three survey waves, and a wide range of topics relevant to the role of citizens in integrated flood risk management. The panel data, consisting of 227 individuals affected by the 2013 flood in Germany, were analyzed using repeated‐measures ANOVA and latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to utilize the unique temporal dimension of the data set. Results show that attitudes, such as the respondents' perceived responsibility within flood risk management, remain fairly stable over time. Changes are observed partly for risk perceptions and mainly for individual recovery and intentions to undertake risk‐reducing measures. LCGA reveal heterogeneous recovery and adaptation trajectories that need to be taken into account in policies supporting individual recovery and stimulating societal preparedness. More panel studies in the flood risk domain are needed to gain better insights into the dynamics of individual recovery, risk‐reducing behavior, and associated risk and protective factors.

Abstract. Flood damage can be mitigated if the parties at risk are reached by flood warnings and if they know how to react appropriately. To gain more knowledge about warning reception and emergency response of private households and companies, surveys were undertaken after the August 2002 and the June 2013 floods in Germany. Despite pronounced regional differences, the results show a clear overall picture: in 2002, early warnings did not work well; e.g. many households (27 %) and companies (45 %) stated that they had not received any flood warnings. Additionally, the preparedness of private households and companies was low in 2002, mainly due to a lack of flood experience. After the 2002 flood, many initiatives were launched and investments undertaken to improve flood risk management, including early warnings and an emergency response in Germany. In 2013, only a small share of the affected households (5 %) and companies (3 %) were not reached by any warnings. Additionally, private households and companies were better prepared. For instance, the share of companies which have an emergency plan in place has increased from 10 % in 2002 to 34 % in 2013. However, there is still room for improvement, which needs to be triggered mainly by effective risk and emergency communication. The challenge is to continuously maintain and advance an integrated early warning and emergency response system even without the occurrence of extreme floods.