Enhancing the human benefits of flood warnings

Dennis Parker (), Sue Tapsell and Simon McCarthy

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2007, vol. 43, issue 3, 397-414

Abstract: This article evaluates some of the factors which limit the human benefits of hazard warnings, with specific reference to flood warnings, and we conclude by suggesting ways of enhancing these benefits. We focus mainly upon the economic benefits generated by flood damage savings by households that warnings facilitate; health effects of flooding and flood warnings; and the effects of warnings on loss of life and physical injury. Our results, based partly upon surveys of flooded households, reveal that economic benefits are currently more limited than we previously thought, but that for several reasons these benefits are likely to be under-estimated. We argue that the intangible benefits to public health, safety and security must also be taken into account in decisions about investment in flood warnings. In England and Wales, the public’s response to flood warnings is currently low and is a key benefit-limiting factor which could begin to undermine a recent major shift in national flood risk management policy towards a more people-centred, portfolio approach in which changing human behaviour is viewed as important. Using a trans-disciplinary approach, we discuss the evidence and literature surrounding this poor response, and suggest a number of ways in which the issue may be addressed in future. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Keywords: Flood risk perception; Risk communication; Flood warnings; Warning response; Damage-savings; Health impacts; Loss of life impacts; Public trust (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-007-9137-y (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:43:y:2007:i:3:p:397-414

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-007-9137-y

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().