Flood risk perception in Central-Eastern European members states of the EU: a review

Pavel Raška ()

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2015, vol. 79, issue 3, 2163-2179

Abstract: Central-Eastern European (CEE) post-communist member states of the European Union have experienced several catastrophic floods during the last two decades, resulting in further discussions on implementation of the European Flood Directive (EC in Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks. European Community 2007 ). A particular issue being discussed is the level of public involvement in flood risk reduction because these countries are burdened by former highly centralized policy resulting in certain specifics in flood risk perception by the public, stakeholders and authorities. Through this paper, we try to fill the gap in current understanding of limits in flood risk reduction in CEE countries by analysing the current research on flood risk perception. We reviewed 19 studies published between 1990 and 2014 that were analysed regarding determinants of flood risk perception and the role of individual and public involvement in flood risk reduction. Although the research agenda itself seems to reflect the current trends in Western Europe, the results display significant differences. Based on our analysis, we argue that the path dependencies in flood risk perception in CEE countries results in a “thin” concept of flood risk reduction. This concept can be characterized by (a) considering risk reduction as a temporary event rather than a process, (b) a reductionist view on risk reduction measures with prevailing financial tools and (c) strong reliance upon the regional and national authorities in terms of both the risk communication and prevention measures. This gives an impetus for further research on tailor-made strategies to overcome these limits and facilitate the implementation of the European Flood Directive. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Keywords: Flood; Risk perception; Public involvement; Central-Eastern European Countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-015-1929-x (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:79:y:2015:i:3:p:2163-2179

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

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-015-1929-x

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 ().