Avoiding or mitigating flooding: Bottom-up drivers of urban resilience to climate change in the USA

de Koning, K; Filatova, T; Need, A; Bin, O

Avoiding or mitigating flooding: Bottom-up drivers of urban resilience to climate change in the USA

de Koning, K Filatova, T

Need, A Bin, O

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Global Environmental Change, 2019, 59
Issue Date:: 2019-11-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	de Koning, K	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Filatova, T https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3546-6930	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Need, A	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Bin, O	en_US
dc.date.issued	2019-11-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Global Environmental Change, 2019, 59	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0959-3780	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/136900
dc.description.abstract	© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Coastal areas around the world are urbanizing rapidly, despite the threat of sea level rise and intensifying floods. Such development places an increasing number of people and capital at risk, which calls for public flood management as well as household level adaptation measures that reduce social vulnerability to flooding and climate change. This study explores several private adaptation responses to flood risk, that are driven by various behavioral triggers. We conduct a survey among households in hazard-prone areas in eight coastal states in the USA, of which, some have recently experienced major flooding. While numerous empirical studies have investigated household-level flood damage mitigation, little attention has been given to examining the decision to retreat from flood zones. We examine what behavioral motives drive the choices for flood damage mitigation and relocation separately among property buyers and sellers. Hence, we focus on the drivers that shape demand for future development in flood-prone cities. We find that households’ choices to retreat from or to avoid flood zones (1) are highly sensitive to information that provokes people's feelings of fear, and (2) rely on hazardous events to trigger a protective action, which ideally would take place well before these events occur. We highlight that major flooding may cause a potential risk of large-scale outmigration and demographic changes in flood-prone areas, putting more low-income households at risk. Therefore, coordinated policies that integrate bottom-up drivers of individual climate adaptation are needed to increase urban resilience to floods.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Global Environmental Change	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101981	en_US
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.subject.classification	Environmental Sciences	en_US
dc.title	Avoiding or mitigating flooding: Bottom-up drivers of urban resilience to climate change in the USA	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	59	en_US
utslib.for	0502 Environmental Science and Management	en_US
utslib.for	0104 Statistics	en_US
utslib.for	0401 Atmospheric Sciences	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Information, Systems and Modelling
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - PERSWADE - Centre on Persuasive Systems for Wise Adaptive Living
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	59	en_US

Abstract:

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Coastal areas around the world are urbanizing rapidly, despite the threat of sea level rise and intensifying floods. Such development places an increasing number of people and capital at risk, which calls for public flood management as well as household level adaptation measures that reduce social vulnerability to flooding and climate change. This study explores several private adaptation responses to flood risk, that are driven by various behavioral triggers. We conduct a survey among households in hazard-prone areas in eight coastal states in the USA, of which, some have recently experienced major flooding. While numerous empirical studies have investigated household-level flood damage mitigation, little attention has been given to examining the decision to retreat from flood zones. We examine what behavioral motives drive the choices for flood damage mitigation and relocation separately among property buyers and sellers. Hence, we focus on the drivers that shape demand for future development in flood-prone cities. We find that households’ choices to retreat from or to avoid flood zones (1) are highly sensitive to information that provokes people's feelings of fear, and (2) rely on hazardous events to trigger a protective action, which ideally would take place well before these events occur. We highlight that major flooding may cause a potential risk of large-scale outmigration and demographic changes in flood-prone areas, putting more low-income households at risk. Therefore, coordinated policies that integrate bottom-up drivers of individual climate adaptation are needed to increase urban resilience to floods.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/136900