Coping with pluvial floods by private households

TY - JOUR

T1 - Coping with pluvial floods by private households

AU - Rözer, Viktor

AU - Müller, Meike

AU - Bubeck, Philip

AU - Kienzler, Sarah

AU - Thieken, Annegret

AU - Pech, Ina

AU - Schröter, Kai

AU - Buchholz, Oliver

AU - Kreibich, Heidi

N1 - Funding Information: The research presented in this paper was mainly conducted under the framework of the project "EVUS-Real-Time Prediction of Pluvial Floods and Induced Water Contamination in Urban Areas" (BMBF, 03G0846B). The telephone interviews after the pluvial floods in Lohmar and Hersbruck in 2005 were undertaken within the project "URBAS-urban flash floods" we thank the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; 0330701C) for financial support. The telephone interviews after the pluvial flood in Osnabrück in 2010 were funded by the University of Potsdam, the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ, and the Deutsche Rückversicherung AG.

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Pluvial floods have caused severe damage to urban areas in recent years. With a projected increase in extreme precipitation as well as an ongoing urbanization, pluvial flood damage is expected to increase in the future. Therefore, further insights, especially on the adverse consequences of pluvial floods and their mitigation, are needed. To gain more knowledge, empirical damage data from three different pluvial flood events in Germany were collected through computer-aided telephone interviews. Pluvial flood awareness as well as flood experience were found to be low before the respective flood events. The level of private precaution increased considerably after all events, but is mainly focused on measures that are easy to implement. Lower inundation depths, smaller potential losses as compared with fluvial floods, as well as the fact that pluvial flooding may occur everywhere, are expected to cause a shift in damage mitigation from precaution to emergency response. However, an effective implementation of emergency measures was constrained by a low dissemination of early warnings in the study areas. Further improvements of early warning systems including dissemination as well as a rise in pluvial flood preparedness are important to reduce future pluvial flood damage.

AB - Pluvial floods have caused severe damage to urban areas in recent years. With a projected increase in extreme precipitation as well as an ongoing urbanization, pluvial flood damage is expected to increase in the future. Therefore, further insights, especially on the adverse consequences of pluvial floods and their mitigation, are needed. To gain more knowledge, empirical damage data from three different pluvial flood events in Germany were collected through computer-aided telephone interviews. Pluvial flood awareness as well as flood experience were found to be low before the respective flood events. The level of private precaution increased considerably after all events, but is mainly focused on measures that are easy to implement. Lower inundation depths, smaller potential losses as compared with fluvial floods, as well as the fact that pluvial flooding may occur everywhere, are expected to cause a shift in damage mitigation from precaution to emergency response. However, an effective implementation of emergency measures was constrained by a low dissemination of early warnings in the study areas. Further improvements of early warning systems including dissemination as well as a rise in pluvial flood preparedness are important to reduce future pluvial flood damage.

KW - Damage

KW - Early warning

KW - Emergency response

KW - Mitigation

KW - Pluvial floods

KW - Preparedness

KW - Surface water flooding

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85010749607&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/W8070304

DO - 10.3390/W8070304

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85010749607

SN - 2073-4441

VL - 8

JO - Water (Switzerland)

JF - Water (Switzerland)

IS - 7

M1 - 304

ER -