Expectations, disappointments, and individual responses: Imbalances in multilevel flood risk governance revealed by public survey

Abstract

Abstract The recent paradigm shift towards multilevel flood risk governance has raised discussions about the potential of different entities to undertake specific flood risk management (FRM) measures and about the effects of their efforts on other governance levels. Among the key questions being addressed are those related to the balance and possible inverse proportions between governmental efforts and motivation for individual action. In this paper, we use the results of a flood perception survey among individuals in two flood‐prone Czech municipalities to reveal the discrepancies between the expectations of responsibility‐sharing and the actual willingness for individual flood risk reduction. While the results indicate strong expectations of the responsibilities of the governmental bodies for initiating FRM, the respondents also expressed low confidence in completed FRM measures and strong self‐reliance during floods and recovery. Our results partly contradict the crowding‐out thesis, which denotes the negative effects of governmental actions on willingness to undertake individual mitigation measures. Furthermore, the results indicate that differences in the confidence in government‐driven FRM measures between the two study areas are caused by the differential perception of scales of FRM measures and catchment complexity, thus diverging expectations of responsibility‐sharing within a country‐scale FRM institutional setting.

Keywords

• risk governance
• risk management
• risk perception