Reducing the Vulnerability of Societies to Water Related Risks at the Basin Scale (Proceedings of the third International Symposium on Integrated Water Resources Management, Bochum, Germany, September 2006). IAHS Publ. 317, 2007, 377–383.

Combating flooding together

IRINA KRASOVSKAIA¹, LARS GOTTSCHALK¹, HALLVARD BERG², ALISON MCERLAIN³, DENYS NGU³ & TIMM RUBEN GEISSLER⁴

1 Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, PO Box 1047 Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway

irina.gottschalk@geo.uio.no

2 Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, NVE, PO Box 5091, Maj., N-0301 Oslo, Norway

3 Norfolk County Council, Department of Planning & Transportation, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich NR1 2SG, UK

4 Technische Universität Hamburg, Wasserbau, 3-11, Denickestrasse 22, D-21073 Hamburg, Germany

Abstract Floods are natural phenomena and are only a threat with respect to human society. Knowledge of perception of flood hazard by laymen and professionals is indispensable to define a level of social and economic tolerance to flooding. Flood perception studies usually focus on perception by laymen, while perception of decision-makers is still poorly investigated. A comparative study of perceptions by the population and decision-makers in flood prone areas of the North Sea Region of Europe was carried out. The views of nearly 4000 laymen addressed by the poll were compared with those of decision-makers at national expert panels, revealing that consensus on tolerable risk is still a long way off. At the finalizing international panel a dialogue between laymen and decision-makers was promoted in search of consensus. The important results of this dialogue are: promotion of public participation, raising public awareness and responsibility taking, and the holistic approach.

Key words consensus; expert panels; flooding; North Sea Region; perceptions; poll