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Recent changes in flood preparedness of private households and businesses in Germany

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Abstract

Using the focusing event framework, a comprehensive analysis of private households’ and businesses’ preparedness was undertaken in the aftermath of the 2002 and 2006 flood events on the Elbe River in Germany. In August 2002, preparedness of households (n = 235) and businesses (n = 103) was low: 30% of the households and 54% of the businesses took no precautionary measures before the flood event. Many undertaken emergency measures were ineffective, since only 26% of all households knew how to react when the flood warning came, and only 9% of businesses had an emergency plan in place. Due to this extreme flood, double-loop learning occurred in many households and businesses, so that many did implement precautionary measures. The distribution of adopted precautionary measures for households fits well to Preisendörfer’s low-cost hypothesis, but does not apply for businesses. Only 10% of the households (n = 112), but still 29% of the businesses (n = 41) were unprepared before the flood in 2006. Significant improvement in flood preparedness activities is still necessary. Particularly for businesses, regulatory programs and programs encouraging proactive behaviour should be implemented. The focusing event framework proofed to be a useful tool for a differentiated analysis of the responses to and learning due to a disaster also in the commercial and private sector.

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Acknowledgments

The telephone interviews after the flood in 2002 were undertaken within the German Research Network Natural Disasters (DFNK). We thank the Deutsche Rückversicherung AG and the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF; no. 01SFR9969/5) for the financial support. The telephone interviews after the flood in 2006 were undertaken within the MEDIS-Project financed by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF; no. 0330688).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section 5.4 Hydrology, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam Germany Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), Telegrafenberg C4, 14473, Potsdam, German

    Heidi Kreibich & Bruno Merz

  2. Section for Climate- and Environmental Modelling, Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Oslo, Norway

    Isabel Seifert

  3. alpS, Centre for Natural Hazard and Risk Management, Leopold-Franzens-University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Annegret H. Thieken

  4. Institute for Science, Technology, and Public Policy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Eric Lindquist

  5. Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy, Technische Universität München, Freising, Germany

    Klaus Wagner

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  1. Heidi Kreibich
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Correspondence to Heidi Kreibich.

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Kreibich, H., Seifert, I., Thieken, A.H. et al. Recent changes in flood preparedness of private households and businesses in Germany. Reg Environ Change 11, 59–71 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-010-0119-3

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