Heavy precipitation events are expected to increase in frequency and intensity in many parts of Europe as a result of climate change. These events can affect regions located far from rivers that have never been affected before. As warning times are short, there are hardly any effective emergency measures to mitigate the severe damage caused by pluvial floods. Therefore, long‐term mitigation measures are necessary for sustainable urban flood management. However, people first need to realise their personal risk in order to become active and take private precautionary measures. To get a better understanding of the processes underlying public risk perception of pluvial floods, a questionnaire‐based telephone survey was conducted analysing two case studies in western Germany. Key findings reveal that risk perceptions need to be distinguished between personal and global perception. Personal risk perception was low among the participants, while their global risk perception was far higher. The determinants of global and personal risk perception on pluvial flooding were identified. The study also showed that mitigation behaviour is influenced by personal risk perception, knowledge, education, and housing conditions. These determinants should receive attention when future risk communication and flood management strategies are developed.

In many parts of Europe, heavy precipitation events are expected to increase in frequency and intensity. Since the current state of pluvial flood protection is low, there is a need to increase public risk perception and to encourage mitigation behavior. Doing this is the goal of risk communication, which is increasingly taking place via social media. In order to assess the importance/potential of social media for risk communication in relation to heavy precipitation events, this study aims to analyze the current status quo by time series-, network- and content analysis. The current risk communication fluctuates over time; therefore, a more continuous communication is required. Warnings, originating from established stakeholders were the most common type of messages; therefore, these stakeholders are especially important for risk communication. As there is a lack of information about protective measures and behavioral recommendations on social media, a more powerful dissemination of this information is needed.

Climate change enhances pluvial flood risk in many cities all over the world, especially in densely populated urban areas with high impervious surfaces that need to adapt to heavy precipitation. For this purpose, multifunctional stormwater infrastructures such as water plazas appear promising as there is a high competition for open space in most urban areas. Yet, to date only very few water plazas have been realized with at least one implementation hampered by a lack of public acceptance. In this study, semi-structured interviews are used to investigate how plans to build a water plaza in the city of Cologne are perceived by local residents. Factors crucial to public acceptance are identified. Experience with flooding, knowledge of the planned construction and awareness of benefits turned out to be important for acceptance, whereas social and personal norms were less relevant. The identified factors led to finding recommendations to promote public acceptance of innovative climate adaptation measures like water plazas.