Recent policy changes highlight the need for citizens to take adaptive actions to reduce flood‐related impacts. Here, we argue that these changes represent a wider behavioral turn in flood risk management (FRM). The behavioral turn is based on three fundamental assumptions: first, that the motivations of citizens to take adaptive actions can be well understood so that these motivations can be targeted in the practice of FRM; second, that private adaptive measures and actions are effective in reducing flood risk; and third, that individuals have the capacities to implement such measures. We assess the extent to which the assumptions can be supported by empirical evidence. We do this by engaging with three intellectual catchments. We turn to research by psychologists and other behavioral scientists which focus on the sociopsychological factors which influence individual motivations (Assumption 1). We engage with economists, engineers, and quantitative risk analysts who explore the extent to which individuals can reduce flood related impacts by quantifying the effectiveness and efficiency of household‐level adaptive measures (Assumption 2). We converse with human geographers and sociologists who explore the types of capacities households require to adapt to and cope with threatening events (Assumption 3). We believe that an investigation of the behavioral turn is important because if the outlined assumptions do not hold, there is a risk of creating and strengthening inequalities in FRM. Therefore, we outline the current intellectual and empirical knowledge as well as future research needs. Generally, we argue that more collaboration across intellectual catchments is needed, that future research should be more theoretically grounded and become methodologically more rigorous and at the same time focus more explicitly on the normative underpinnings of the behavioral turn.This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Planning WaterHuman Water > Water GovernanceScience of Water > Water Extremes

Impacts of flooding are expected to increase, most notably in residential areas. As a consequence, private households are increasingly encouraged to engage in private flood mitigation complementary to public measures. Despite the growing literature on private flood mitigation, little is known about how social capital influences households’ perception of and coping with flood risks. This study draws on survey data of 226 flood-prone households in two Austrian Alpine municipalities, both recently affected by riverine flooding. We show that social capital cuts both ways: on the positive side, social capital increases perceived self-efficacy and provides critical support during and most notably after flood events. On the negative side, social capital reduces flood risk perceptions of private households. While social ties are effective when responding to and recovering from floods, the expectation of social support downplays risk, making precautionary action by households less likely. The results also show that flood-affected households receive more social support than they provide to others. In the long-run, this can lead to a problematic reciprocity imbalance, challenging the long-term stability of the interpersonal exchanges underlying social capital. Among the various sources of social support, informal social networks (neighbours, friends and relatives) provide the most important workforce in the response and recovery phase of a flood event. It is therefore crucial for flood risk management to recognise and promote the protective quality of social capital alongside conventional structural and non-structural measures.

Flood preparedness of private households is regarded an essential building block of integrated flood risk management. In the past decade, numerous empirical studies have employed the protection motivation theory (PMT) to explain flood mitigation behavior at the household level. However, much of this research has produced mixed results and could not consistently confirm the strength and direction of the relationships between the PMT components. Based on a survey of 2,007 households in flood-prone areas, this study revisits the model structure of the PMT by means of structural equation modeling. Compared to the methods used in previous studies, this modeling technique allows us to capture the PMT components in greater detail and to comprehensively test their hypothesized interrelations. Our results point to two separate routes leading to two different response types: A protective route from coping appraisal to protective behavior, and a non-protective route from threat appraisal to non-protective responses. Risk perception is not found to be part of the protective route, neither are non-protective responses confirmed to undermine protection motivation. The two separate routes are observed consistently across all combinations of the six protective and four non-protective responses assessed in this study. In the light of encouraging private flood adaptation, risk communication measures should specifically target the protective route and avoid (accidentally) providing incentives that fall within the non-protective route. This cross-sectional study, however, cannot establish how the two routes interrelate over time. More experimental and longitudinal research is required to address potential feedback effects and the role of decision stages.