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Perception and Communication of Flood Risks

A Systematic Review of Empirical Research

Bibliographic Data

ID23373167
AuthorsWim Kellens, Teun Terpstra, Philippe De Maeyer (0000-0001-8902-3855)
Year2013
Volume33
Issue1
Pages24-49
Publication date2013-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRisk Analysis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0272-4332 • E-ISSN: 1539-6924
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01844.x
PMID22651128
LanguageEN
Citations received168
References cited84

Flood hazards are the most common and destructive of all natural disasters. For decades, experts have been examining how flood losses can be mitigated. Just as in other risk domains, the study of risk perception and risk communication has gained increasing interest in flood risk management. Because of this research growth, a review of the state of the art in this domain is believed necessary. The review comprises 57 empirically based peer‐reviewed articles on flood risk perception and communication from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The characteristics of these articles are listed in a comprehensive table, presenting research design, research variables, and key findings. From this review, it follows that the majority of studies are of exploratory nature and have not applied any of the theoretical frameworks that are available in social science research. Consequently, a methodological standardization in measuring and analyzing people's flood risk perceptions and their adaptive behaviors is hardly present. This heterogeneity leads to difficulties in comparing results among studies. It is also shown that theoretical and empirical studies on flood risk communication are nearly nonexistent. The article concludes with a summary on methodological issues in the fields of flood‐risk perception and flood‐risk communication and proposes an agenda for future research.

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    Open Access•Murilo Noli Da Fonseca, Luciene Pimentel Da Silva et al.•International Journal of Disaster…•2025

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    Open Access•Namkyung Oh, Junghyae Lee•International Journal of Disaster…•2020

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    Open Access•Ivan Andráško, Kamila Dolák Klemešová et al.•International Journal of Disaster…•2024

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    Open Access•Masahide Watanabe, Toshio Fujimi•International Journal of Disaster…•2025

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    Open Access•Zimei Liu, Xi Chen et al.•International Journal of Disaster…•2024

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    Open Access•Masood Ali Khan, Asim Zia et al.•International Journal of Disaster…•2026

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  • Flooding Risks

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  • Households' Perceived Personal Risk and Responses in a Multihazard Environment

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  • Emotions, Trust, and Perceived Risk

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  • How Do Disaster Characteristics Influence Risk Perception

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  • The Role of the Affect and Availability Heuristics in Risk Communication

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  • Willingness of homeowners to mitigate climate risk through insurance

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  • Trauma and short-fuse weather warning perceptions

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  • How to get there? Assessing motorists' flash flood risk perception on daily itineraries

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  • Factors determining residents’ preparedness for floods in modern megalopolises

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  • New perspectives on risk communication

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  • Local stakeholders’ perception of muddy flood risk and implications for management approaches

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  • Living with floods

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  • After the Flood

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Unique citing works168
Citations per year12,92
Citation span2013 - 2026 (14)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedYes
Citation typesNeutral: 168
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