Abstract
Abstract. Flood damage can be mitigated if the parties at risk are reached by flood warnings and if they know how to react appropriately. To gain more knowledge about warning reception and emergency response of private households and companies, surveys were undertaken after the August 2002 and the June 2013 floods in Germany. Despite pronounced regional differences, the results show a clear overall picture: in 2002, early warnings did not work well; e.g. many households (27 %) and companies (45 %) stated that they had not received any flood warnings. Additionally, the preparedness of private households and companies was low in 2002, mainly due to a lack of flood experience. After the 2002 flood, many initiatives were launched and investments undertaken to improve flood risk management, including early warnings and an emergency response in Germany. In 2013, only a small share of the affected households (5 %) and companies (3 %) were not reached by any warnings. Additionally, private households and companies were better prepared. For instance, the share of companies which have an emergency plan in place has increased from 10 % in 2002 to 34 % in 2013. However, there is still room for improvement, which needs to be triggered mainly by effective risk and emergency communication. The challenge is to continuously maintain and advance an integrated early warning and emergency response system even without the occurrence of extreme floods.
Highlights
In recent years, floods have caused high economic damage in European countries
To gain knowledge of the warning situation in Germany in 2002 and 2013, private households and companies were asked “How did you become aware of the imminent flood danger?” The responses show that in 2002 a total of 27 % of households and even 45 % of companies stated that they had not been warned at all and had not been aware of the flood danger before the flood reached them
Regional differences, which could only be investigated for private households, were large: the overall picture is dominated by the results from Bavaria and Saxony where 29 and 32 % of households respectively, had not been aware of the imminent flood danger in 2002
Summary
Floods have caused high economic damage in European countries. In Germany, for instance, the extreme flood event of August 2002 caused 21 fatalities and financial losses of EUR 11 600 million (Thieken et al, 2006). A first transboundary system for the dissemination of alerts along the rivers was established in central Germany in 1889 (Deutsch and Pörtge, 2001) Recent events such as the flood of 2002 revealed deficiencies in early warning as well as a huge lack of general risk awareness, communication and preparedness of at-risk households and companies (DKKV, 2003). One early exception is provided for the flood in Lismore (Australia) in 1974: with a lead time of about 12 h, damage in the residential sector was only 50 %, and in the commercial sector it was only 24 % of the economic damage expected without emergency measures (Smith, 1981) Another example is early warning and response to flash floods in the city of Sondrio, Italy: there it is estimated that responsive action led to a damage reduction of about 10–25 % (Molinari et al, 2013).
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