Property rights attitudes are a source of public opposition to flood mitigation policies in the United States

Abstract

AbstractFloods are the costliest disasters in American history—and today, floods are getting both worse and more common. As flooding becomes ever more salient one might expect that public support for flood prevention and mitigation policies would grow, yet we see significant opposition to a wide range of flood policies. We find, across four samples and a range of study designs and measurement strategies, that citizens are more likely to oppose flood mitigation policies when they think the policy in question will harm someone's property rights. This finding has important real‐world implications, as many policy proposals aimed at addressing flood disasters, including approaches as diverse as floodwater diversion and elimination of flood insurance subsidies, can infringe on property rights and interests. This study highlights one tension in addressing flood policy in democratically acceptable ways, and also the important effects that framing can have on mass support for flood mitigation policies.