Abstract
Floods are natural hazards with serious impact on many aspects of human life. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that climate change already has significant impact on magnitude and frequency of flood events worldwide. Thus, it is suggested to adopt strategies to manage damage impacts of climate change. For this, involving the local community in the decision-making process, as well as experts and decision-makers, is essential. We focused on assessing the social acceptability of flood management strategies under climate change through a socio-hydrological approach using the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). For this purpose as well, hydro-climate modelling and the Analytical Network Process (ANP) were used. Among twelve investigated flood management strategies, “river restoration”, “agricultural management and planning”, and “watershed management” were the publicly most accepted strategies. Assessment of the social acceptability of these three strategies was carried out by use of the CVM and Willingness to Pay (WTP) methodology. Generally, 50%, 38%, and 18% were willing to pay and 44%, 48%, and 52% were willing to contribute flood management strategy in zones 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Overall, peoples’ WTP for flood management strategies decreased with increasing distance from the river. Among different investigated dependent variables, household income had the highest influence on WTP.
Highlights
Floods are natural hazards with detrimental effects on the economy, social facets, and environment [1]
In view of the above, the objective of this study is to explore the connection between local community, researchers, and decision-makers using Analytical Network Process (ANP) as a decision-making approach and Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) as economic valuation approach to quantify the flood mitigation efficiency and to assess social acceptability of flood mitigation strategies in the study area
This study focused on assessing the social acceptability and feasibility of flood management strategies regarding climate change impacts in the Talar River Basin, northern Iran, through addressing local participation, expert assessment, and integrative decision making
Summary
Floods are natural hazards with detrimental effects on the economy, social facets, and environment [1]. IPCC has suggested adaption to actual or expected climatic impacts on human life [3]. Adaptation refers to implementation of effective protection measures to moderate potentially destructive impacts [4,5]. Adaptive strategies are considered a key component in management strategies to present and future impact of climate change [6]. For effective adaptive strategies against climate change, it is important to involve local participation and community opinion in the decision making process as well as experts and decision-makers [7]. This study investigates the social acceptability and feasibility of adaptive flood management strategies in view of climate change for an experimental catchment. Assessing the social acceptability is a complex matter due to the lack of clear and straightforward definition of its concept that it relies on [8]
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