Public Awareness and Preparedness

Flood hazard mapping is an exercise to define those coastal areas which are at risk of flooding under extreme conditions.  As such, its primary objective is to reduce the impact of coastal flooding.  However, mapping of erosion risk areas may serve to achieve erosion risk reduction.  It acts as an information system to enhance our understanding and awareness of coastal risk.

Not all stakeholders are aware or informed about their vulnerability to a changing climate, or flood risk protection. Nor are they aware of the pro-active measures they can take to adapt or deal with climate change. Awareness raising and education programs are therefore important to manage the impacts of climate change, enhance peoples’ capacity to deal with the impacts, and reduce overall vulnerability.

Sharing knowledge in this way can help build safety and resilience, reduce future hazard impacts. Communities and individuals usually want to become partners in this, and the public can be empowered to deal with the impacts and reduce future problems related to flood risk and disaster risk response.

Insurance, risk financing, compensation and tax relief have two main purposes in the management of flood risk. Firstly, and most obviously, the provision of these financial mechanisms can be used by those at risk to offset their financial risk from flooding. Although these financial tools obviously do not prevent flooding, they allow recovery without placing undue financial burdens on those impacted by flood disasters.

Attica, Greece is a region with extensive wetlands that include streams, estuaries and coastal marshes. The land area is also heavily in use for agriculture and experiences competition from various anthropocentric uses which have created a largely degraded environment. The wetlands that dot the region, are largely considered by communities as the remaining environmental hotspots and serve not only as ecologically important areas but peoples’ remaining contact with nature. They are for this reason, closely tied to community use and general well being. To protect these wetlands, an Attica Wetland Action Plan was developed.

Before implementing DRR measures, coastal stakeholder should be informed about the different possible measures and their characteristics. There are several of existing website that provides such information. For the RISC-KIT Costal Management Guide expertise was drawn from such platforms. A selection of these will be presented below.

In 2015, the Marin County Community Development Agency (CDA) published a Vulnerability Assessment based on information from technical advisors, utility managers, and West Marin residents. The Assessment summarizes the expected timing and extent of impacts, laying a foundation of knowledge to guide adaptation planning.

In 2014, the London Resilience Partnership developed the second Mass Evacuation Framework for the city of London. The purpose of this Framework is to offer guidance to responders managing a mass evacuation of displaced persons and, where appropriate, other living creatures.

The Framework has been developed by the Multi-Agency London Resilience Partnership Mass Evacuation Group. This group consists for example of the City of London Police, London Fire Brigade Emergency Planning, Environment Agency, Ministry of Defence (London), or Network Rail.

Cascais is a Portuguese city on the Atlantic coast and 30 km west of Lisbon. Within the project BASE, researcher supported the participatory ICZM approach to develop a Climate Adaptation Action Plan.

A vulnerability assessment can be used as an informal spatial planning instrument to identify, quantify, and prioritize vulnerabilities in a system. In coastal areas effects of climate change can add additional pressure on these systems. A vulnerability assessment addresses these pressures and analyzes the risks and adaptation capacities to cope with these risks. Results are an important tool in regional and local spatial planning.

An informative brochure can help raise awareness for coastal residents to inform about climate related risks and offer behavioural recommendation. For the city of Kiel such comprehensive guideline was developed.

In 2008 the Marina Gangplank Wharf, located in Washington D.C., USA, published a revised version of a ‘Severe Weather Preparedness Plan’. This plan is designed to provide slipholders and marina employee’s guidance with respect to the actions the marina will take at the approach of severe weather and/or hurricane landfall in the Washington Metropolitan Area.

Emergency plans for Marinas can help to be better prepared for storm floods. In preparing an emergency plan, certain information has to be provided.

Coastal and marine environments are usually characterized by beautiful landscapes and rich ecosystems of great importance, offering elements such as rich biodiversity. They also attract human activities such as tourism and industrial uses. However, the co-existence of human activities and natural resources often creates conflicts of use in the coastal zone.

Management policies are an important means of implementing planning in order to minimise, prevent or resolve use conflicts. The development of a coastal and marine spatial planning system presents an opportunity for the implementation of an overall strategy of conservation, sustainability and management to maximise future economic profit.

An urban flood event requires immediate measures to ensure that citizens have safe drinking water, including appropriate excreta disposal, disease vector control and waste management. However, during and after a flood event is not necessarily the best time to communicate health messages to individuals and organizations, as they may be dispersed and not have access to the necessary resources. Health Awareness Campaigns are vital ‘soft’ interventions alongside hardware provision (waste water treatment, for example); together they can help preserve public health by increasing preparedness. Health awareness and hygiene promotion campaigns must not be carried out independently from water supply and sanitation, and vice versa.

Flood risk awareness is the cornerstone of non-structural flood risk management. All actions to minimize the impact of flooding hinge upon stakeholders becoming aware these are both necessary and desirable. Ignorance of flood risk encourages occupation of the floodplain, in the first instance, and can allow appropriate building design practices to fall into disuse. In the event of a flood, the lack of awareness of risk can result in a failure to heed warnings to evacuate, thereby endangering lives.

Communication to and participation of the public is an important aspect of many planning processes, this also includes the development of DRR plans and strategic alternatives. This description is based on a project handbook that has been especially designed to support regional and local administrations in the planning and implementation of communication and public participation processes in flood prone areas. The findings of this report can also be applied to coastal areas.

The Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) is one of the five tools used to assess the proposed measures in each of the RISC-KIT case studies with respect to criteria that capture the key dimensions of the decision-making process. The purpose of the MCA is to bridge the disciplinary divide between engineering sciences and social sciences, facilitate the communication and dissemination of project results to a broad audience, and to integrate scientific knowledge with local knowledge with the purpose of improving the assessment of coastal risks.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) is a methodology used to compare different approaches to achieve pre-defined adaptation targets. CEA can be used to analyse both technical or project oriented work and policy or programme approaches, providing comparisons and rankings of options with the same adaptation objective, or identifying the least cost combination of options.

For the rehabilitation of a dune system, an elevated wooden pathway over the shore and the dunes and a dune fence were created. They were created to restore the physical and ecologic characteristics of the dunes at a natural Park at Praia de Faro (Portugal). The cost effectiveness is analyzed in this description and compared to beach nourishment.

The municipality of Timmendorfer Strand developed and implemented a coastal protection strategy using a participatory process. This process was a key element for the successful implementation of the measure. Although this measure was very expensive, a cost-benefit analysis shows that the benefits are higher than costs.