Tailored flood risk communication: residents’ perspectives as starting point

Flood risk is increasing and residents are expected to undertake adaptation measures to minimise flood damage. This requires them to be aware of the risk they face and how they can adapt, but this is often not the case. Through risk communication, residents’ relation to their flood prone environment could be strengthened, but the effect remains limited. This article aims to understand how residents across countries prefer flood risk communication and provides a basis for developing communication strategies that manage to raise awareness on risk and adaptation. Residents living in flood risk areas in England and the Netherlands were interviewed on their preferences for flood risk communication. The Q-methodology, consisting of 34 Q-sorts, resulted in four significantly different sets of preferences, namely; (1) Localists, (2) Sufficientists, (3) Imperfectionists and (4) Conventionalists. Moreover, cultural and individual factors, such as country of residents, flood experience and responsibility division, prove potential determiners for these distinctly different perspectives. The novel results of this study contribute to developing flood risk communication tailored to residents’ preferences.