Approaches in research on flood risk perception and their importance in flood risk management: a review

Abstract

The study of flood risk perception factors can be considered by using different paradigms. In an attempt to understand risk perception, two basic paradigms can be distinguished: rationalist and constructivist. The rationalist approach tends to focus on modeling, characterizing, and predicting behavioral results regarding various threats. According to the constructivist paradigm, threats are perceived as socially constructed. This review paper aims to assess the importance of the rationalist and constructivist approaches in research on flood risk perception and flood risk management more broadly by answering the questions: (1) Which paradigm dominates the research of flood risk perception?, (2) What is the relationship between rationalistic and constructivistic factors (e.g., stimulation, weakening, strengthening, etc.)?, (3) which factors are more effective in moderating attitudes toward flood risk? The paper concludes by pointing out the desired direction of research on flood risk perception from the perspective of improving flood risk management. In contemporary empirical works managing the perception of flood risk, a rationalistic approach that psychometrically searches for cognitive models dominates. Often, statistically obtained dependencies are mutually exclusive. Studies on perception that apply the constructivist approach are in an early stage of development, nevertheless providing consistent results. They indicate that the social, political, cultural, religious, and historical contexts shape the perception of flood risk. On the basis of the aforementioned information, research on flood risk in a constructivist approach should be expanded, as it provides a clear, often underappreciated catalog of contextual factors shaping risk perception and, importantly, simultaneously moderating the influence of rationalist factors on flood risk perception.