Surprise floods: The role of our imagination in preparing for disasters

0Citations
Citations of this article
18Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.
Get full text

Abstract

What's the worst that could happen? After a flood has devastated communities, those affected, the news media, and the authorities often say that what happened was beyond our imagination. Imagination encompasses the picturing of a situation in our minds linked with the emotions that we connect to this situation. However, the role imagination actually plays in disasters remains unclear. In this regard, we analysed the responses of a survey that was disseminated in the 2021-flood-affected areas of Germany. Some respondents perceived that due to their lack of imagination regarding the flood, they did not take adequate action in advance. Limited or a lack of imagination could be linked to never having experienced a flood before, difficulties in interpreting forecasts and warnings, the perceived distance to waterbodies, and cognitive biases. Overall, the responses indicated the influence of imagination on risk perception. Based on these results, we recommend that future research should investigate the extent to which visual support can help forecast and warning communication to trigger the imagination of citizens in the short-term. From a long-term perspective, research should focus on how to cultivate imagination over time through participatory risk management, developing climate storylines, citizen weather observations, and the like.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Ommer, J., Neumann, J., Kalas, M., Blackburn, S., & Cloke, H. L. (2024). Surprise floods: The role of our imagination in preparing for disasters. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 24(8), 2633–2646. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2633-2024

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free