Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
flood awareness and of how the risk of flooding is
constructed by those at risk (Burningham
et al. 2008). Risk is neither a process that is simply
attributed to natural processes (e.g. hazard) nor an
objectively given constant. Rather people's under-
standings of flood risk are the result of a process of
social construction (i.e. norms, values and belief
systems) and not simply of perception and infor-
mation (Steinfuhrer and Kuhlicke 2007).
New methods to assess and model floods
are becoming available from the expanding field
of flood risk science. Meanwhile, the use and
potential these tools offer as risk communica-
tion tools is being revisited, although as this
chapter has revealed, the message is not always
getting seamlessly through to the public inter-
face. However, awareness and warning about
flooding is being particularly enhanced by the
media, which have an increasingly vital role
to play.
events using improved radar and modelling sys-
tems all suggest that new communication tools
will emerge soon in the professionals' toolkits,
frequently seen as animated visualizations, to
help at the public interface in reducing flood risk.
The expanding field of flood risk science, there-
fore, offers great potential for the future.
Professional settings are changing fast, and we
have explored how and where professionals
need to adopt the translation of science in both
intra- and extra-professional communications. As
science now increasingly struggles to validate
models of a non-stationary future, flood risk pro-
fessionals are also challenged to communicate the
level of uncertainty in their risk communications.
There are clearly ethical obligations do so, yet
Pitt (2008) emphasized that people are often con-
fused over different pieces of information that they
receive, which suggests the need for a single de-
finitive set of advice and information on flood
prevention and mitigation. These two observa-
tions are in tension.
We have demonstrated that the physical char-
acteristics of the flood threat and the social and
institutional context differentiate professional
choices about risk communication strategies with
the public. We have also emphasized that public
societies and communities are complex and di-
verse, so that individuals, groups and organiza-
tions within them will construct risk, and
understand and respond to risk communications
in different ways. Chapter 18 emphasizes that a
key requirement for professionals seeking to com-
municate with the public is an understanding of
the experiences, attitudes, values and needs of
those to whom communications are addressed,
through dialogue, engagement and social research.
This includes an awareness that the psychological
characteristics of the recipients of risk commu-
nications are important factors underpinning the
messages and the language in which they are
couched.
We conclude from existing research and the
specific findings of the FRMRC's phase 1 activities
that to develop effective flood risk communica-
tion strategies at the public interface requires an
improved understanding of factors that influence
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