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

Ommer, J., Neumann, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3244-2578, Kalas, M., Blackburn, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1959-5465 and Cloke, H. L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1472-868X (2024) Surprise floods: the role of our imagination in preparing for disasters. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 24 (8). pp. 2633-2646. ISSN 1684-9981 doi: 10.5194/nhess-24-2633-2024

Abstract/Summary

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.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/117551
Identification Number/DOI	10.5194/nhess-24-2633-2024
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	European Geosciences Union
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