| Project Detail |
The role of behaviour awareness in addressing climate and natural disaster risk
Despite huge amounts of public funds invested, flood reduction and planning policies are failing to reduce risks and losses of lives. Whilst the behaviour of people before, during and after a crisis has a significant impact on vulnerability, recovery and resilience, such critical factors are often overlooked. The EU vision of a disaster- and climate-resilient society cannot be achieved with the current approach that remains blind to actual behaviours. The ERC-funded FiBeGa project will lift existing barriers to predicting risk perception and behaviour to foster a shift from “behaviour-blind” to “behaviour-aware” assessments and policies. It will provide four demonstrators representative of the European and Mediterranean context (Paris, Barcelona, Bucharest and Algiers), and deliver “behaviour-aware” participatory assessments and simulation tools.
Do only foolish people drown and only compulsive gamblers suffer flood losses? Conventional wisdom is based on flawed underlying assumptions and the EU vision of a disaster- and climate-resilient society cannot be achieved by relying on “behaviour-blind” assessments and policy. Whilst the behaviour of individuals, businesses and public services before, during and after a crisis has a significant impact on damages, recovery and resilience, current assessments fail to include such critical factors because they are hardly understood. Floods and weather hazards are affecting 2bn people and exposure is expected to grow due to climate change. Despite trillions of public funds invested, current flood reduction and planning policies are failing to reduce risks and losses of lives. This is due to a mismatch between the rising application of risk, vulnerability and resilience assessments and the understanding of their empirical validity. The overreaching goal of this proposal is to move from “behaviour-blind” to “behaviour-aware” assessments, indicators and policies to save lives and public money. Lifting the current barriers to predicting and simulating risk perception and behaviour will create forefront knowledge and open new horizons. Social and technological changes have widened the gaps in our knowledge making new empirical research essential to refine or replace existing theories. This project will provide four demonstrators representative of the European and Mediterranean context, graded in size, wealth and exposure to reach general considerations: Paris, Barcelona, Bucharest and Algiers. It is aiming at cross-validation on floods and transferability to other emergencies (technological disasters, epidemics, terrorism, etc). It will launch a new line of research by providing “behaviour-aware” participatory assessments and indicators, spatially-explicit interactive short- and long-term simulation tools enabling decision-makers to refine their strategies and policies. |
