Narrowing the focus: public understanding of flood maps in the River Thames catchment

Priest, Sally J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2304-1502, Pardoe, Joanna, McCarthy, Simon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0981-8584 and Viavattene, Christophe ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4358-5411 (2011) Narrowing the focus: public understanding of flood maps in the River Thames catchment. In: Urban Flood Risk Management: Approaches to enhance resilience of communities, Proceedings of the International Symposium, 21st-23rd September 2011. Zenz, Gerald and Hornich, Rudolf, eds. Technischen Universitat Graz, Graz, pp. 309-314. ISBN 9783851251739. [Book Section]

PDF (Post-print version) - UNSPECIFIED Restricted to Repository staff and depositor only Download (170kB)

Abstract

Flood maps have an important role to play in raising public awareness of flood risk. The complexity of flood risk information and the multitude of ways in which it can be presented reinforce the need to consider not only the content and design of maps for the presentation of information, but also lead to action. This paper presents findings from public workshops in Chertsey in the River Thames catchment. Mapping scale, presenting a greater delineation of flood risk, representing context specific aspects of flood risk and the individualization of flood risk all emerged as key variables of public concern. The workshops highlighted that map users have very narrow and specific concerns in relation to flooding and that current presentations of information therefore, are insufficiently detailed for residents to accept, and act on, their flood risk. Until the map allows users to access more individual assessments of flood risk the impact of maps on raising awareness and inducing action will be limited.

Actions (login required)

View Item

Statistics

DownloadsShow export options

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Activity Overview

6 month trend

5Downloads

6 month trend

418Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.