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28 November 2019 Risk Communication on Floodings: Insights Into the Risk Awareness of Migrants in Rural Communities in Austria
Karin Weber, Susanna Wernhart, Therese Stickler, Britta Fuchs, Maria Balas, Johannes Hübl, Doris Damyanovic
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Abstract

The Alpine region is expected to be considerably affected by climate change and an increase of settlement area exposed to natural hazards. To respond to emerging challenges due to climate change, land-use changes, and sociodemographic and migration issues, an integrated management of natural hazards is needed, including appropriate approaches to risk communication. This study—which included a quantitative street survey, semistructured interviews (Leitfadeninterview), and focus group discussions carried out in 9 Austrian municipalities prone to flooding—found that residents with foreign-born parents and foreign-born residents were underrepresented in local governments and in voluntary organizations related to disaster risk management and therefore often do not participate in decision-making. Nonetheless, ethnicity was often not the prevailing factor that determined vulnerability and modes of coping. Instead, social networks and ownership structures had an important influence on people's ability to recover from past events and prepare for future events. Study participants who had not recently been affected by natural hazards, including floods, generally perceived them as having a low probability of recurrence and ranked them lower than other (daily) risks and struggles. This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of efficient communication as well as target-group–oriented communication channels and contents that foster risk awareness and private adaptation capacity among migrants in rural Austria.

© 2019 Weber and Wernhart et al. This open access article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please credit the author and the full source.
Karin Weber, Susanna Wernhart, Therese Stickler, Britta Fuchs, Maria Balas, Johannes Hübl, and Doris Damyanovic "Risk Communication on Floodings: Insights Into the Risk Awareness of Migrants in Rural Communities in Austria," Mountain Research and Development 39(2), D14-D26, (28 November 2019). https://doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-18-00060.1
Received: 1 January 2019; Accepted: 15 May 2019; Published: 28 November 2019
KEYWORDS
climate change adaptation
disaster risk reduction
floods
migrants
property-level flood-risk adaptation
protection-motivation theory
risk communication
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