Charting unknown waters - On the role of surprise in flood risk assessment and management

Water Resources Research

Volumn 51, Issue 8, 2015, Pages 6399-6416

  Merz, B ^a,b   Vorogushyn, S ^a   Lall, U ^c,d   Viglione, A ^e   Bloschl G ^e  

^a GFZ GERMAN RESEARCH CENTRE FOR GEOSCIENCES   (Germany)

^b UNIVERSITY OF POTSDAM   (Germany)

^c Center for International Forestry Research   (United States)

^d Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering Columbia University ^*  (United States)

^e VIENNA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (Austria)

Author keywords

cognitive biases; deep uncertainty; flood risk; predictability

Indexed keywords

COGNITIVE SYSTEMS; DECISION MAKING; OFFSHORE PIPELINES; RISK ASSESSMENT; RISK MANAGEMENT; RISK PERCEPTION;

COGNITIVE BIAS; DEEP UNCERTAINTIES; FLOOD RISK ASSESSMENTS; FLOOD RISKS; HUMAN PERCEPTION; NON-STATIONARITIES; PREDICTABILITY; UNEXPECTED INCIDENTS;

FLOODS;

COGNITION; DISASTER MANAGEMENT; FLOODING; RISK ASSESSMENT; RISK PERCEPTION; UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS;

EID: 84941994984     PISSN: 00431397     EISSN: 19447973     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/2015WR017464     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. Adamowicz, W., P. Boxall, M. Williams, and, J. Louviere, (1998), Stated preference approaches for measuring passive use values: Choice experiments and contingent valuation, Am. J. Agric. Econ., 80 (1), 64-75.
2. Aerts, J. C. J. H., W. Botzen, A. van der Veen, J. Krywkow, and, S. Werners, (2008), Dealing with uncertainty in flood management through diversification, Ecol. Soc., 13 (1), 41.
3. Ahrens, J., and, P. M. Rudolph, (2006), The importance of governance in risk reduction and disaster management, J. Contingencies Crisis Manage., 14 (4), 207-220.
4. Allison, H. E., and, R. J. Hobbs, (2006), Science and Policy in Natural Resource Management: Understanding System Complexity, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK
5. Apel, H., A. Thieken, B. Merz, and, G. Blöschl, (2004), Flood risk assessment and associated uncertainty, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 4, 295-308.
6. Apel, H., A. Thieken, B. Merz, and, G. Blöschl, (2006), A probabilistic modeling system for assessing flood risks, Nat. Hazards, 38 (1-2), 79-100, doi: 10.1007/s11069-005-8603-7.
7. Balcombe, K., M. Bitzios, I. Fraser, and, J. Haddock-Fraser, (2014), Using attribute importance rankings within discrete choice experiments: An application to valuing bread attributes, J. Agric. Econ., 65 (2), 446-462.
8. Ben-Haim, Y., (2012), Why risk analysis is difficult, and some thoughts on how to proceed, Risk Anal., 32 (10), 1638-1646.
9. Bianchizza, C., and, S. Frigerio, (2013), Domination of or adaptation to nature? A lesson we can still learn from the Vajont, Ital. J. Eng. Geol. Environ., 6, 523-531.
10. Blöschl, G., and, A. Montanari, (2010), Climate change impacts-throwing the dice?, Hydrol. Processes, 24 (3), 374-381.
11. Blöschl, G., and, E. Zehe, (2005), On hydrological predictability, Hydrol. Processes, 19 (19), 3923-3929.
12. Blöschl, G., A. Viglione, and, A. Montanari, (2013a), Emerging approaches to hydrological risk management in a changing world, in Climate Vulnerability: Understanding and Addressing Threats to Essential Resources, pp. 3-10, Elsevier, Oxford, UK
13. Blöschl, G., T. Nester, J. Komma, J. Parajka, and, R. A. P. Perdigão, (2013b), The June 2013 flood in the Upper Danube basin, and comparisons with the 2002, 1954 and 1899 floods, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 5197-5212.
14. Brysse, K., N. Oreskes, J. O'Reilly, and, M. Oppenheimer, (2013), Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?, Global Environ. Change, 23, 327-337, doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.008.
15. Bunn, D. W., and, A. A. Salo, (1993), Forecasting with scenarios, Eur. J. Oper. Res., 68, 291-303.
16. Casti, J. L., (1986), On system complexity: Identification, measurement, and management, in Complexity, Language, and Life: Mathematical Approaches, pp. 146-173, Springer, Berlin.
17. Collier, B., and, J. Skees, (2012), Increasing the resilience of financial intermediaries through portfolio-level insurance against natural disasters, Nat. Hazards, 64 (1), 55-72.
18. Cosgrove, G. R., (Ed.) (1999), Mappings, London: Reaktion Books.
19. Cox, L. A. T., Jr,. (2012), Confronting deep uncertainties in risk analysis, Risk Anal., 32 (10), 1607-1629.
20. Datei, C., (2005), Vajont. La storia idraulica [in Italian], 137 pp., Libreria Int. Cortina, Padova.
21. De Bruijn, K., (2004), Resilience indicators for flood risk management systems of lowland rivers, Int. J. River Basin Manage., 2 (3), 199-210.
22. De Moel, H., and, J. C. J. H. Aerts, (2011), Effect of uncertainty in land use, damage models and inundation depth on flood damage estimates, Nat. Hazards, 58 (1), 407-425.
23. Di Baldassarre, G., A. Viglione, G. Carr, L. Kuil, J. L. Salinas, and, G. Blöschl, (2013), Socio-hydrology: Conceptualising human-flood interactions, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17 (8), 3295-3303, doi: 10.5194/hess-17-3295-2013.
24. Di Baldassarre, G., J. S. Kemerink, M. Kooy, and, L. Brandimarte, (2014), Floods and societies: The spatial distribution of water-related disaster risk and its dynamics, WIREs Water, 1 (2), 133-139, doi: 10.1002/wat2.1015.
25. Delle Rose, M., (2012), Decision-making errors and socio-political disputes over the Vajont dam disaster, Disaster Adv., 5 (3), 144-152.
26. Deutsche Vereinigung für Wasserwirtschaft, Abwasser und Abfall, (2012), Ermittlung von Hochwasserwahrscheinlichkeiten [Estimating flood probabilities], Tech. Rep. DWA-M. 552, Hennef, Germany.
27. Evans, J. St. B. T., (1982), Psychological pitfalls in forecasting, Futures, 14 (4), 258-265.
28. Fahy, R. F., and, G. Proulx, (1997), Human behavior in the World Trade Center evacuation, in Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on International Association for Fire Safety Science, pp. 713-724, International Association for Fire Safety Science, Boston, Mass.
29. Gigerenzer, G., W. Gaissmaier, E. Kurz-Milcke, L. M. Schwartz, and, S. Woloshin, (2008), Helping doctors and patients make sense of health statistics, Psychol. Stud. Public Interest, 8 (2), 53-96.
30. Grothmann, T., and, F. Reusswig, (2006), People at risk of flooding: Why some residents take precautionary action while others do not, Nat. Hazards, 38, 101-120.
31. Gupta, H. V., G. Blöschl, J. J. McDonnell, H. H. G. Savenije, M. Sivapalan, A. Viglione, and, T. Wagener, (2013), Synthesis, in Runoff Prediction in Ungauged Basins-Synthesis across Processes, Places and Scales, edited by, G. Blöschl, et al., chap. 12, pp. 361-383, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK
32. Hall, J., and, M. Anderson, (2002), Handling uncertainty in extreme and unrepeatable hydrologic processes-The need for an alternative paradigm, Hydrol. Processes, 16, 1867-1870.
33. Hall, J., et al., (2014), Understanding flood regime changes in Europe: A state of the art assessment, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 2735-2772, doi: 10.5194/hess-18-2735-2014.
34. Hall, J. W., and, D. Solomatine, (2008), A framework for uncertainty analysis in flood risk management decisions, J. River Basin Manage., 6 (2), 85-98.
35. Hammitt, J. K., and, A. I. Shlyakhter, (1999), The expected value of information and the probability of surprise, Risk Anal., 19 (1), 135-152.
36. Haraguchi, M., and, U. Lall, (2015), Flood risks and impacts: A case study of Thailand's floods in 2011 and research questions for supply chain decision making, Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct., doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2014.09.005, in press.
37. Henrion, M., and, B. Fischoff, (1986), Assessing uncertainty in physical constants, Am. J. Phys., 54, 791-797.
38. Interagency Advisory Committee on Water Data (1982), Guidelines for Determining Flood Flow Frequency: Bulletin 17B of the Hydrology Subcommittee, 183 pp., Off. of Water Data Coord., U.S. Geol. Surv., Reston, Va.
39. IPCC (2012), Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, NY
40. Jain, S., and, U. Lall, (2001), Floods in a changing climate: Does the past represent the future?, Water Resour. Res., 37 (12), 3193-3205.
41. Kahneman, D., (2011), Thinking, Fast and Slow, 499 pp., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY
42. Kahneman, D., P. Slovic, and, A. Tversky, (Eds.) (1982), Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK
43. Kilburn, C. R. J., and, D. N. Pretley, (2003), Forecasting giant, catastrophic slope collapse: Lessons from Vajont, Northern Italy, Geomorphology, 54, 21-32.
44. Klijn, F., J. M. Knoop, W. Ligtvoet, and, M. J. P. Mens, (2012), In search of robust flood risk management alternatives for the Netherlands, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 12 (5), 1469-1479.
45. Kuhlicke, C., (2010), The dynamics of vulnerability: Some preliminary thoughts about the occurrence of 'radical surprises' and a case study on the 2002 flood (Germany), Nat. Hazards, 55, 671-688, doi: 10.1007/s11069-010-9645-z.
46. Kumar, P., (2011), Typology of hydrologic predictability, Water Resour. Res., 47, W00H05, doi: 10.1029/2010WR009769.
47. Kumar, P., (2015), Hydrocomplexity: Addressing water security and emergent environmental risks, Water Resour. Res., doi: 10.1002/2015WR017342, in press.
48. Kwon, H. H., C. Brown, and, U. Lall, (2008), Climate informed flood frequency analysis and prediction in Montana using hierarchical Bayesian modeling, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L05404, doi: 10.1029/2007GL032220.
49. Lempert, R., N. Kalra, S. Peyraud, Z. Mao, S. B. Tan, D. Cira, and, A. Lotsch, (2013), Ensuring Robust Flood Risk Management in Ho Chi Minh City, The World Bank, Washington, DC
50. Lempert, R. J., S. W. Popper, and, S. C. Bankes, (2003), Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis, 187 pp., The Rand Pardee Cent.
51. Library of Congress (2015), Vniversale descrittione di tvtta la terra conoscivta fin qvi, Map by Paolo Forlani, published 1565 in Venezia by F. Berteli. [Available at www.loc.gov/item/85690919.]
52. Lima, C. H., Lall, U., T. J. Troy, and, N. Devineni, (2015), A climate informed model for nonstationary flood risk prediction: Application to Negro River at Manaus, Amazonia, J. Hydrol., 522, 594-602.
53. Littell, E., (1853), Air Maps, Littell's Living Age No. 495, 430 pp., Littell Son and Co., NY
54. Lu, M., U. Lall, A. Schwartz, and, H. Kwon, (2013), Precipitation predictability associated with tropical moisture exports and circulation patterns for a major flood in France in 1995, Water Resour. Res., 49, 6381-6392, doi: 10.1002/wrcr.20512.
55. Macgill, S. M., and, Y. L. Siu, (2004), The nature of risk, J. Risk Res., 7 (3), 315-352.
56. Makridakis, S., (1988), Metaforecasting. Ways of improving forecasting accuracy and usefulness, Int. J. Forecasting, 4, 467-491.
57. March, J. G., L. S. Sproull, and, M. Tamuz, (1991), Learning from samples of one or fewer, Org. Sci., 2 (1), 1-13.
58. Mens, M. J. P., F. Klijn, K. M. De Bruijn, and, E. Van Beek, (2011), The meaning of system robustness for flood risk management, Environ. Sci. Policy, 14 (8), 1121-1131.
59. Mens, M. J. P., F. Klijn, and, R. M. J. Schielen, (2014), Enhancing flood risk system robustness in practice: Insights from two river valleys, Int. J. River Basin Manage., 13, 297-304.
60. Merlin, T., (1983), Sulla pelle viva (in Italian), Cierre edizioni, Come si costruisce una catastrofe, Il caso del Vajont, Verona.
61. Merz, B., and, A. H. Thieken, (2009), Flood risk curves and uncertainty bounds, Nat. Hazards, 51, 437-458, doi: 10.1007/s11069-009-9452-6.
62. Merz, B., J. Hall, M. Disse, and, A. Schumann, (2010), Fluvial flood risk management in a changing world, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 10, 509-527.
63. Merz, R., and, G. Blöschl, (2008a), Flood frequency hydrology: 1. Temporal, spatial, and causal expansion of information, Water Resour. Res., 44, W08432, doi: 10.1029/2007WR006744.
64. Merz, R., and, G. Blöschl, (2008b) Flood frequency hydrology: 2. Combining data evidence, Water Resour. Res., 44, W08433, doi: 10.1029/2007WR006745.
65. Morrison, M., J. Bennett, and, R. Blamey, (1999), Valuing improved wetland quality using choice modeling, Water Resour. Res., 35 (9), 2805-2814, doi: 10.1029/1999WR900020.
66. Müller, L., (1964), The rock slide in the Vajont Valley, Rock Mech. Eng. Geol., 2, 148-212.
67. Müller-Salzburg, L., (1987), The Vajont catastrophe-A personal review, Eng. Geol., 24, 423-444.
68. Murray, C., (2005), Mapping terra incognita, Polar Rec., 41 (217), 103-112.
69. Muttarak, R., and, W. Lutz, (2014), Is education a key to reducing vulnerability to natural disasters and hence unavoidable climate change?, Ecol. Soc., 19 (1), 42, doi: 10.5751/ES-06476-190142.
70. Nakamura, J., U. Lall, Y. Kushnir, A. W. Robertson, and, R. Seager, (2013), Dynamical structure of extreme floods in the US Midwest and the United Kingdom, J. Hydrometeorol., 14 (2), 485-504.
71. Nickerson, R., (1998), Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises, Rev. Gen. Psychol., 2, 175-220.
72. Nguyen, M. V., D. Nguyen, N. N. Hung, B. Merz, and, H. Apel, (2014), Large-scale suspended sediment transport and sediment deposition in the Mekong Delta, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 3033-3053, doi: 10.5194/hess-18-3033-2014.
73. Pappenberger, F., H. Harvey, K. Beven, J. Hall, and, I. Meadowcroft, (2006), Decision tree for choosing an uncertainty analysis methodology: A wiki experiment, Hydrol. Processes, 20, 3793-3798, doi: 10.1002/hyp.6541.
74. Petrow, T., A. H. Thieken, H. Kreibich, B. Merz, and, C. H. Bahlburg, (2006), Improvements on flood alleviation in Germany: Lessons learned from the Elbe flood in August 2002, Environ. Manage., 38 (5), 717-732.
75. Pichler, A., and, E. Striessnig, (2013), Differential vulnerability to hurricanes in Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic: The contribution of education, Ecol. Soc., 18 (3), 31.
76. Pidgeon, N., and, M. O'Leary, (2000), Man-made disasters: why technology and organizations (sometimes) fail, Safety Sci., 34, 15-30.
77. Pincus, S. M., (1991), Approximate entropy as a measure of system complexity, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 88 (6), 2297-2301.
78. Rasmussen, E. A., and, J. Turner, (2003), Polar Lows: Mesoscale Weather Systems in the Polar Regions, 174 pp., Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK
79. Rausand, M., and, A. Hoylan, (2004), System Reliability Theory: Models, Statistical Methods, and Applications, Wiley Ser. Probab. Stat., 2dn ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, N. J.
80. Reichler, T., J. Kim, E. Manzini, and, J. Kroger, (2012), A stratospheric connection to Atlantic climate variability, Nat. Geosci., 5, 783-787, doi: 10.1038/ngeo1586.
81. Schröter, K., M. Kunz, F. Elmer, B. Mühr, and, B. Merz, (2015), What made the June 2013 flood in Germany an exceptional event? A hydro-meteorological evaluation, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 309-327, doi: 10.5194/hess-19-309-2015.
82. Semenza, E., and, M. Ghirotti, (2000), History of the 1963 Vaiont slide: The importance of geological factors, Bull. Eng. Geol. Environ., 59, 87-97.
83. Shlyakhter, A. I., (1994), An improved framework for uncertainty analysis: Accounting for unsuspected errors, Risk Anal., 14 (4), 441-447.
84. Sivapalan, M., (2015), Debates-Perspectives on socio-hydrology: Changing water systems and the "tyranny of small problems"-Socio-hydrology, Water Resour. Res., 51, 4795-4805, doi: 10.1002/2015WR017080.
85. Sivapalan, M., H. H. G. Savenije, and, G. Blöschl, (2012), Socio-hydrology: A new science of people and water, Hydrol. Processes, 26, 1270-1276.
86. Sjöberg, L., (1982), Aided and unaided decision making: Improving intuitive judgement, J. Forecasting, 1, 349-363.
87. Steinschneider, S., and, U. Lall, (2015), A hierarchical Bayesian regional model for nonstationary precipitation extremes in Northern California conditioned on tropical moisture exports, Water Resour. Res., 51, 1472-1492, doi: 10.1002/2014WR016664.
88. Surminski, S., (2014), The role of insurance in reducing direct risk: The case of flood insurance, Int. Rev. Environ. Resour. Econ., 7 (3-4), 241-278.
89. Taleb, N. N., (2007), The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, 444 pp., Random House, NY
90. Thieken, A. H., M. Müller, H. Kreibich, and, B. Merz, (2005), Flood damage and influencing factors: New insights from the August 2002 flood in Germany, Water Resour. Res., 41, W12430, doi: 10.1029/2005WR004177.
91. Tversky, A., and, D. Kahneman, 1974), Judgement under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases, Science, 185, 1124-1131.
92. UNISDR (2013), Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2013, From Shared Risk to Shared Value: The Business Case for Disaster Risk Reduction, U. N. Int. Strategy for Disaster Reduct. Secr., Geneva.
93. Van Der Heijden, K., (1996), Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation, 321 pp., John Wiley, Chichester, UK
94. Viglione, A., R. Merz, J. S. Salinas, and, G. Blöschl, (2013), Flood frequency hydrology: 3. A Bayesian analysis, Water Resour. Res., 49, 675-692, doi: 10.1029/2011WR010782.
95. Viglione, A., G. Di Baldassarre, L. Brandimarte, L. Kuil, G. Carr, J. L. Salinas, A. Scolobig, and, G. Blöschl, (2014), Insights from socio-hydrology modelling on dealing with flood risk-Roles of collective memory, risk-taking attitude and trust, J. Hydrol., 518, Part A(0), 71-82, doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.01.018.
96. Vogel, R. M., A. Zafirakou-Koulouris, and, N. C. Matalas, (2001), The frequency of record breaking floods in the United States, Water Resour. Res., 37 (6), 1723-1731, doi: 10.1029/2001WR900019.
97. Vorogushyn, S., K.-E. Lindenschmidt, H. Kreibich, H. Apel, and, B. Merz, (2012), Analysis of the detention basin impact on dike failure probabilities and flood risk for a complex channel-dike-floodplain system, J. Hydrol., 436/437, 120-131, doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.03.006.
98. Walker, W. E., M. Haasnoot, and, J. H. Kwakkel, (2013), Adapt or perish: A review of planning approaches for adaptation under deep uncertainty, Sustainability, 5, 955-979, doi: 10.3390/su5030955.
99. Wardekker, J. A., A. de Jong, J. M. Knoop, and, J. P. van der Sluijs, (2010), Operationalising a resilience approach to adapting an urban delta to uncertain climate changes, Technol. Forecasting Soc. Change, 77 (6), 987-998, doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2009.11.005.
100. Whitfield, P., (1994), The Image of the World: 20 Centuries of World Maps, Pomegranate Artbooks, San Francisco, Calif.
101. Wilby, R. L., and, S. Dessai, (2010), Robust adaptation to climate change, Weather, 65 (7), 180-185.