Flood risk mapping in southwestern Nova Scotia: Perceptions and concerns

Abstract

Flood risk mapping allows for informed decision making regarding personal and community planning. Resistance to flood risk mapping can be driven by potential decline of property values. This paper explores resistance to flood risk mapping through the lens of climax thinking. Climax thinking is a novel theory guiding explorations of resistance to proposed land use changes. The aim of this study was to understand flood experiences, the presence of resistance to flood risk mapping, and whether climax thinking could help explain this resistance. To address this, surveys were administered to residents in the Nova Scotian towns of Liverpool and Bridgewater. We found that one third of respondents have experienced flooding, yet the majority have not seen a flood risk map, nor were they concerned about the potential impacts of flooding. Only one sixth of respondents exhibited resistance to flood risk mapping because of potential loss to property value. Dimensions of climax thinking were predictive of this resistance, specifically ignorance of an individual's own ability to adapt and inability to recognize the impact of their adaptation decisions on others, which together quadrupled the predictive power of the ordinal regression model. These insights can be applied to support the acceptance of flood risk mapping.