Multi-level assessment of flood risk perception and flood behaviour

Coloma, Rocío; Saenger, Vicente; Link, Felipe; Link, Oscar

doi:10.5194/egusphere-2025-4496

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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4496

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10 Nov 2025

| 10 Nov 2025

Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS).

Multi-level assessment of flood risk perception and flood behaviour

Rocío Coloma, Vicente Saenger, Felipe Link, and Oscar Link

Abstract. Understanding the relationships between flood risk perception and flood behaviour is crucial for adequate risk management and risk communication strategies, but quantitative approaches are still challenging research. Based on a survey of 1007 residents in four different localities of Chile exposed to river floods, this study builds and applies a framework for assessment of flood risk perception and flood behaviour at the individual, household, neighbourhood and municipality levels. Results show that almost all respondents were aware of flood risk. Economic and personal resources highly control worry and preparedness: households with better economic situation were less worried about floods, while minor economic resources at the municipal and neighbourhood levels triggered the adoption of cautionary measures at the household level. Experiences where the flood passed outside the household increased worry and preparedness. Worry decreased with trust in the neighbours. Overall, worry and preparedness in the study area were intermediate, with an increasing dispersion in the lower levels. Increasing worry did not necessarily translate into higher preparedness. Municipalities exhibited different flood behaviours, and some neighbourhoods exhibited flood behaviours different to those of their municipalities, evidencing important differences across the analysed levels. Obtained results suggest that risk communication and risk management strategies should be adapted to focus on the needs of specific neighbourhoods exposed to floods.

Received: 12 Sep 2025 – Discussion started: 10 Nov 2025

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

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Rocío Coloma, Vicente Saenger, Felipe Link, and Oscar Link

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RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2025-4496', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Dec 2025 reply
The study analyzes the factors affecting worry and preparedness for floods and the relationship between the two in four municipalities of Chile using household surveys and subsequent statistical analysis. The factors affecting worry and preparedness are analyzed at individual, household, neighborhood and municipal levels using multi-level analysis.
The study addresses a very important research topic as the knowledge of people’s perception about floods and their preparedness is crucial for effective flood management. The manuscript is well-written and the analysis is interesting. The findings of the study have potential to improve the effectiveness of flood management strategies. I just have some clarification questions and suggestions to communicate the findings for decision makers more effectively. The following are my detailed comments:
L26-29: The first paragraph can be made simpler by using plain language rather than technical terms. It would be helpful to elaborate the meaning of terms such as ‘flood risk perception’ and ‘flood behavior’ so that it is easier for readers to follow.

L39-48: The previous paragraph mentions about risk and its three components: hazard, exposure and vulnerability. But it is not clear how flood risk perception is related to these three components. The paragraph introduces the concepts of awareness, worry and preparedness, but the authors should add a few lines on how these concepts can help in risk reduction.

Please add the names of the four municipalities in Figure 1(a).

The two main aspects of flood risk analyzed in the study: worry and preparedness have not been defined explicitly. What was the question asked in the survey? Table 3 mentions that preparedness was calculated as a composite index. How was this index calculated?

The definition of preparedness is particularly confusing. Table 3 defines preparedness as ‘Composite index based on actions taken during the last flood and the perceived effectiveness of those actions’. So how should preparedness be interpreted? If a respondent says they have high preparedness, does it mean that they have actually taken action or it is their perception that they are well-prepared. It is possible that a respondent has not taken any action but still feels confident that they are prepared. Actual preparedness and perception of preparedness are two different things. Clarification on this aspect would be helpful.

It is not clear how the survey results are analyzed at higher levels. For example, how were household level surveys used for analysis at neighborhood levels? Were the responses simply averaged over households in a neighborhood? It is not clear how to interpret the results at the municipal level if averaging has been performed. The analysis at municipality level should refer to the response of administrators such as municipal commissioners as they are the actual decision makers at the municipal scale.

An important factor affecting worry for floods is perception about climate change, but I could not find any question related to climate change in the listed variables. The authors could possibly comment on the role it could have on the resident’s worry about floods.

The analysis on preparedness shows that individuals from higher socioeconomic groups have higher preparedness but at the neighborhood level lower socioeconomic groups show higher preparedness. If neighborhoods of lower socioeconomic groups are more prepared, why is it not reflected at the individual level? In my understanding, individuals from higher socioeconomic groups could be perceiving more preparedness but lower socioeconomic groups may actually have taken actions. That is why it is important to clarify the meaning of preparedness in this study, as mentioned in comment 5.

The discussion section can be strengthened by providing implications of the study for flood risk management. For example, which sections of the society should be targeted for more efficient flood risk management? Which type of strategies are more likely to be effective?

Other comments
L8 – Please change to “but quantitative research in this area remains challenging”.
L13 – Please change to “lower economic resources at the municipal”.
L17 and L51 – The meaning of “lower levels” is not clear at this stage of the manuscript.
Table 2 – Please change to “Age of respondent”.
L303 – Please change “worry” to “worried”.
Table 8 – Please change the title. The table does not show explanatory variables.
L338 – Please change “declares” to “declared”.
L477 – Please delete this line, it has been repeated.
L485 – What is the meaning of the word “hydrologicalhydraulic”?

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Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4496-RC1
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2025-4496', Anonymous Referee #2, 25 Dec 2025 reply
Make sure the connection between risk perception and preparedness at different levels is clearly explained. This helps readers understand how findings at one level relate to another.

Provide a brief explanation of the cluster analysis and PCoA methods in the methodology, so readers can follow these analyses without confusion.

Correct grammar errors and spelling mistakes: For instance, "neighbourghood" (appears multiple times, it should be "neighbourhood"), "preapredness" (line 481, it should be "preparedness"), "hydrologicalhydraulic" (line 484, it should be "hydrological and hydraulic"), "ackonwledged" (line 625, it should be "acknowledged").

The chart numbers do not match the references. For instance, "Figure 9 illustrates the flood behavior" (line 418), but the previous text only mentions Figures 1-6, indicating a numbering error.

The article uses a multilevel ordinal regression model to fit the relationships between the probability that the person belongs to a category of worry and age range of the respondent, trust in the neighbourhood, etc. (Equation 5). And also uses a multilevel ordinal regression model to fit the relationships between probability that the person belongs to a category of preparedness and the knowledge of flooding areas，the gender of the respondent, etc. (Equation 6). Has the author considered non-linear relationships? And the mutual influence among these factors, such as the socio-economic group and housing quality, etc.

The article employed linear methods such as Spearman coefficient analysis and Pearson's test to analyze the correlation between worry and preparedness. Did the author consider non-linear relationships?

For the analysis of the relationship between flood risk perception and flood behavior, the magnitude of the flood is a very important factor. Did the author consider the impact of different magnitudes of floods on the probability that the person belongs to a category of worry and the probability that the person belongs to a category of preparedness?

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Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4496-RC2
RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-4496', Anonymous Referee #3, 25 Dec 2025 reply

This study conducted a comprehensive assessment of flood risk perception (worry and preparedness) and flood behavior at multiple levels, namely, the individual, household, neighborhood, and municipality levels in four regions in Chile. Results showed that economic and personal resources are key factors that control worry and preparedness, while the correlation patterns between worry and preparedness were heterogeneous and flood behaviors tended to be different at different levels. Overall, this study is meaningful for more informed flood risk management. However, I still have several concerns and suggestions to improve the current work.
1) Please use either “neighbourhood” or “neighborhood” throughout the manuscript. How would you define a “neighborhood”?

2) Lines 30-38: In the second paragraph of the Introduction Section, it would be better to briefly discuss the exposure factor in flood risk.

3) Line 40: Awareness is one of the three elements of flood risk perception. It seems that this study did not clearly distinguish “awareness” and “worry”.

4) Lines 44-45: Please rephrase the sentence “…as well as the relation between worry and awareness with preparedness and between awareness and worry”, which is confusing.

5) Lines 83-84: It is suggested to add a few references for the statement that the previous research mainly focused at the local scale.

6) Figure 1: Please check the longitude and latitude labels, and it would be better to add municipality names in Figure 1(a). Also, it is suggested to add a scale bar to each map.

7) Lines 152, 164, 169, 173, 183, 185, and others: It is suggested to only use the acronyms after the full name appears for the first time in Lines 145-146.

8) Lines 170-172: It seems that the last sentence about the interpretation of MPI values is redundant.

9) Equations (2) and (3): What is the subscript “i”?

10) Table 2: Why does the variable “socioeconomic group” belong to both the individual and the household levels? Why does the variable “territorial socio-material index” belong to the neighborhood level, while its SD belongs to the municipality level?

11) Table 3: Why are the ordinal values for worry 1-3, while 0-3 for preparedness?

12) It is suggested to combine Tables 2 and 3.

13) Line 259: The Spearman’s rank correlation is conventionally denoted as “ρ”.

14) Tables 5 and 6: A lower absolute value of z-value is typically corresponding to a larger p-value. However, for example, the z-value and the p-value for “age respondent” are -0.975 and 0.009, respectively, which are not correct. Please double-check all the results in the tables.

15) Equations (5) and (6): How to relate the probability of a level of worry or preparedness to the ordinal values?

16) Line 342: Maybe a typo here: “where” should be “were”.

17) Table 7: It is suggested to highlight those p-values less than the significance level.

18) Lines 401-405: It is important to distinguish between flooding frequency and recurrence interval, as different flood magnitudes would lead to different consequences.

19) Lines 409-410: It is suggested to move the text to the caption of Figure 5. Also, in Figure 5, why were some peaks not circled, and why is the flow range of Vilama River so small?

20) Line 476 is the same as Line 477.

21) Line 517: What is the difference between “community and institution” and “neighborhood and municipality”?

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Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4496-RC3
RC4:
'Comment on egusphere-2025-4496', Anonymous Referee #4, 04 Jan 2026 reply
The authors present a thorough multi-level assessment of how flood risk perception relates to flood-related behavior across multiple social and spatial scales. Using a survey of over 1,000 residents in flood-prone areas of Chile, they examine awareness, worry, and preparedness at the individual, household, neighborhood, and municipal levels. Overall, the study offers a clear and coherent framework for understanding the factors influencing flood awareness and preparedness, and it effectively identifies where targeted interventions and risk communication efforts are most needed to reduce flood impacts and potentially save lives.
Main findings and strengths:
Results show that worry is primarily associated with past flood experience, housing quality, social trust, and neighborhood socioeconomic composition, whereas preparedness is more strongly linked to household-level experience, neighborhood vulnerability, and municipal financial autonomy.

The analysis reveals that increased worry does not systematically lead to higher preparedness.

The authors show that such as PCO and clustering enable clear identification of spatial patterns and intra-municipal heterogeneity in worry and preparedness.

By integrating flood recurrence information with preparedness levels, the study very importantly provides a quantitative classification of flood behavior (learning, proactive, status quo effects), strengthening the interpretation of behavioral responses in relation to historical flood exposure.

Minor comments:
While the introduction is generally well written, a clear and explicit hypothesis statement is missing. I recommend formulating and placing the hypothesis at the end of the introduction (after line 87).

Figure captions would benefit from being more descriptive. In particular, adding two to three sentences explaining what is shown in each figure and why it is relevant would improve clarity and interpretability (see detailed comments below).

In Section 2.2 (Survey), it would be helpful to explain the rationale behind the distribution of the survey sample across households and to clarify why the selected sample size is considered representative.

The clustering shown in Figure 2 is informative; however, similar groupings already appear evident in the PCO plots, making the dendrograms somewhat repetitive. One potential improvement would be to include biplots (vectors indicating the direction and relative influence of the variables) within the PCO plots, which would help visualize the ordination and the “pull” of individual variables - then of course discussing those further in the discussion. The same suggestion applies to Figure 3.

The results clearly identify which population groups and spatial units are most relevant for improving flood preparedness. However, these findings are not sufficiently discussed. The manuscript would benefit from a more explicit discussion on how the identified parameters can inform targeted and repeated interventions, and how such interventions could ultimately reduce flood damage and save lives. In Table 5 and Table 6 you provided a lot of interpretation very nicely, please provide a thorough explanation within the discussion. What are these in your specific cases in your selected locations and what can we learn from them?

Other comments:
Line 38: add more references
Line 48: emphasize here the importance of social vulnerability
Line 52: three different methods - briefly explain
Line 54-55: briefly explain levee and adaptation effect
Line 93-95: combine these sentences and consider rephrasing it
Line 95-96: the word “discussed” is used twice
Figure 1: explain the rationale in 2 sentences about the selected households. Also, can you mark flow directions on maps b-e?
Line 113: …which reduces temperature extremes…. - need reference
Line 115: National Weather Agency -put a link of your source
Line 115-120: round all precipitation numbers
Line 124: Census Data - need reference
Line 150: GIS - what version?
Line 167: what weights?
Line 200: The survey answers what?
Line 267-269: it is a bit hard to follow what percentage belongs to what. Consider rephrasing it.
Line 398: “…who are not worried.” - Do you have an explanation why?
Line 401-405: show flood frequency in flood/yr and not average.
Line 419: Table 8 caption: These are preparedness level values not expl variables. Correct table title and give explanation and meaning in 2 sentences.
Line 423: “...we assumed a threshold of 7 years…” - based on what?
Line 508: “exhibited” used twice in the same sentence.

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Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4496-RC4

Rocío Coloma, Vicente Saenger, Felipe Link, and Oscar Link

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Short summary

Based on a survey of 1007 residents in four different localities of Chile exposed to river floods, this study builds and applies a framework for assessment of flood risk perception and flood behaviour at the individual, household, neighbourhood and municipality levels. Obtained results suggest that risk communication and risk management strategies should be adapted to focus on the needs of specific neighbourhoods exposed to floods.


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