Behaviour around floodwater: challenges for floodwater safety and risk communication

This paper is based on a panel discussion held at the Australia and New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management conference in June 2019. All authors (except Haynes) were panel members and provided perspectives on the set of challenges based on research, operational, organisational and personal experiences.

Selection of the four challenges arose from findings from recent Australian research data and issues already identified as problematic for flood-risk communication. Each challenge is discussed by outlining the challenge with attention given to central questions and relevance for flood-risk communications.

A summary of research evidence quantifies and details the issue and expert opinion expands on the context and approaches used, or planned to be used, to address the challenge.