Capturing Flood Risk Perception via Sketch Maps

• Main Authors: Carolin Klonner, Tomás J. Usón, Sabrina Marx, Franz-Benjamin Mocnik, Bernhard Höfle
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-08-01
• Series: ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
• Subjects: flood risk; participatory mapping; survey-based mapping; volunteered geographic information (VGI); Santiago de Chile
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/7/9/359

The fact that an increasing number of people and local authorities are affected by natural hazards, especially floods, highlights the necessity of adequate mitigation and preparedness within disaster management. Many governments, though, have only insufficient monetary or technological capacities. One possible approach to tackle these issues is the acquisition of information by sketch maps complemented by questionnaires, which allows to digitally capture flood risk perception. We investigate which factors influence information collected by sketch maps and questionnaires in case studies in an area prone to pluvial flooding in Santiago de Chile. Our aim is to gain more information about the methods applied. Hereby, we focus on the spatial acquisition scale of sketch maps and personal characteristics of the participants, for example, whether they live at this very location of the survey (residents) or are pedestrians passing by. Our results show that the choice of the acquisition scale of the base map influences the amount and level of detail of information captured via sketch maps. Thus, detail base maps lead to more precise results when compared to reference data, especially in the case of residents. The results also reveal that the place of living of the respondents has an effect on the resulting information because on the neighborhood level the risk perception of residents is more detailed than the one of pedestrians. The study suggests that the integration of citizens via sketch maps can provide information about flood risk perception, and thus can influence the flood mitigation in the area.