How path dependency manifests in flood risk management: observations from four decades in the Ennstal and Aist catchments in Austria.

Path dependency occurs when a contingent event predetermines what further steps can be taken and self-reinforcing mechanisms lock-in any further development on a sub-optimal trajectory. Path dependency is a prominent concept in the adaptation pathways literature, but insufficiently defined and operationalised. The present paper empirically tracks all constitutive elements of path dependency for four decades of flood risk management (FRM) in two alpine mountain regions in Austria, the Ennstal and Aist river catchments, using a mixed-methods approach. FRM governance has a critical role whether decisions lead to path dependency. Lock-in manifests not just in technical structures, but also in inertia of incumbent actor coalitions and management paradigms. Sub-optimality is hard to assess for lack of clearly defined protection targets; however, it appears in the ways that structural measures are implemented-too little, too late or with negative impacts on nature conservation. Past floods do not qualify as contingent events, as they have not fundamentally changed FRM practice. By contrast, technological and institutional shifts over longer periods, such as digital hazard maps and EU directives, have gradually reoriented FRM strategies. Institution-based self-reinforcing mechanisms are more prevalent than technology-based self-reinforcing mechanisms. Established actor coalitions combined with institutional density illustrate how those in charge uphold a path to defend their position, power and resources. Our recommendations for how to overcome path dependency in FRM governance are: encourage niche experiments, link FRM more closely with climate change adaptation, revise the national policy framework towards polycentric governance approaches and improve professional training.

(Almost) all Quiet Over One and a Half Years: A Longitudinal Study on Causality Between Key Determinants of Private Flood Mitigation.

Previous studies do not agree on the strengths and directions of the effects between risk appraisal, nonprotective, and protective responses in private flood mitigation. This may be due to the widespread use of cross-sectional survey designs, which infer causality from theoretical considerations alone. The present longitudinal study, in contrast, builds on the logic that cause precedes effect to confirm the direction of effects. Drawing on two-wave survey data from 554 flood-prone households in Austria, cross-lagged autoregressive models analyze pairwise combinations between risk perception, fear, five nonprotective responses (fatalism, denial, wishful thinking, reliance on social support, reliance on public protection), and seven specific protective responses (ranging from coordination with neighbors to structural modifications of the building). These factors show substantial temporal stability, in particular for nonprotective responses and fear. Only in very few instances can effects over time be confirmed statistically. Nonprotective responses emerge as the major drivers; foremost, denial, and reliance on public protection limit private flood mitigation. This overall null finding on causality may trace back to the 1.5 years' time span and the absence of any policy intervention or flood disaster between survey waves, and the high stability of protection motivation theory components. This finding puts into question the theoretically assumed causal relationships and the effects found in cross-sectional studies. The high trait-like stability requires perseverance in risk management efforts to change attitudes and capabilities. Finding nonprotective responses as key determinants in an overall picture of stability suggests that this factor merits a stronger role in future risk research.

The Sources of Belief in Personal Capability: Antecedents of Self-Efficacy in Private Adaptation to Flood Risk.

Self-efficacy is one of the strongest and most consistent drivers of private flood mitigation behavior; however, the factors influencing self-efficacy in the context of flooding remain unclear. The present study examines three potential antecedents of self-efficacy: personal and vicarious experiences of floods or building-related events, social norms for private flood preparedness, and personal competencies such as technical abilities and social skills. While controlling for other drivers in a protection motivation theory (PMT) framework, these antecedents are tested as precursors of self-efficacy and intentions to improve flood resilience. Structural equation modeling is applied to conduct mediation analyses with survey data of 381 flood-prone households in Austria. Contrary to theoretical expectations, personal and vicarious experiences do not predict self-efficacy, presumably because rare flood events and changing hazard characteristics do not facilitate generalizable performance accomplishments. Social norms strongly and consistently influence self-efficacy, especially for actions observable by others, and also directly influence protective responses. Personal competencies increase self-efficacy and support protective action, particularly with regard to preventive and structural measures. The strength and direction of the antecedents of self-efficacy as well as of other PMT determinants vary between general and specific protective responses. This study provides important insights for risk managers, suggesting that interventions involving social norms and personal competencies can be effective in stimulating self-efficacy and, in turn, private flood mitigation. Interventions and research should clearly differentiate between general intention and the implementation of specific measures, and should address cumulative, synergistic, or tradeoff interrelations between multiple measures.

A Household Is Not a Person: Consistency of Pro-Environmental Behavior in Adult Couples and the Accuracy of Proxy-Reports.

Studies on environmental behavior commonly assume single respondents to represent their entire household or employ proxy-reporting, where participants answer for other household members. It is contested whether these practices yield valid results. Therefore, we interviewed 84 couples, wherein both household members provided self- and proxy-reports for their partner. For use of electrical household appliances, consumption of hot water, space heating, everyday mobility, and environmental values, many variables fail to achieve criteria for validity. Consistency (agreement between self-reports of household members) is higher if behaviors are undertaken jointly or negotiated between partners. Accuracy (agreement of proxy-reports with corresponding self-reports) is higher for routine behaviors and for behaviors easily observable by the partner. Overall, indices perform better than items on single behaviors. We caution against employing individual responses in place of the entire household. Interventions for energy conservation should approach the specific person undertaking the target behavior.

Feeling hot is being hot? Comparing the mapping and the surveying paradigm for urban heat vulnerability in Vienna.

With rising global temperatures, cities increasingly need to identify populations or areas that are vulnerable to urban heat waves; however, vulnerability assessments may run into ecological fallacy if data from different scales are misconstrued as equivalent. We assess the heat vulnerability of 1983 residents in Vienna by measuring heat impacts, exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity with mirrored indicators in the mapping paradigm (i.e. census tract data referring to the geographic regions where these residents live) and the surveying paradigm (i.e. survey data referring to the residents' individual households). Results obtained in both paradigms diverge substantially: meteorological indicators of hot days and tropical nights are virtually unrelated to self-reported heat strain. Meteorological indicators are explained by mapping indicators (R2 of 15-40 %), but mostly not by surveying indicators. Vice versa, experienced heat stress and subjective heat burden are mostly unassociated with mapping indicators but are partially explained by surveying indicators (R2 of 2-4 %). The results suggest that the two paradigms do not capture the same components of vulnerability; this challenges whether studies conducted in the respective paradigms can complement and cross-validate each other. Policy interventions should first define which heat vulnerability outcome they target and then apply the paradigm that best captures the specific drivers of this outcome.

Lifestyle can be anything if not defined. A review of understanding and use of the lifestyle concept in sustainability studies.

A holistic understanding of human behaviour is considered key for a successful fight against climate change and environmental degradation. In the pursuit of a holistic understanding, empirical research frequently applies the concept of "lifestyle". The concept, which plays a significant role in segmenting customers in the field of marketing, is increasingly used in the cross-domain analysis of behaviour in the field of sustainability. This increase is tied to the challenge that the meaning and operationalisation of the lifestyle concept are still highly fragmented after decades of empirical studies. While this methodological heterogeneity and pluralism of research traditions bring creativity and dynamic to the field, it makes the orientation and a comparison of studies challenging. Previous attempts to streamline lifestyle oriented research have often aimed for a single mode of operationalisation, but this does not meet the diversity of possible applications of the concept. Therefore, a better understanding of the field seems necessary. To fill this gap, we review the understanding and use of the "lifestyle" concept in 53 empirical studies in the field of sustainability and identify 12 variants of lifestyle related research, differing along three dimensions. According to our results, (I) lifestyle can either be used as a cause or as a consequence, (II) the analytical scope can be on a micro-, meso- or macro level, and (III) the behavioural scope can be either limited to a single behavioural domain or cover multiple domains. The three dimensions allow a mapping of existing and future empirical research using the "lifestyle" concept, improve the orientation in the field, facilitate the identification of relevant studies, and avoid imprecise comparisons due to methodological differences.

Mental representation of climate-relevant behaviours: Confirmatory testing of similarity patterns obtained in a card sorting task by young adults.

Efforts to promote climate-friendly consumption need to address groups of interrelated behaviours; however, experts and laypeople have different perspectives on which climate-relevant behaviours belong together. Understanding laypeople's mental representations, or the perceived similarity of behaviours, may provide orientation on which behaviours should be promoted in concert in order to communicate comprehensibly and to catalyse spillover. The present study uses data on perceived similarity between 22 climate-relevant behaviours collected from 413 young adults in Austria in an open card sorting task. Five posited categorisations by domain, location, impact, difficulty, and frequency are tested in a confirmatory approach for their fit with the observed similarity patterns. By analysing co-occurrence matrices, edit distances and similarity indices, the best fit is found for the null hypothesis of random assignment. Ranking by test statistics shows that the domain categorisation fits next best, followed by impact, frequency, difficulty, and location. The categories of waste and advocacy behaviours emerge consistently in lay mental representations. The categories of behaviours with a high carbon footprint and difficult behaviours that are performed by few other people stand out from other, less extreme behaviours. Categorisation fit is not moderated by personal norms, stated competencies, and environmental knowledge. The analytical approaches for confirmatory testing of expected categorisations against observed similarity patterns may be applied to analyse any card sorting data.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic strengthened confidence in managing the climate crisis? Transfer of efficacy beliefs after experiencing lockdowns in Switzerland and Austria.

In the spring of 2020, countries introduced lockdowns as radical measures to deal with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to strong disruptions of people's everyday lives. Such drastic collective measures had previously seemed inconceivable in relation to other urgent crises, such as the climate crisis. In this paper, we ask how individual, participatory, and collective efficacy beliefs in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic transferred to efficacy beliefs regarding the climate crisis. We present comparative results from two surveys: Study 1 assesses efficacy beliefs among German-speaking Swiss residents (n = 1,016), shortly after lockdown measures were relaxed. Study 2 compares changes in efficacy beliefs among Austrian high school students (n = 113) before and after the lockdown. In Study 1, climate-related self- and participatory efficacy are enhanced by the corresponding COVID-19-related beliefs. Climate-related efficacy beliefs mediate the effect of COVID-related counterparts on climate-friendly behavior and policy support. Study 2 shows that COVID-19-related efficacy beliefs are transferred to climate-related counterparts over time, and that the transfer of participatory efficacy is moderated by perceived similarity of the two crises. Experiencing successful individual and collective action during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to inspire confidence in dealing with climate change. Underlying processes (direct transfer, consistency, awareness-raising, learning) are discussed.

Unpacking Protection Motivation Theory: evidence for a separate protective and non-protective route in private flood mitigation behavior.

Flood preparedness of private households is regarded an essential building block of integrated flood risk management. In the past decade, numerous empirical studies have employed the protection motivation theory (PMT) to explain flood mitigation behavior at the household level. However, much of this research has produced mixed results and could not consistently confirm the strength and direction of the relationships between the PMT components. Based on a survey of 2,007 households in flood-prone areas, this study revisits the model structure of the PMT by means of structural equation modeling. Compared to the methods used in previous studies, this modeling technique allows us to capture the PMT components in greater detail and to comprehensively test their hypothesized interrelations. Our results point to two separate routes leading to two different response types: A protective route from coping appraisal to protective behavior, and a non-protective route from threat appraisal to non-protective responses. Risk perception is not found to be part of the protective route, neither are non-protective responses confirmed to undermine protection motivation. The two separate routes are observed consistently across all combinations of the six protective and four non-protective responses assessed in this study. In the light of encouraging private flood adaptation, risk communication measures should specifically target the protective route and avoid (accidentally) providing incentives that fall within the non-protective route. This cross-sectional study, however, cannot establish how the two routes interrelate over time. More experimental and longitudinal research is required to address potential feedback effects and the role of decision stages.

Bottom-up citizen initiatives as emergent actors in flood risk management: Mapping roles, relations and limitations.

The recent shift to individualisation of flood risk calls for a stronger involvement of private actors. Bottom-up citizen initiatives (BUIs) may bring together governmental bodies with people at risk. Drawing on a screening of existing BUIs in Europe, North America, and Australia and an in-depth analysis of three study sites, this paper maps BUI activities to stages in the risk management cycle and discusses the institutional, relational and social proximity between BUIs and other stakeholders. Flood BUIs often take over roles that the authorities are not willing or able to fulfil. BUIs emerge out of frustration with current risk policies, after a catastrophic flood event, government-initiated engagement projects or targeted funding opportunities. BUIs can take different forms, ranging from oppositional pressure groups, self-help movements for disaster response and recovery, to initiatives formally installed by law. While self-organised BUIs benefit from high proximity to their home communities, formalised BUIs are deeper embedded in existing institutional structures. In order to gain a stronger voice in the risk debate, BUIs need to expand from the local level to catchment areas and exchange expertise and resources in nationwide or cross-border networks. However, BUIs may create parallel political structures that are not democratically legitimised.