Natural hazards, such as major flood events, are occurring with increasing frequency and inflicting increasing levels of financial damages upon affected communities. The experience of such major flood events has brought about a significant change in attitudes to flood-risk management, with a shift away from built engineering solutions alone towards a more multifaceted approach. Europe's experience with damaging flood episodes provided the impetus for the introduction of the European Floods Directive, requiring the establishment of flood-risk management plans at the river-basin scale. The effectiveness of such plans, focusing on prevention, protection, and preparedness, is dependent on adequate flood awareness and preparedness, and this is related to perception of flood risk. This is an important factor in the design and assessment of flood-risk management. Whilst there is a modern body of literature exploring flood perception issues, there have been few examples that explore its spatial manifestations. Previous literature has examined perceived and real distance to a hazard source (such as a river, nuclear facility, landfill, or incinerator, etc.), whereas this article advances the literature by including an objectively assessed measure of distance to a perceived flood zone, using a cognitive mapping methodology. The article finds that distance to the perceived flood zone (perceived flood exposure) is a crucial factor in determining flood-risk perception, both the cognitive and affective components. Furthermore, we find an interesting phenomenon of misperception among respondents. The article concludes by discussing the implications for flood-risk management.

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Problem, research strategy, and findings: Local jurisdictions in 36 US states have implemented Transferable Development Rights (TDR) programs to provide a market-based approach to preserving farmlands and open space while redirecting future development to targeted areas. Participation in TDR programs involves transaction costs which are costs over and above paying for TDR credits. Planners know little about the magnitude of transaction costs, who, if anyone, incurs a disproportionate share of these costs, or how transaction costs impact TDR participation. We estimated the magnitude and distribution of transaction costs incurred by participants in four county-wide TDR programs in Maryland, a TDR pioneer, by interviewing multiple participants in these programs. We found that total transaction costs were high and borne largely by private sector participants, although we excluded initial public-sector costs of establishing the programs. Total transaction costs ranged from 13% to 21% of total TDR costs per transaction. Our findings were based on data reported by participants and may not be scalable; transaction costs, however, might deter landowners from participating in TDR programs, thus thwarting the land-use goals of planners.Takeaway for practice: Planners should work to reduce transaction costs by better constructing TDR programs and providing greater information on TDR sale prices and potential buyers and sellers. Lowering, and more fairly, distributing transaction costs will make the TDR program a more successful approach to achieving land-use goals and addressing the externalities arising from land-use markets.

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Planning decisions have considerable impacts on both natural and built environments. The impacts of these decisions may remain for many decades and many are irreversible. In order to gain a better understanding of these long-standing impacts, planners require a systematic approach to evaluate the planning policy instruments utilised. The literature on planning evaluation shows that most studies have taken a conformance-based evaluation approach, where the success of a planning policy instrument is based on the degree of conformity between the policy outcomes and its intended objectives. While evaluating such criteria is necessary, it is hardly ever sufficient largely because of unintended effects. This paper proposes an impact-based approach to planning evaluation that incorporates all the impacts, intended and otherwise, that a planning policy instrument may bring about, irrespective of the initial objectives of the policy. Using a number of economic and planning theories, this paper argues that, in addition to conformance and performance, other normative evaluation criteria, such as, efficiency, equity, social and political acceptability, and institutional arrangements, should be included to emphasize the importance of planning decisions and their substantial impacts on quality of life, social justice, and sustainability.