Examining the Effects of Objective Hurricane Risks and Community Resilience on Risk Perceptions of Hurricanes at the County Level in the U.S. Gulf Coast: An Innovative Approach

Abstract

Communities' risk perceptions can influence their abilities to cope with coastal hazards such as hurricanes and coastal flooding. Our study presents an initial effort to examine the relationship between community resilience and risk perception at the county level, through innovative construction of aggregate variables. Utilizing the 2012 Gulf Coast Climate Change Survey merged with historical hurricane data and community resilience indicators, we first apply a spatial statistical model to construct a county-level risk perception indicator based on survey responses. Next, we employ regression to reveal the relationship between contextual hurricane risk factors and community resilience, on one hand, and county-level perceptions of hurricane risks, on the other. Results of this study are directly applicable in the policy-making domain as many hazard mitigation plans and adaptation policies are designed and implemented at the county level. Specifically, two major findings stand out. First, the contextual hurricane risks represented by peak height of storm surge associated with the last hurricane landfall and land area exposed to historical storm surge flooding positively affect county-level risk perceptions.This indicates that hurricanes' another threatwind risksneed to be clearly communicated with the public and fully incorporated into hazard mitigation plans and adaptation policies.Second, two components of community resiliencehigher levels of economic resilience and community capitalare found to lead to heightened perceptions of hurricane risks, which suggests that concerted efforts are needed to raise awareness of hurricane risks among counties with less economic and community capitals.

Spatiotemporal patterns of US drought awareness

“…Further, conventional surveys focus on the variations among individuals while public policies are designed and implemented at an aggregate level. This mismatch on geographic scales naturally creates a gap between research results obtained from surveys and actionable policy items (Shao et al, 2018). Due to the time consuming and costly procedures, traditional surveys are conducted only at discrete points of time with a coarse temporal scale.…”

The Influence of Political Ideology and Socioeconomic Vulnerability on Perceived Health Risks of Heat Waves in the Context of Climate Change

“…Event trends have also been included in models predicting perceptions of weather events. Goebbert et al Evidence for a recency bias has also been demonstrated through research on perceptions of changes in hurricane strength, consistent with research showing that recent experiences may be more influential to perceptions than trends over time (Weber 2010;Shao et al 2016).…”

“…Educational attainment typically exerts a direct influence on concern about environmental issues, such that more educated individuals tend to express greater concerns or risk perceptions (Dunlap and Van Liere 1984;Jones and Dunlap 1992). Education and scientific literacy, however, also interact with politics, such that higher educational attainment among self-identified Republicans or political conservatives corresponds to lower perceived risks and less concern about environmental issues, which may indicate motivated reasoning (Hamilton 2008;Hamilton et al 2012;Hamilton and Saito 2015;McCright and Dunlap 2011;McCright 2011;Krosnick et al 2000;Malka et al 2009;Shao et al 2014).…”

“…Finally, lower household income at the individual level is associated with increased perceived local impacts of climate change and related environmental phenomena (Hamilton and Keim 2009;Cutler 2015Shao et al 2016Shao et al , 2014. In fact, recent research has shown a multiplicative effect of household income and local property damage from severe weather on perceptions of extreme weather events and the threat of climate change, such that individuals living in low-income households in the most heavily impacted places express greater awareness of and concern about personal risk and property damage from severe weather events (Cutler 2015.…”

“…Part of the challenge in answering how environmental changes might affect public perceptions of risks stems from the diverse methodological approaches used by various scientific disciplines and traditions attempting to unpack this question. Social scientists have increasingly turned to the integration of biophysical and social survey data to include objective measures of environmental phenomena, such as floods, temperature trends, and other weather events, alongside individual-level sociodemographic predictors of public attitudes and perceptions (Egan and Mullin 2012;Goebbert et al 2012;Howe et al 2013;Hamilton and Lemcke-Stampone 2014;Zaval et al 2014;Hamilton et al 2016;Shao et al 2017Shao et al , 2018. In parallel, geographers have investigated the links between spatially concentrated vulnerabilities (e.g., clustering of multiple socioeconomic disadvantages) at different geographic levels (e.g., state, county, census tract, block group) and specific environmental hazards, in the case of floods, extreme heat, and disaster declarations (Cutter et al 2003;Johnson et al 2012).…”