Do perceptions of climate change influence precautionary measures?

Purpose - The need to adapt to the effects of climate change requires the sharing of responsibility between the authorities and the public. It has been shown before that private building precautionary measures are able to significantly mitigate flood losses. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which factors are motivating people to undertake mitigation measures, with a particular focus on the perceptions of climate change. Design/methodology/approach - A total of 605 households in Dresden have been interviewed and their answers statistically analysed. Findings - Correlation and principal component analysis show a slight influence of the perception about consequences of climate change on the motivation to undertake flood emergency measures. However, other socio-economic factors such as the ownership of the residential building and the size of the household are much more important. Practical implications - In order to improve the uptake of flood mitigation and climate change adaptation measures, public awareness raising campaigns and schemes utilizing financial and non-financial incentives should be undertaken. Such campaigns should particularly focus on specific social-groups, like tenants or singles. Awareness raising campaigns focusing on the causes and consequences of climate change are expected to have little effect on peoples' motivation to act. Originality/value - This study has discovered very weak links between perceptions of climate change and the motivation of households to undertake precautionary measures, which is important for the design of awareness raising campaigns.