Social and psychological vulnerability in flood risk management: how to extend the current cost-benefit assessment

Decision-making processes in flood risk management highly rely on cost-benefit assessment. Cost-benefit analyses usually use the physical damage as the main proxy for evaluating the implementation of structural and non-structural flood protection schemes. Consequently, this approach might increase the social inequality within a country as structurally weak municipalities usually show lower physical damages in comparison to urban municipalities. The following paper shows the connection between social justice and cost-benefit analyses and presents a possible approach of how structurally weak municipalities could be better represented in the decision-making process in flood risk management by taking into account social and psychological parameters. This extension leads to the result that especially municipalities in structurally weak areas can implement flood alleviation schemes as these municipalities suffer more from flood events in comparison to high-income municipalities and households. With this contribution, we are not only showing the importance of social and psychological aspects in flood risk management but also how the decision-making process can provide a more equity decision.