Article on flood risk perception in Pakistan published

The International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction has published an article I co-authored with my colleague Ahmad Ali Gul and main author Shaiza Zaib Khawaja, titled: ‘Investigating the flood risk perception of residents in informal settlements around the floodplains of river ravi in Lahore, Pakistan'.

You can access it for free until April 16 2024 here: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1ifkb7t2zZHCh7

The abstract reads as follows: 

"With a rapid rate of urbanization in Lahore, Pakistan, many vulnerable residents of the city are forced to settle in katchi abadis or informal settlements at the outskirts along River Ravi. These people living within Ravi's embankments, are often slow to respond or heed flood disaster warnings and evacuation messages. This article studies the flood risk perception of River Ravi's residents to better understand their choices and evacuation behaviour during floods. Surveys were conducted with the sample population utilizing dominant worldviews of Douglas and Wildavsky's Cultural Theory and qualitative risk variables from Slovic, Fischhoff, and Lichtenstein's Psychometric Paradigm to form major questionnaire items. This was further combined with Lindell and Perry's Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) for the analysis. An egalitarian worldview was found to dominate within the population where most residents were socially well bonded but had a weak authority subjection. Results further described the PADM outcome as mostly delayed or no evacuation based on the residents' worldview and result of their pre-decisional processes. Effect of threat, hazard adjustment, and stakeholders' perceptions on PADM's outcome was not definitive. For better flood risk management in Pakistan, policies need to shift towards improving stakeholders' perception as key to changing flood risk perception."

New Urban Green Infrastructure walkshop at The Nature of Cities festival in Berlin

Our next walkshop will take place during The Nature of Cities festival in Berlin in June. This festival is 'Three weeks of interconnected events where you can join virtually or in-person to get inspired, to learn, to present, collaborate, or to meet hundreds of new best friends and urban nature co-conspirators. The virtual segment of the Festival operates around the clock, so set your time zone to see which sessions are good for you."

The virtual part starts in April, and you can register to join our walkshop on June 6. We currently have a student from a university of applied sciences helping us analyze the results from the previous 5 walkshops and to improve the upcoming walkshop. While there are several walkshop type of sessions planned during this festival, ours is focusing on your own experiences and to what extent that influences how you see nature as a stakeholder. We actually take you outside for a while and also want to know how you think about the concept of green infrastructure with different provocative examples.