Spatial differentiation of the level of flood vulnerability of municipalities in Poland and Austria

Closely related to floods and floodplains is the concept of flood risk, which is the product of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Recently, knowledge of hazard and exposure has improved significantly, while vulnerability studies have so far been the most formidable obstacle in assessing flood risk.
The project adopts as its main objective the assessment of the vulnerability of communes to flooding in Poland and Austria. The study will investigate the following elements: exposure to the threat (of the area and its population), social sensitivity, and the ability of communes with their populations to respond to and cope with a natural disaster. The research will be carried out for all communes in Poland and Austria that have flood hazard areas (from the river) within their borders, specifically areas subject to the 1% annual chance of flood.
The project sets four research hypotheses: (1) Knowing the correlation between the magnitude of exposure, sensitivity and resilience of communes to floods, which makes it possible to adjust their flood risk management strategy and reduce their level of vulnerability to flooding; (2) The public's awareness of flood hazard and its socio-demographic characteristics greatly affect the level of vulnerability to disasters; (3) Communes which are the most vulnerable to natural disasters include those with little funding to protect the public from flooding or relevant educational measures and no intensive flood risk communication efforts; (4) in turn, suggests that – Greater public flood hazard awareness and better knowledge on how to act in the event of such a disaster increases the effectiveness of flood risk reduction measures (both in terms of evacuating the population and minimising the level of vulnerability).
The motivation for the research on assessing the vulnerability of communes to flooding (in Poland and Austria) is to assess the level of preparedness of their populations and development to this threat, as well as the ability of these two elements to return to pre-flood operating characteristics. The rationale for making sense of such considerations comes from the intensification of the drivers of natural disasters emerging globally in recent decades, combined with changes in the approach to flood risk management.