Living With Floods Without Being Prepared: Experimental Evidence from Italy

In recent years, Europe has experienced an increasing number of devastating floods. In 2023 alone, 26 flood events were reported in the first nine months of the year. Two of such events were the floods that hit the Italian regions of Emilia Romagna in May 2023 and Tuscany in November 2023. Using an original survey instrument on a representative sample of the Italian population of residents in Emilia Romagna and Tuscany, we investigate individuals’ climate adaptation and mitigation responses, including their preparedness against extreme climatic events and the determinants of such preparedness, their perception of flood risk likelihood across key life domains, their support for green policies, and their intention to adopt mitigation measures. We further examine whether targeted risk communication can enhance these climate adaptation and mitigation responses through two pre-registered randomized experiments testing the causal impact of flood risk information on the same set of outcomes. Our findings reveal that respondents were highly unprepared, with around 70% per cent of the sample having never taken any action to equip their home to handle extreme climatic events. The experimental results demonstrate that the provision of information on floods’ risk through an effective video message significantly improves individuals’ pro-environmental behavior, their perception of the danger of floods, and their intention to vote for a political coalition that will prioritize on combating climate change. Providing information on flood risk can thus contribute to promoting the vast support for the necessary actions to address the climate crisis.