Flood warning in a Swedish local risk management context
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how local early warning systems (EWSs) for floods are established at the municipality level in Sweden. The study also aims to analyse the role of EWSs in a risk management context. The overall purpose of this study is to elucidate how and to what extent the adoption of local EWSs can generate value-added benefits throughout the wider risk management process.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with supervisors at each municipality in order to depict how local EWS are established at the municipality level in Sweden. The interviews went through a content analysis with respect to theory on EWS and theory on the risk management process.
Findings
The possible effects from an EWS is not only reduced flood losses but also potential spinoff. The possibility of spinoff effects from the system, but also the mitigating effectiveness in case of a flood is largely dependent on the well-being of the organisation and its risk management processes.
Originality/value
This study widens the understanding of the value of an EWS and that the organisational culture and state of risk management system has influence on the availability of such value. Identifying the potential added value from EWSs is important from a more general disaster risk reduction perspective, as it helps to further motivate implementation of proactive risk management measures. This knowledge can be of help to others who investigate the possibilities of investing in EWSs.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study has been financed by VINNOVA. A big thank you to the editors of Disaster Prevention and Management and the reviewers for invaluable help and feedback to the benefit of this paper.
Citation
Persson, E.S., Nyberg, L. and Svedung, I. (2015), "Flood warning in a Swedish local risk management context", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 383-396. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-07-2014-0140
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited