Understanding housing co-operatives' flood risk reduction behavior : Perceptions of risk, coping, and incentives

Sammanfattning: Escalating global warming-induced cloudbursts and intense precipitations are already causing an increase of material damages in Sweden. Flooding is therefore one of the main focus pointsin Sweden’s national strategy for climate adaptation. Studies of climate adaptation in the built environment and among private property owners are however lacking in Sweden, compared to the public sector and new construction. Housing co-operatives are a private property owner important to understand since this form of ownership currently are growing exponentially in Sweden, and co-operatives are predicted to not be engaged in flood risk reduction work. While individual homeowners have previously been studied, housing co-operatives have only been studied once in this field, and there are therefore large knowledge gaps. This study consists of a qualitative interview study of seven Swedish Riksbyggen housing co-operatives.This study shows that as information surrounding flooding and adaptation was not communicated to co-operatives, housing co-operatives’ adaptation, as well as their awareness and perceptions of various factors, and perceptions of risk, coping, and incentives, is largely based on risk experience. Moreover, due to this lack of information, the interviewed chairpersons’ perceptions of risk, coping, and incentives are found low. More targeted support and communication related to climate adaptation is identified as needed. Risk perceptionappeared to increase with more local risk information, and especially the social consequences should be highlighted. The perceived coping and incentives for proactive adaptation wouldlikely increase with more awareness of easier and cheaper measures which generates other financial and social benefits.