Page - 301 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

12 IntegratedDisasterRiskManagementandAdaptation 301 12.4 Individual (Household)LevelNaturalDisaster Risk Reduction—CaseStudiesGermanyandMexico In addition to public disastermanagement policy, like the flood protection policy describedinSect.12.3,privateactors includingcompaniesandhouseholds,cantake measures to limit the potential damage of natural disasters. These individual level measurescanbean importantcomponentofnaturaldisaster riskmanagementwhen public protection is not economically efficient. Thereby, thesemeasures can con- tribute to climate change adaptation, and limit the residual risk that has to be dealt with throughL&D.Moreover, evenwhenpublic strategiesare inplace to limit risk, individual levelmeasures can be a useful complement tominimise damagewhen public strategies fail and a disaster happens. For example, it has been shown that relativelylow-costmeasures, likemovingfurniture tohigherfloorsandplacingsand bagsinfrontofdoorsandwindowopenings,cansavesubstantialdamagewhenfloods occurdue tofailureorovertoppingoffloodprotection infrastructure (Kreibichetal. 2005).Moreover,duringconstructionorrenovationofbuildingsitisusuallyinexpen- sive tomake structural adjustments to reduce a building’s vulnerability to hazards, likethroughelevationorapplyingwater-resistantmaterials(AertsandBotzen2011). Although the importanceofnaturaldisaster riskmitigationmeasuresat the indi- vidualscaleiswell recognised,relativelyfewempiricalstudieshavebeenconducted to estimate the potential damage savings from thesemeasures and their economic desirability (Poussin et al. 2015).Exceptions are the studiesdescribed inBox12.3, whichexaminedthisforflooddamagemitigationmeasuresinGermany.TheGerman studies (Box12.3) usemeancomparison tests to examinehowmuchflooddamage hasbeen savedwhenparticularfloodpreparednessmeasureswere implementedby households during floods of the river Elbe. The results point toward clear damage savingsofup to50%ofsomemeasures. Even while household level measures to reduce natural disaster risk are cost- effective, this doesnotmean thatmanypeoplewill voluntarily invest in thesemea- sures.Thismaybedue to lowawareness about risk andmitigationmeasures, since damagingnaturalhazardsareoftenlow-probabilityeventsthat individualshavelittle experiencewith.As a result, building codes and zoning policies can be developed toguide the implementationofdamagemitigationmeasures.Zoningregulationsare set to control landuses and setting development standards throughout urban areas. Zoning regulations determine (1)what landuses, or combinations of landuses are allowed in the available space, and (2) how land uses utilise space (i.e. conditions for building construction, for instance, including building codes that limit natural disaster risk). In termsofutilising space for especiallyurbanareas, zoningpolicies