Sustainable pathways: Using innovative modeling techniques to communicate flood information to communities at risk: Are we reaching all demographics?

Background/Question/Methods

Traditionally, federal agencies communicate flood information to the public through town-hall community meetings using computer-assisted decision support systems (DSS) to model risk scenarios. Past studies show that within the participating communities, certain segments of the population may be underrepresented at the meetings. Factors that may influence individual participation rates include household income, home ownership, ethnicity, education, age, and gender. We compared U.S. Census Bureau and municipal census demographic data to self-reported demographics provided by participants in flood risk management meetings to address whether or not the participants were a true representation of the community.

Results/Conclusions

Our preliminary findings show that meeting participants are older, better educated, more likely to be female, more likely to have a higher income, and more likely to own their home than the census data indicate for the community demographics. Ethnically, Latinos were underrepresented as compared to the census data. These results indicate that to disseminate flood risk information to all segments of the population, other methods need to be developed for reaching males, young adults, the less educated, those of Latino-descent, and those who rent their homes.