title: Decision-making and evacuation planning for flood risk management in the Netherlands.
abstract: A traditional view of decision-making for evacuation planning is that, given an uncertain threat, there is a deterministic way of defining the best decision. In other words, there is a linear relation between threat, decision, and execution consequences. Alternatives and the impact of uncertainties are not taken into account. This study considers the 'top strategic decision-making' for mass evacuation owing to flooding in the Netherlands. It reveals that the top strategic decision-making process itself is probabilistic because of the decision-makers involved and their crisis managers (as advisers). The paper concludes that deterministic planning is not sufficient, and it recommends probabilistic planning that considers uncertainties in the decision-making process itself as well as other uncertainties, such as forecasts, citizens responses, and the capacity of infrastructure. This results in less optimistic, but more realistic, strategies and a need to pay attention to alternative strategies.
authors.affiliation: Senior Consultant Disaster and Flood Risk Management, HKV Consultants, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bas
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kolen
authors.forename: Ira
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Helsloot
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D055868:Floods; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands; D012308:Risk Management / Q000458:organization & administration*
keywords: decision-making; evacuation; flood risk; the Netherlands