Valuing the reduction of floods: Public officials’ versus citizens’ preferences

This paper analyses the preferences of public officials and citizens related to the impacts of floods in the Gothenburg region in Sweden. Citizens and public officials in the flood-prone region answered identical choice-experiment surveys characterized by the negative impacts of floods: property damage, traffic disturbances, and water supply security. By having citizens and public officials respond to identical surveys, it was possible to analyse whether and, if so, how priorities and monetary valuation differed in respect of the different negative effects of floods. The overall finding is that public officials’ and citizens’ preferences seem to converge, and that both citizens and public officials are willing to pay to reduce flood-related costs. Public officials have similar priorities to citizens, in that security of drinking water provision was given priority over property damage, while traffic disturbances were ranked lowest. In terms of their respective willingness to pay to avoid the negative impact of floods, public officials were willing to pay more than citizens to pay for securing the drinking water supply and for restoring damaged property, though these differences were not substantial. There are, however, some differences in preference between citizens and public officials: the latter preferred not to spend anything to reduce traffic disturbances caused by floods, whilst citizens were willing to do so. These results imply that decisions made within the public sector will not come to differ substantially from citizens’ preferences.