The Danube River basin has had numerous floods over the past decade, causing high levels of economic and ecological damage. Hungary, situated in the central region of the Danube River basin, historically has had a high level of flood risk exposure and has recently experienced an increase in extreme floods. While international and national institutions in the Danube basin have provided guidance to local institutions in response to natural disasters, environmental policies related to flood protection, prevention, and environmental policies are frequently developed and implemented at the local and regional levels. Environmental policies across local level institutions in the central Danube River basin vary greatly. This dissertation research focuses on the analysis of local level response to floods in the Danube River basin.
Successful responses to extreme events often reflect policy learning, the evolution of beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and goals in response to new information and. To understand factors that promote policy learning, this research examines the following questions: (1) What factors are associated with observed variations in policy change and learning related to flood mitigation and prevention at the local level? (2) To what extent has scientific and technical information affected policy learning? (3) In what ways do different professionalized fora and group decision making processes, such as watershed partnerships and river basin management decision processes, influence policy learning? I will examine responses to severe floods in two Danube River subbasins: the Tisza and the Pannonian Central Danube, subbasins that have experienced some of the most extreme floods in the region over the past decade. The research includes two phases: a large N, cross-sectional survey of cities in the basins examining (1) the extent of past flooding, (2) policy change and learning in response to flooding, and (3) the roles of scientific and technical information and group decision processes influence policy learning; and, in depth case-studies of three smaller sub-catchment areas.
