Flood Disaster Risk, Sense of Place, and Preparedness of Entrepreneurs in Communities along a River

•   Enrique G. Oracion

•   Received: 14 June 2020 / Accepted: 16 July 2021/ Published online: 12 November 2021

• https://doi.org/10.18783/cddj.v005.i01.a01

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Highlights

• Majority of the respondents reported to have incurred damages and losses, with the former to be greater than the latter, during the most devastating river floods they had experienced.
• Majority of the heavily affected respondents returned to where they originally had operated and repaired the structures of their enterprises after they had temporarily stopped.
• The respondents had strong disaster risk perception but despite their strong stance that the river flood could not be controlled, they still believed that its negative impact may be reduced.
• The very strong risk perception of the respondents seems to contradict their very strong sense of place, particularly on place attachment and dependence.
• The over-all disaster preparedness of the respondents, which was very low, was significantly correlated with their place dependence or economic reliance upon the community.

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Abstract

This paper investigated the flood experiences of entrepreneurs in communities along the Ocoy River in Negros Oriental. It further examined the relationships among flood disaster risk perception, sense of place, and flood disaster preparedness of the respondents composed of 36 non-probable samples of owners and managers of enterprises near the river. The face-to-face survey revealed that most had accumulated damage and losses during floods, reinforcing their high flood disaster risk perceptions. But the latter was positively and significantly related to their sense of place score, which suggests a high value they assigned to their communities despite a high flood risk. However, they had a low disaster preparedness score which is not significantly related to flood disaster risk perception and a sense of place. Only place dependence had a positive and significant relationship to flood disaster preparedness which explains their reluctance to relocate their operations. Therefore, as part of enterprises’ formal operational requirements for a business permit, the entrepreneurs must undergo flood disaster preparedness orientation to adapt to climate change.

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Citation

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Keywords

Flood disaster risk perception, Sense of place, Flood disaster preparedness, Entreprenuers, Ocoy River, Negros Oriental