ABSTRACT
Worldwide, Ÿoods have become one of the costliest weather-related hazards, causing large-scale human, economic, and environmental damage during the recent past. Recent years have seen a large number of such Ÿood events around the globe, with Europe and the United Kingdom being no exception. Currently, about one in six properties in England is at risk of Ÿooding (EA, 2009), and the risk is expected to further increase in the future (Evans et al., 2004). Although public spending on community-level Ÿood protection has increased and some properties are protected by such protection schemes, many properties at risk of Ÿooding may still be left without adequate protection. As far as businesses are concerned, this has led to an
19.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................269 19.2 Effects of Flood Hazard on SMEs ................................................................ 270 19.3 Property-Level Flood Protection and Strategies for Business Continuity .... 271 19.4 Survey of SMEs ............................................................................................ 272
19.4.1 Method .............................................................................................. 273 19.4.2 Survey Data ...................................................................................... 273
19.5 Discussion ..................................................................................................... 275 19.6 Conclusions ................................................................................................... 276 References .............................................................................................................. 277
increased need for implementing strategies for property-level Ÿood protection and business continuity, in order to improve their capacity to survive a Ÿood hazard.
