Elevating Resilience Through Education: Assessing Flood Literacy in South Florida

Flood events are becoming more frequent and intense as time progresses, ushering in a “new normal” for life in South Florida, a life that presumably requires flood literacy for resilience. Utilizing a 45-question digital survey, flood literacy of 600 participants from Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties was assessed. Using seven indices developed for this study including residency, flood terminology literacy, flood insurance literacy, floodplain literacy, flood experience, risk communication awareness, and mitigation strategies, it was found that less than 80% of participants were flood literate, with most indicating low experience with flooding and mitigation. Interaction with risk communications and consideration of flood impacts in residency decisions were indicated as moderate. Due to inconsistencies in parts of analysis, further stratification of index topics and unification of questions types would be beneficial for future iterations of this study.