Risk social contracts: Exploring responsibilities through the lens of citizens affected by flooding in Germany in 2021

Citizen priorities, needs, and rights have been moving to the centre of ‘good’ risk management and governance in theory, but what is their role in practice? The disastrous impacts of the flooding event across western Europe in 2021 highlighted many gaps and challenges in flood risk governance (FRG) structures in Germany. To better understand these, this study explored responsibilities as perceived by citizens and compares these with legal-institutional social contracts. These perceptions of citizens were captured in an online survey in the affected regions. The results indicate that German FRG remains a predominantly top-down system with citizens being dependent on the functioning of the risk and emergency system. The results of the survey highlight the need for: 1) clarifying and co-defining roles and responsibilities in FRG and making them more transparent; 2) enhancing citizen active involvement in governance and deliberating interactions; 3) rebuilding trust; and 4) creating joint responsibilities between citizens and local authorities. Based on the findings of the study, it became apparent that research on citizen centred FRG is steps ahead of policy and practice. To enhance policy and practice, recommendations were developed to foster collaboration between citizens and local authorities to strengthen local FRG. •Citizens are largely dependent on flood risk governance actors and expect to be guided through all disaster phases.•Responsibilities are not clearly defined and indicate a segregation between citizens and authorities.•Interactions between citizens and authorities were only in a top-down manner or lacking at all.•The flooding event led to a great distrust in authorities.•There is a need to bridge research to policymaking and practice for better involvement of citizens.