On 9 October 2025, the workshop ‘Communicating flood risk – How can local authorities raise awareness among the affected population?’ was held in Cologne – organised by the Hochwassernotgemeinschaft Rhein e.V. (HWNG) in cooperation with the Information and Advice Centre for Flood Prevention (IBH), the German Committee for Disaster Prevention (DKKV), the HochwasserKompetenzCentrums e.V. (HKC) and the Cologne Municipal Drainage Authority (StEB).
After a welcome from Dr Schulze-Hennings, Head of Division at StEB Cologne and Head of the Cologne Flood Control Centre, Dr Benni Thiebes from the DKKV moderated the programme. Three introductory keynote speeches formed the basis for the following World Café discussions: Franz Tragner, owner of TatWort – nachhaltige Projekt GmbH (Vienna), presented effective strategies for flood risk communication, Torsten Maas from the Cologne Fire Brigade presented the concept of ‘lighthouses’, which are intended to create synergies between disaster control and flood prevention, and Dr Martha Wingen from the Aachen City Region used the example of the educational channel ‘HochwasserTok’ to show how social media can contribute to raising awareness about floods and heavy rainfall events.
The topics were explored in greater depth in the subsequent World Café: participants discussed, among other things, how authorities can better reach affected people, what opportunities social media offers, and how risk communication has changed since the floods of 2021. Finally, the moderators presented the results from the themed tables to the plenary.
The workshop showed that targeted, clear, continuous and creative risk communication is a key prerequisite for effective flood prevention – and contributes significantly to strengthening personal preparedness and preventing so-called flood dementia.
(Image source: Annabell Janssen)