On 14 July 2021, extreme precipitation lashed the Alps and other parts of Europe. A cascade of water ripped through the rivers. Despite advance warnings of major floods, nearly 200 people died in Germany. As the water moved downstream during the following days, over three dozen people died in Belgium.

A recent study analyzes the psychosocial impacts in Belgium of this disaster. It is unique in that previous work on this flood had not focused on Belgium and mental health. The research’s importance further emerges in considering the medium-term, meaning 24 to 36 months after the catastrophe. Other similar studies often highlight principally the immediate aftermath, while people are still cleaning up as the waters recede.

Surveying Disaster-Affected People

The study location was the Vesdre Valley, with the River Meuse as the main waterway and Liège as the largest city. Nele De Maeyer at Ghent University in Belgium led a team of four other researchers to distribute an online, quantitative survey in French. Participant recruitment was completed through local organisations and social media groups, municipalities and health organisations, and word-of-mouth (“snowballing” in research terminology).

The researchers received 205 responses, of which 114 were complete and relevant to the study, meaning that they could be used for the analysis. Forty-one respondents stated they are male, 72 stated they are female, and one did not disclose their gender. In addition to answering the survey’s closed questions, 50 respondents shared 64 usable open comments, which were added to the data.

The city of Verviers, about 25 kilometers southeast of Liège city but still in Liège province, was the most represented place, with 84 respondents. This result is unsurprising since Verviers is known as the Water Capital of the Walloon Region, which is the primarily francophone part of Belgium. In July 2021, over 10,000 people were evacuated in Verviers.

From all respondents, 62 stated that their psychosocial well-being was worse than before the floods (33 suggesting slightly worse and 29 suggesting significantly worse), 38 indicated no change, and 14 stated an improvement (7 suggesting that they were slightly better and 7 suggesting that they were significantly better). Adverse impacts reported included fearing rain and floods; feeling hurt with specific symptoms provided; being mentally, physically, and financially harmed; and losing attachment to home and place.

Improving Health Services

After analysis, the study’s overall conclusion is that two factors increased negative psychosocial impacts the most: lower socio-economic status and more experience of the floods.

That poorer people tend to experience the worst disaster impacts, including on their health, is a common and well-known baseline. This paper offers yet more evidence that mental health is part of this situation.

Consequently, health services, including psychosocial support, need to be equally available to everyone, irrespective of socio-economic status, while also addressing the reasons that long-term socio-economic disparities exist. This conclusion from the study—and the known, overarching responses to the identified problems—are all part of accepting that the phrase “natural disaster” is a misnomer, even though this paper uses the term uncritically.

This point leads to the paper’s second overall conclusion that more flood experience means worse psychosocial impacts. With appropriate preparedness, planning, risk reduction, and health services—required long before it starts raining—a flood does not need to become a flood disaster for anyone. The point of disasters being human-caused rather than natural is that exposure to floods does not necessarily have to result in detrimental consequences.

Floods Without Flood Disasters

As such, less focus on floods and more focus on people would help in learning from and emulating successes in avoiding flood disasters. Even though the Netherlands was also severely affected by flooding during July 2021, no deaths were reported. This was attributed mainly to long-term protocols for risk reduction, warning, and evacuation, which were successfully enacted.

In fact, caution is warranted for the paper’s statements that flood disasters are necessarily linked to human-caused climate change and that all floods in Belgium and surrounding countries must get worse due to human-caused climate change. Historically, floods from ice blocking rivers and from sudden snowmelt were an annual threat. Warmer winters mean less ice and snow, with projections suggesting fewer such floods around northern and central Europe.

Furthermore, river floods are highly influenced by river management, river engineering, and land use. Even as rainfall is intensifying due to human-caused climate change, definitely leading to a higher flood potential around Belgium’s waterways, decisions can still lessen floods and reduce the potential for flood disasters.

As part of positive mental health and climate hope, for both recovering from disasters and avoiding future ones, knowing that rainfall does not need to produce flood calamities shows how we can and should act. The real question is whether or not we will do so.