Storm surge risk perception and resilience: A pilot study in the German North Sea coast Pino Gonz  alez-Riancho a, * , Birgit Gerkensmeier b , Beate M.W. Ratter b , Mauricio Gonz  alez a , Raúl Medina a a Environmental Hydraulics Institute “IH Cantabria”, Universidad de Cantabria, C/Isabel Torres n  15, Parque Científico y Tecnol ogico de Cantabria, 39011 Santander, Spain b Institute of Coastal Research, Department of Human Dimensions of Coastal Areas, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Max-Planck-Straße 1, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany article info Article history: Received 26 September 2014 Received in revised form 4 May 2015 Accepted 6 May 2015 Available online Keywords: Resilience Storm surge Flooding Risk perception Preparedness Stakeholders Survey Risk management Adaptation policies German North Sea coast abstract Resilience is defined as the capacity of a community to organise itself before, during and after a dangerous/ hazardous event in order to minimise the impacts. A conceptual framework is proposed to assess the resilience of a community by understanding and integrating the institutional, legal and social capacities to cope and recover from a natural hazardous event in order to minimize the impacts in the short-term and to adapt to the risk in the long-term. A survey-based method and a specific resilience questionnaire is proposed to explore the perception of stakeholders regarding the risk and emergency management processes as well as psychological and social factors conditioning individual and community preparedness. The method is applied in a pilot area (the Dithmarschen district in the German North Sea Coast) for its validation before applying it to the entire Wadden Sea region, the pilot results being presented in this work. Although some questions may need some type of adaptation to fit adequately to other study sites, the conceptual and methodological framework could be applied worldwide. The study area and its population are characterized by their continuous interaction with the ocean, with the continuous transformation and reclamation of land for agricultural and other purposes, the constant reshaping of the coastline and frequent coastal inundation by storm surge flooding. The assessment allows identifying the main characteristics of the study area in terms of stakeholders' risk perception, intention to prepare, individual and societal behavioural patterns, as well as their opinion regarding authorities' decision-making on emergency and risk management. It also addresses potential improvement in emergency and risk management in terms of multi-sector partnerships and additional adaptation measures for the area. The deficiencies and incoherencies between society's and ad- ministration's answers detected in the analysis point towards the challenges to deal with, in order to foster an adequate community preparedness and adaptation to storm surge risk. Some of the results that the proposed method permitted to obtain in the study area show (i) the need for a better information strategy to enhance society's awareness and preparedness; (ii) the respondents' current proactive behaviour and preference on participatory risk management options, despite fully participatory schemes are not yet set by the authorities; (iii) the need for awareness campaigns regarding the relevance and benefits of the integrated approach in potential partnerships, and (iv) the need for tailored and site-specific adaptation instruments and measures due to the current society's disagreement with some of the options currently provided. The results are useful to improve risk reduction initiatives by means of including society's opinions from the beginning of the management process. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Resilience is defined as the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions (UN/ISDR, 2009). Cutter et al. (2008) defines resilience as the degree to which the community has the necessary resources and is capable of absorbing disturbance and reorganising into a fully functioning system. This refers to the ca- pacity of a community to organise itself before, during and after the * Corresponding author. E-mail address: grianchop@unican.es (P. Gonz alez-Riancho). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ocean & Coastal Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2015.05.004 0964-5691/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Ocean & Coastal Management 112 (2015) 44e60