Dr. Peter Davids

Peter works as PostDoc researcher at BBV. His research discusses the new actors in flood risk governance. New and existing instruments, for example from land policy,  can help to adress these actors. Moreover, his research adresses the changing roles of existing actors in flood risk governance, such as flood risk experts actng as communicators for homewoenrs. 

At BBV he organized the LAND4FLOOD conference in September 2023. Also he was co-athor of the by Horizon Europe granted research proposal of LAND4CLIMATE. This research project focuses on the implementation nature-based solutions on private land. 

In 2021, Peter succesfully defended his PhD at Ghent University, Belgium. His PhD  covers the governance structures behind possible incentives for homeowners to implement property-level flood risk adaption to reduce flood risks at home. The outcomes of the research illustrate how a behavioural turn among citizens also requires institutional reforms, i.e. new roles and attitudes for governments and businesses.

Postdoc at TU Dortmund

In 2022, he started as a postdoc at the chair of Land Policy and Land Management at the School of spatial planning.

PhD at Ghent University

Between 2017 and 2021, Peter Davids worked at the Centre of Spatial Planning and Mobility on his PhD entitled “Rethinking Floodlabel: A situational approach to homeowner involvement in flood risk management”. In his monography Peter discusses the role of homeonwers, resilience and flood risk governance. Meanwhile he also edited the book “Opening up the planning landscape: 15 years of actor-relational approaches to spatial planning in Flanders, the Netherlands and beyond”, discussing the wide variety of applications of the actor-relational approach in spatial planning.

Peter Davids holds a Msc on Marine Spatial Planning from universitá IUAV de Venezia and Landscape Planning from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. 

Davids, P.; Hartmann, T.; Ferreira, C.S.S.; Kalantari, Z. & Pereira, P. (2024). Multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary approaches to nature-based flood risk management. Current Opinion in Environmental Science and Health, 38, 100537. doi: 10.1016/j.coesh.2024.100537

Junger, Lena; Davids, Peter, Hartmann, Thomas (2023). Multidimensional Resilience - Flood recovery on private land. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Impact Factor: 4.842. 

Davids, P. (2023). Addressing the Homeowners’ Barriers to Property-Level Flood Risk Adaption: A Case Study of Tailored Expert Advice in Belgium. In Homeowners and the Resilient City: Climate-Driven Natural Hazards and Private Land (pp. 179-195). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Özkan, B. A., & Davids, P. R. (2023). The 16th Annual Conference on Planning Law and Property Rights (PLPR), Ghent, Belgium, 4–8 July 2022. Town Planning Review, 1-5.

Davids, Peter; Priest, Sally; Hartmann, Thomas (2022). On the horns of a dilemma: Experts as communicators for property-level flood risk adaptation measures. Journal of Flood Risk Management. doi: 10.1111/jfr3.12881 Impact factor: 4.005.

Davids, Peter (2021). Rethinking Floodlabel: A Situational Approach to Homeowner Involvement in Flood Risk Management. (PhD Dissertation)

Davids, Peter & Thaler, Thomas (2021). Flood‐Resilient Communities: How We Can Encourage Adaptive Behaviour Through Smart Tools in Public–Private Interaction Urban Planning 6(3).

Boonstra, Beitske; Davids, Peter; Staessen, Annelies (2020). Opening up the planning landscape: 15 years of actor-relational approaches to spatial planning in Flanders, the Netherlands and beyond.

Davids, Peter (2020). Flood label : a new instrument to involve homeowners in flood risk management. In: Opening up the planning landscape: 15 years of actor-relational
approaches to spatial planning in Flanders, the Netherlands and beyond. pp. 113-119

Boonstra, Beitske; Boelens, Luuk; Staessen, Annelies; Davids, Peter (2020). After ARA: critical reflections and a reflexive beyond. In: Opening up the planning landscape: 15 years of actor-relational approaches to spatial planning in Flanders, the Netherlands and beyond. pp. 367-380

Attems, Marie-Sophie; Thaler, Thomas; Snel, Karin; Davids, Peter; Hartmann, Thomas; Fuchs, Sven (2020). The influence of tailored risk com­mu­ni­cation on individual adaptive behaviour. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101618

Davids, Peter; Boelens, Luuk; Tempels, Barbara (2019). The effects of tailor-made flood risk advice for homeowners in Flanders, Belgium. Water International, 44(5), 539-553.

March 2024: PLPR 2024 Annual Congress, Munich, Germany. Presentation held: Dealing with downzoning on building plots after floods

May 2023: PLPR 2023 Annual Congress, Ann Arbor, USA. Presentation held: Relation property rights and the behaviour of homeowners in flood risk governance

July 2022: AESOP 2022 Annual Congress: Space for species, Tartu, Estonia. PResentation held: Towards flood resilience among SMEs: How to trigger adaptive behavior?

June 2022: PLPR 2022 Annual Congress: With or without borders. Ghent, Belgium. Presentation held: Exploring the link between property rights, homeowners and flood risk management

March 2020: Delta Urbanism Conference. Planning for Flood Resilience, Delft, the Netherlands. Presentation held: A Floodlabel for homeowners

July 2019: AESOP 2019 Annual Congress: Planning for transition, Venice, Italy
Presentation held: Getting the homeowner in: A multi-stakeholder analysis on homeowner incentives in Flood Risk Management

July 2018: AESOP 2018 Annual Congress & PhD Summer school: Making space for hope, Gothenburg, Sweden. Presentation held: Peer influence on flood risk perception & behavioral change in flood risk management among homeowners

2018-2020: Editor for Agora, a popular scientific magazine that deals with current socio-spatial issues. AGORA is a Dutch-Flemish magazine with both subscribers and editors on both sides of the border.