2.1. Government Trust and Flood Risk Perception
Prior studies showed that trust has an important role in perceived risk and often leads to a lower level of risk perception. For example, Terpstra (2011) and Hung (2009) found that trust in public flood protection was negatively related to preparedness. Grothmann and Reusswig (2006) reported that relying on flood protection was negatively correlated with information seeking and with the adoption of flood-mitigation measures in the past.
In contrast, some researchers have questioned the relationship between trust and the perception of hazards (e.g., Eiser, Miles, & Frewer, 2002; Sjöberg, 2001; Viklund, 2003). For example, Sjöberg (2001) revealed a weak correlation between trust and risk perception. Lin et al. (2008) indicated that higher levels of trust or confidence in crisis management and provision of flood warnings (by government, risk experts, and the media) increased mitigation intentions, insurance purchase intentions, and information-seeking intentions. In China, weather changes and flood hazard information are released to the public by government-run media, information on whether flood risk occurs is also released by the government. Therefore, we focus on the government trust, which is the degree of the people think the government will protect them, including confidence and intentions.