A new dataset is now available in the Qualiservice catalogue at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.969405.

The data set consists of 40 transcripts of qualitative interviews from the interdisciplinary research project ‘Climate Adaptation, Floods and Resilience’ (KAHR), funded by the BMBF, which Zora Reckhaus, Christian Kuhlicke and Danny Otto from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research conducted in the Ahr Valley region (Rhineland-Palatinate; North Rhine-Westphalia) from July 2022 to February 2024.

The KAHR joint project supports reconstruction efforts in areas of Germany affected by flooding in 2021. As part of the project, a context analysis was conducted to identify and analyse key factors influencing reconstruction. The analysis focused on the role of social infrastructure in the reconstruction process. The aim of the study was to contribute to the improvement of future reconstruction strategies and the development of resilient and climate-adapted solutions, as well as to gain a better understanding of the importance of social infrastructure in coping with natural disasters.

To this end, semi-structured guided interviews were conducted with representatives of social infrastructures in two survey waves – from July to September 2022 and from April to October 2023 – in the municipalities of Stolberg and Eschweiler (North Rhine-Westphalia) and the municipality of Altenahr (Rhineland-Palatinate). In addition, the perspective of social infrastructures was supplemented by that of water authorities, administrations and other institutions.

Forty anonymized interview transcripts from this study are available as a scientific use file for secondary scientific use and academic teaching. The data set offers potential for reuse, e.g., for secondary analyses taking into account a multi-crisis perspective that considers the temporal parallels between the flood disaster, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the start of the war in Ukraine.