What is going wrong with community engagement? How flood communities and flood authorities construct engagement and partnership working (original) (raw)
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Citizen involvement in flood risk governance: flood groups and networks
E3S Web of Conferences, 2016
Over the past decade has been a policy shift withinUK flood risk management towards localism with an emphasis on communities taking ownership of flood risk. There is also an increased focus on resilience and, more specifically, on community resilience to flooding. This paper draws on research carried out for UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs to evaluate the Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder (FRCP) scheme in England. Resilience is conceptualised as multidimensional and linked to exisiting capacities within a community. Creating resilience to flooding is an ongoing process of adaptation, learning from past events and preparing for future risks. This paper focusses on the development of formal and informal institutions to support improved flood risk management: institutional resilience capacity. It includes new institutions: e.g. flood groups, as well as activities that help to build inter-and intra-institutional resilience capacity e.g. community flood planning. The pathfinder scheme consisted of 13 projects across England led by local authorities aimed at developing community resilience to flood risk between 2013 ± 2015. This paper discusses the nature and structure of flood groups, the process of their development, and the extent of their linkages with formal institutions, drawing out the barriers and facilitators to developing institutional resilience at the local level. .
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction , 2022
Flood management has long been dominated by scientific expertise, centralized decision-making, and top-down professional management. However, changing patterns of risk probabilities instigate shifts in the ways floods are managed, bringing forward the necessity for flood mitigation, preparedness and resilience. Community engagement is recognized as paramount in the attainment of these goals. This provokes risk management authorities to facilitate professionalization of community members in becoming risk management stakeholders. Professionalization of community engagement is becoming the esteemed norm, as it ensures better alignment between all stakeholders and increases capacity and efficiency of authority-community collaboration. At the same time, community engagement in flood management in general, and its professionalization, in particular, has its paradoxes. This paper examines the micro-level facets of professionalization of community engagement in Italy, Germany, England, and the Netherlands based on five-months fieldwork conducted in 2020 and discusses the ambivalent implications of professionalization for community engagement in flood risk management. We conclude that professionalization largely contributes to better coordination of the group members’ activities, their alignment with risk management needs and priorities, and enhances community members sense of belonging in the professional field of flood risk management. At the same time, professionalization entails the burden of increasing explicit and implicit state requirements for communities. It reinforces participatory limits and reproduces flood risk management unattainability for the broader public.
Ambio, 2014
Devolution of responsibilities is transforming how flood risk is managed in many countries. Research assessing the emergence and role of a new element in the governance of flood risk management in England explored the numerous 'flood action groups' that have developed over the last decade. We identified two broad categories of relationship between the public and authorities. The first displays 'contractual' characteristics: a level of protection provided by the authority in exchange for taxes or similar support. The second embodies a 'collaborative' relationship: public knowledge, social and financial resources are equal and complementary to those of authority, and seeking 'collective security'. In general, the former were more successful than the latter, but common lessons were that success in FRM should not be defined purely as the ability to prevent flooding, but as the ability to access a variety of resources across different levels of society at ...
A UK Cabinet Office review after the 2007 floods highlighted different types of knowledge needed for effective flood risk management, along with knowledge gaps. This paper explores key, emerging aspects of this expanded knowledge base, namely relationships between expert and local/lay knowledges, the changing nature of local knowledge of community flood risk, and how attempts are being made to incorporate local knowledge into science, policy and practice. Sustainable flood knowledge, as an aspiration, integrates expert, local and political knowledge to build community flood resilience. The research involved stakeholder interviews undertaken before and after the 2007 floods, Severn catchment, UK and examination of policy documentation. The paper focuses on scale issues in relation to know ledge types suggesting that local knowledge can be 'expert' in large-scale mapping of flood processes. It reflects on how local flood knowledges can be captured, shared, harnessed and used, and integrated into governance structures for flood resilience planning. The paper recognises progress in integrating local knowledges in flood science and governance, but also highlights challenges. It concludes that the 2007 UK flood experience is generating new understandings of the value of local knowledges, and how these might be successfully used in flood risk management practice.
Community engagement in the floodplain management process - workshop booklet
2018
Managing the floodplain: a guide to best practice in flood risk management in Australia (Attorney-General’s Department, 2013, p.145), states that “community engagement is vital to the successful development of the flood management study and plan. The community should be consulted to allow their concerns, suggestions and comments about management and options to be considered”. Community engagement is also strongly suggested in the preparation of flood studies, and the implementation and evaluation of floodplain management options. However, much of this community engagement is conducted by engineers and planners with little or no technical understanding in the field. In some cases, this results in community engagement not being effective as it could be. This paper draws on research and practice in the field to provide guidance for floodplain managers to improve community engagement. The psychologies underpinning community interest in floodplain management are identified and discussed....
Community engagement in the floodplain management process
Workshop booklet for participants at the 2018 Floodplain Management Australia National Conference. The learning outcomes of the workshop were to: • understand the potential use of community engagement in the floodplain management process • practise a range of community engagement methods suitable to the floodplain management process • design a community engagement plan • communicate flood information in non-technical terms for a community audience
A UK Cabinet Office review after the 2007 floods highlighted different types of knowledge needed for effective flood risk management, along with knowledge gaps. This paper explores key, emerging aspects of this expanded knowledge base, namely relationships between expert and local/lay knowledges, the changing nature of local knowledge of community flood risk, and how attempts are being made to incorporate local knowledge into science, policy and practice. Sustainable flood knowledge, as an aspiration, integrates expert, local and political knowledge to build community flood resilience. The research involved stakeholder interviews undertaken before and after the 2007 floods, Severn catchment, UK and examination of policy documentation. The paper focuses on scale issues in relation to know ledge types suggesting that local knowledge can be 'expert' in large-scale mapping of flood processes. It reflects on how local flood knowledges can be captured, shared, harnessed and used, and integrated into governance structures for flood resilience planning. The paper recognises progress in integrating local knowledges in flood science and governance, but also highlights challenges. It concludes that the 2007 UK flood experience is generating new understandings of the value of local knowledges, and how these might be successfully used in flood risk management practice.
How can we improve community engagement for floodplain management?
Managing the floodplain: a guide to best practice in flood risk management in Australia (Attorney-General's Department, 2013, p.145), states that " community engagement is vital to the successful development of the flood management study and plan. The community should be consulted to allow their concerns, suggestions and comments about management and options to be considered ". Community engagement is also strongly suggested in the preparation of flood studies, and the implementation and evaluation of floodplain management options. However, much of this community engagement is conducted by engineers and planners with little or no technical understanding in the field. In some cases, this results in community engagement not being effective as it could be. This paper draws on research and practice in the field to provide guidance for floodplain managers to improve community engagement. The psychologies underpinning community interest in floodplain management are identified and discussed. Interest factors include risk awareness, risk perception, flood experience, self-efficacy and protection motivation. An initial step in the design of an effective community engagement plan should be a community profile to understand demographics including vulnerable groups. A high-level social network analysis is also recommended to harness social capital. The community engagement plan should include both the engagement methodology and content, along with responsibilities, timeframes and evaluation techniques. The paper concludes with helpful hints including: • Importance of ongoing and regular dialogue with communities • Gaining advice from local community engagement specialists including from councils • Using the floodplain management committee to provide advice on community engagement • Using a multi-source approach including both traditional and non-traditional methods.
Challenges of community engagement in a rural area: The impact of flood protection and policy
Journal of Rural Studies
with preparing for climate change through planning collective local responses to weather-related emergencies such as flooding (Defra, 2012). An increasing number of disasters, including flooding, as well as socioeconomic crises destabilizing affected communities 1 have resulted in the concept of resilience gaining currency in discourses of regional development, disaster risk reduction, and climate change adaptation (Imperiale and Vanclay, 2016). Lessons from the past, such as previous local floods, can inform the development of new community-generated solutions facilitating security and resilience (Hegney et al., 2008). For this to happen, community members need to be able to influence aspects of local context and decision-making, and to share power with governing bodies. Yet, although promoted in UK policies, enacting localism and community empowerment is complex and national policies are frequently poorly translated to the local level (Skerratt and Steiner, 2013). Discussing narratives on climate change adaptation and community resilience, Kythreotis and Bristow (2017) talk about the 'resilience trap'which favours short-term actions over well-considered long-term solutions that fully engage with planning and the range of implications of mitigation and adaptation. For instance, and as presented in this paper, implementation of flood defence plans can affect small business activities and, hence, impact wider community resilience over the longer-term.