4th European Conference on Flood Risk Management

The special session What is the future of communities’ and citizens’ “active involvement” in the delivery FCERM to support proactive resilience? What are the challenge and opportunities for research? will take place virtually on Thursday 24 June 2021 from 13:30 to 15:00.

The session will be led by Dr Clare Twigger-Ross, Dr Simon McCarthy, Dr Jonathan Simm, Paula Orr and Rolands Sadauskis

There is much discussion around the involvement citizens and communities in the delivery of flood resilience. There is some consensus that for flood risk management to be resilient it needs to focus on all aspects of resilience: resistance, adaptation and transformation.  In so doing diversity in flood risk management strategies becomes more important bringing with it multi-stakeholder and multi-level governance. Involving communities and citizens in the delivery of FCERM becomes central as flood risk is played out at the local level.   This interactive session draws on recent review work (Twigger-Ross et al, 2021 see link below) from England looking at the role of citizens and communities in flood and coastal erosion risk management activities, specifically in terms of managing uncertainty and future risks through adaptation and transformation (proactive resilience).  Whilst there is a clear pull in terms of legitimacy, normative and instrumental objectives for the increased involvement of communities and citizens in the delivery of FCERM, there are also clear challenges:  what does multi-stakeholder working look like in practice? Who gets heard? What evidence do we have that it increases resilience? How does the local link up with the national? What are the impacts on those  flood affected citizens who do get involved? Given that the focus of the evidence is on the UK this session will be an opportunity to compare and contrast evidence and  experiences from around the world.

The programme of this special session will include:

13.30 Introductions: Participants to enter in chat function their name, organisation, country, topics of interest

13.35 Current and possible futures for communities and citizens  Presentation (Dr. Clare Twigger-Ross, CEP) Dr Twigger-Ross will present from research carried out for the Environment Agency (England) as part of the development of the Communities and FCERM Research and Development Framework which was published in April 2021. She will present an overview of the work focussing on the three aims of the framework and the gaps identified within the areas of literature reviewed and the proposed areas for research specifically with a focus on proactive resilience – adaptation and transformation together with some key questions for the future of involvement. (20 mins)

13.55 Discussion in small groups: (the participants will be divided into small groups of 6 – 8 to discuss the following questions –each group will have a facilitator to aid the discussion and the Jamboard will be used to enable people to put up their views. The questions will be the following:

• How does what you have heard match with your understanding of the evidence?
• What do you see as the most important issues for research in this area?
• What do you see as the challenges for research in this area? 
• Where are there the opportunities?

The discussion in small groups will be for 20  minutes. This will be followed by a plenary session of 15  minutes to hear from each of the groups and to bring the ideas together.

14.25  Challenge Panel and discussion on Communities’ and citizens’ involvement challenges and Opportunities – Where next? – Key experts from different perspectives in FCERM (regulatory, academic, operational, and communities) including Prof Lindsay McEwen.  Each expert will be given 5 minutes to make their points and then there will be a chance for discussion. The session will last 40 minutes.

15.00 Round up and final points (5 minutes)
Before the session participants are encouraged to look at the publications from the research which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/flood-and-coastal-erosion-risk-management-research-reports/flood-and-coastal-erosion-risk-management-research-and-development-framework-working-with-communities

Please use the 'add to Schedule' button on the Special Session Programme, to register your interest in participating in this special session.

For more information visit the Special Session Hub and the webpage https://hub.floodrisk2020.net/theme/specials/role-of-communities/.

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