Abstract
Climate change, combined with urbanisation, is increasing flood risks worldwide. Mitigation efforts are insufficient to significantly reduce the likelihood of flooding, so adaptation is necessary. Flood risk adaptation strategies are brought into practice through flood risk management (FRM). FRM is often seen as a technological challenge, requiring engineering solutions. However, people experience floods in different ways, due to their location and social, physical, financial, or psychological characteristics. These differences in social vulnerability create inequalities in the capacity of people to deal with floods. There is therefore an urgent need to recognise these differences and address justice concerns through FRM policy and practice.
However, a knowledge gap exists on how to make FRM more inclusive and just. This PhD project therefore addresses the following questions: (1) To what extent are differences in social vulnerability to floods recognised and addressed in national-level FRM policy and through FRM strategies? (2) How are differences in social vulnerability to floods understood by public authorities in FRM? Does that impact their attention to social vulnerability, and if so, in what way? And (3) what conditions are required to reduce social vulnerability to floods through FRM to enhance flood resilience? Answering these questions is highly relevant, because recognising the needs of socially vulnerable groups and the importance of individual and community capacity to contribute to FRM is crucial if public authorities want to increase the legitimacy and effectiveness of their policies, without exacerbating inequality in floods.
The research questions are tackled using a qualitative, social-constructivist approach. A central focus is how attention to and understanding of social vulnerability to floods is constructed by policy as well as by the knowledge and expertise of stakeholders involved in FRM. Data were collected through analyses of policy documents and interviews, and parts of this PhD are also based on case study research, which provides the depth needed to explore justice and equality on a local level. The empirical data are collected in five papers, which form the basis of the PhD thesis. The papers are logically structured, starting broad and narrowing down to lower levels and scales. The first papers introduce the FRM context at a European and Flemish level, and the extent to which social vulnerability to floods is currently recognised as an issue. The consecutive papers zoom in on specific FRM strategies, and the role of individuals in FRM. Together, the chapters provide a coherent and novel storyline of social vulnerability and (in)equality in FRM.
The first three years of this PhD are funded through BELSPO and the JPI Climate SOLARIS project (SOLidarity in climate change Adaptation policies: towards more socio-spatial justice in the face of multiple RISks). In those three years, empirical data have been collected and the majority of the papers have been written and published. The DOCPRO1 funding will be used to fund a fourth year, needed to finish the PhD. During the fourth year, the focus will be on finalising the last paper (and ensuring that those papers that have not been accepted yet, get published), writing the introduction and theoretical framework, contextualising the papers where necessary, and writing the discussion and conclusion.
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