A co-design method for including stakeholder perspectives in nature-based flood risk management

Abstract

Intervention methods to establish commitment to (collaborative) action are of potential interest to researchers and policymakers intent upon including stakeholder perspectives in natural risk governance (Scolobig, Nat Hazards 81:27–43, 2016). In this paper, a 6-step co-design method for engaging with local people in collaboratively envisioning nature-based solutions for flood defence is described. The problem structuring base of the participatory method is extended to accommodate the multi-actor situation and the local context of flood risk management. The intervention method is applied in a workshop in the Houston–Galveston Bay area in October 2014. At that time there was strong contestation surrounding the proposed Ike Dike with alternative combinations of nature-based and smaller conventional engineering solutions being proposed. The results indicate that the local participants were able to envision a wide range of future outcomes for the bay and were able to use the insights on nature-based solutions and the social contacts that they acquired at the transdisciplinary workshop to mobilize commitment to joint action. This action focused on collaboration rather than specifying ecological or technical infrastructural requirements and was instrumental in initiating more open discourse on flood defence options for the Houston–Galveston Bay area. The paper concludes that the generic applicability of the co-design method is limited by the requirement to understand and accommodate local circumstances and participants’ insights within the workshop.