Ethics and Floods: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Disaster ethics is a developing field of inquiry recognizing the wide variety of ethical issues confronting various professionals involved in planning for and responding to different types of disasters. This article explores how ethical issues related to floods are addressed in academic literature. The review involved analysis of publications on ethics and floods identified in a systematic literature search of electronic databases that included sociological, biomedical, and geophysical sources. The review methods were guided by the PRISMA Statement on systematic reviews, adapted to this topic area, and followed by a qualitative analysis of the included publications. All articles were analyzed using NVivo software version 11. The qualitative analysis showed that further research is needed on the ethical issues involved in flood disasters. Ethical guidelines are needed for flood planners and responders that are based on the consistent application of well-established ethical principles, values, and virtues to the specific circumstances arising with each flood. Flexibility is required in applying such approaches. The results suggest that interdisciplinary collaboration (sociological, biomedical, geophysical, engineering, and ethical) could contribute significantly to the development of ethics in floods. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:817–828)

Trends and ethical issues in nursing during disasters: A systematic review

“…10 Mitrović et al revealed that in disaster situations, there are few practical guidelines or training. 56 Therefore, a study by Al Harthi recommended continuing education for nursing staff on ethical and legal issues. 16 The final theme is regarding the impact of ethical practices during a disaster.…”

The normative dimensions of flood risk management: Two types of flood harm

“…They include exemplifying the moral dilemmas encountered in flood protection (Morss & Wahl, 2007; Simonovic, 2011); the examination of equity from environmental justice to fair compensation (Eakin et al, 2021; Johnson et al, 2007; Kaufmann et al, 2018; Marks et al, 2020; Liao et al, 2019; O'Hare and White, 2018; Thaler & Hartmann, 2016; Thaler, 2021; Thaler et al, 2020; Walker & Burningham, 2011), and also to the fair distribution of flood risk (Doorn, 2018). More recently, the normative underpinnings of FRM (Ciullo et al, 2020), and the ethics of floods (Mitrović et al, 2019), have been broached. Taken as a whole, this literature has yet to focus on harm that could result from moral dilemmas experienced during flood events (Simonovic, 2011), or recognise outcome harm from deliberate floodings such as irreversible displacement and community loss (Liao et al, 2019), illnesses and even deaths (Marks et al, 2020; Shicutt & Asgarian, 2017).…”

“…But as a nomenclature, “flood harm” is rarely used (see Mitrović et al, 2019: 822). Specific use of this nomenclature here requires justification.…”

“…Specific use of this nomenclature here requires justification. Conventionally, “flood impact” is used instead to describe the detrimental physical, psychological, economic, environmental, and social impacts of flooding (Mitrović et al, 2019). But as floods increasingly come under the domain of human activity and decision‐making (Butler & Pidgeon, 2011), “flood impact” as adverse consequences of flooding is no longer adequate to describe the possibility that harm can arise, albeit and often unwittingly, from decision‐making in FRM.…”