Sustainable flood memories, lay knowledges and the development of community resilience to future flood risk

Abstract

The paradigm shift to more distributed flood risk management strategies in the UK involves devolved responsibilities to the local, and the need to enhance risk ownership by communities. This poses questions about how communities build resilience to future flood risk, and how agencies support these processes. This paper explores results from interdisciplinary research on 'sustainable flood memory' in the context of effective flood risk management as a conceptual contribution to a global priority. The project aimed to increase understanding of how flood memories provide a platform for developing and sharing lay knowledges, creating social learning opportunities to increase communities' adaptive capacities for resilience. The paper starts by conceptually framing resilience, community, lay knowledge and flood memory. It then explores key themes drawn from semi-structured interviews with floodplain residents affected by the UK summer 2007 floods in four different settings, which contrasted in terms of their flood histories, experiences and kinds of 'communities'. Sustainable flood memories were found to be associated with relational ways of knowing, situated in emotions, changing materiality and community tensions. These all influenced active remembering and active forgetting. The paper reflects on varying integrations of memory, lay knowledges and resilience, and critically evaluates implications of the sustainable flood memory concept for the strategy, process and practice of developing community flood resilience. Given the concept's value and importance of 'memory work', the paper proposes a framework to translate the concept practically into community resilience initiatives, and to inform how risk and flood experiences are communicated within communities.

Civil society contributions to local level flood resilience: Before, during and after the 2015 Boxing Day floods in the Upper Calder Valley

“…First, the issue of time was important and local civil society contributions were found to be pervasive and dynamic, with an intense initial response to the flood event. However, the contributions of civil society appeared difficult to sustain across the three towns and their activity was found to diminish over time after the flood due to apathy, active forgetting (McEwen et al., ) or lack of further exposure. Issues of representation and volunteer fatigue within civil society were also reported and approaches to address this need to be identified.…”

Inherited memory, social learning, and resilience: lessons from Spain's Great Blizzard of 1888

“…In this vein, McEwen et al . () point out that social learning derived from disaster memories should be horizontal (intergenerational) and vertical (between generations). Authors such as Działek et al .…”

“…For example, McEwen et al . () reflect on the idea of a sustainable memory in relation to disasters such as floods, in which individual, collective, communicative, and archival memories are collected, integrated, and distributed, first allowing individuals and groups to understand how resistance emerges in relation to events and then putting knowledge at the service of risk management. Moreover, narrative is essential to social memory (Barthel et al ., ; Reid & Beilin, ; Reid et al ., ).…”

Risk communication films: Process, product and potential for improving preparedness and behaviour change

“…Further, retaining the collective socio-cultural experiences of any disaster within communities (and indeed at institutional and government level) has been proved to be an essential component of strengthening capacity to respond to future events (Folke 2006, Adger 2000, McIntosh 2000, Colten and Sumpter 2009. Intergenerational sharing of these collective experiences through narrative, or 'story telling', can be extremely powerful means of communicating in a meaningful and coherent way (Trabasso 1994), and has the potential to help build response strategies to potential threats (Lauer 2012, McEwen et al 2017, McAdoo et al 2006. Such 'oral histories' are not only an important method of recording, preserving and interpreting narrated memories, but they also act as a participation device; helping to generate a two-way dialogue between the audience and those imparting the message (Breakwell 2000).…”