Sustainable flood memory - trialling digital storytelling as a form of adaptive learning and knowledge exchange for resilience in at risk communities
Lead Research Organisation:
University of the West of England
Department Name: Faculty of Environment and Technology
Abstract
It is well known in the research /policy literature that there is a large gap between public awareness of flood risk, and the move towards preparedness and action. This KE project will explore how the research outcomes of the ESRC Sustainable flood memory project can be materialised and cascaded in communities and to FRM stakeholders by developing community-generated digital storytelling (CDS) practice. This ESRC knowledge exchange project will involve close co-working between the original interdisciplinary project team, and the national lead in FRM, the EA, for mutual knowledge exchange and increased impact. The ESRC Sustainable Flood Memory research project has been exploring concept of sustainable flood memory (SFM) and its links to lay knowledges and social learning for community resilience. SFM has been conceived as an approach to memory work that is community focused, archival, integrating individual and collective experiences, involving inter- and intra-generational communication and strategies for its future. Such memory incorporates watery senses of place, folk memory of flooding and flood heritage. The original ESRC Sustainable Flood Memory project has involved semi-structured interviews in three different floodplain groups, with different prior flood experience, socio-economic setting and including an urban/rural contrast. This is generating diverse thematic areas for exploration including discourses around preparedness, coping strategies and approaches to increasing resilience. The project has generated a large archive of flood narrative and materialisation (60 extended audio recordings and transcripts; photographs; media cuttings etc.). It will draw on the original research experience and its resources to explore how an approach of using community-generated and owned digital stories (CDS; 3-7 minutes audio with accompanying images) for knowledge exchange can inform how lay flood knowledge is shared, and how it can be used to build preparedness in communities. The KE process will allow a fresh exploration of strategies for social learning/ transformative learning that are vital components of flood risk planning for community preparedness, both for communities themselves and for other FRM stakeholders (like Local Authorities, Rural Community Councils etc.). The project's design will initially involve sharing/exchanging knowledge around the CDS with other flood risk communities in the lower Severn catchment. The Environment Agency has proposed Gloucester as a setting for this work as it is already going to carry out community engagement work there (two year project) related to a new flood warning area. The ESRC KE project will then trial the CDS as interventions for learning in new catchments distinct from the lower Severn catchment that are either similar and different hydrologically. The case study areas for these knowledge exchanges will be selected to be catchments where the Environment Agency is already carrying out strategic work (e.g. national programme of work on 'rapid response catchments' in SW region). All learnings gained from co-working and sharing digital stories will be shared nationally within the Environment Agency through online workshops. The project will therefore contribute to defining new active participatory approaches to engagement by the Environment Agency (and other FRM agencies) responsible for increasing community resilience to risk. The impact of the KE project will be high in policy, process and practical terms, in regional, national and international contexts that focus on increasing adaptive capacity and post flood learning - both neglected areas in flood education. This is important in the organisational and community capacity/ capability building required for the ownership of distributed approaches to residual flood risk management that devolves increased responsibility to floodplain groups/communities in dealing with residual flood risk.
Planned Impact
The project's beneficiaries are: (i) the new inter-professional project team including McEwen, Garde-Hansen, Jones, RA from ESRC SFM project, and (ii) the 11 Environment Agency partners involving community engagement officers -from strategic to 'hands on', (iii) communities themselves as active co-workers in development of community generated stories and in selecting what from their flood memories/shared knowledge should be exchanged as post flood learnings, (iv) new communities involved in cascading the flood KE to different catchments; (v) other FRM stakeholders who have committed support for, and involvement in, the project; (vi) the virtual digital storytelling advisory group who will interchange expertise from other learning/policy settings; (vii) the wider flood risk public who will benefit from learning gained by trialling different approaches/platforms to sharing the CDS nationally; (viii) other FRM professionals in urban and rural settings; (ix) EA colleagues involved in related projects (e.g. the EA's 'Rapid Response catchment' initiative); and (x) other academics working public/community engagement with risk nationally/internationally.
How will they benefit? The EA (ii) is a key national stakeholder in re-evaluating community engagement strategies for dealing with flood risk. The project team (integrating EA + ESRC SFM project team (i)) will gain new insights into community engagement with flood risk/ community-based learning that will draw across, and share, and potentially reframe their knowledge and skill bases. This KE project has been devised in discussion with the EA. The policy context is one of evidence of recent flood rich periods/increasing flood risk, a shift to distributed flood risk management, increasing recognition of the value of local/lay/informal flood knowledge but also its loss in some settings, and importance of community-level planning. The KE project will also help develop collaborative research between the new Centre for Floods, Communities and Resilience (UWE, Bristol), the Centre of Media, Memory and Community, University of Gloucestershire, leading other digital storytelling projects), and the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI). (iii) Communities themselves will benefit through the culture of co-working with the EA/Higher Education Institutions, and the opportunity to exchange/share the community voice both within their own and proximal communities. (iv) Communities in different flood risk settings from the original project (with exchange of CDS) will have opportunities to be active participants in evaluative process. Their insights will feed into design of national KE processes. (v) Stakeholder Competency Group members (Local Government, Rural Community Council, Parish Councils, National Flood Forum, Community Action Groups, BAI, Local Archives) will benefit through learning in the inter-professional exchanges and be able to take this learning back to their organisations. (vi) The virtual digital learning group (and KE project team) will gain from inter-professional/ interdisciplinary exchange of ideas that can add the understandings of CDS application in reflective social learning for resilience nationally /internationally. (vii) The wider public at flood risk will gain from the exchange of stories nationally as the project up scales in its KE activity. (viii) Wider engagement of FRM professionals nationally will be promoted through the webinars to exchange organisational learning from the project's knowledge exchange processes. (ix) The project's design has been to link the KE activity with other strategic EA projects soon to be implemented. Along with (viii), this will mean that wide ranging EA colleagues (spatially and in terms of level) will have the opportunity to engage with the KE project and its evaluation. (x) Project results will be shared with other academics working in different aspects of community engagement with FRM in the UK/internationally.
How will they benefit? The EA (ii) is a key national stakeholder in re-evaluating community engagement strategies for dealing with flood risk. The project team (integrating EA + ESRC SFM project team (i)) will gain new insights into community engagement with flood risk/ community-based learning that will draw across, and share, and potentially reframe their knowledge and skill bases. This KE project has been devised in discussion with the EA. The policy context is one of evidence of recent flood rich periods/increasing flood risk, a shift to distributed flood risk management, increasing recognition of the value of local/lay/informal flood knowledge but also its loss in some settings, and importance of community-level planning. The KE project will also help develop collaborative research between the new Centre for Floods, Communities and Resilience (UWE, Bristol), the Centre of Media, Memory and Community, University of Gloucestershire, leading other digital storytelling projects), and the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI). (iii) Communities themselves will benefit through the culture of co-working with the EA/Higher Education Institutions, and the opportunity to exchange/share the community voice both within their own and proximal communities. (iv) Communities in different flood risk settings from the original project (with exchange of CDS) will have opportunities to be active participants in evaluative process. Their insights will feed into design of national KE processes. (v) Stakeholder Competency Group members (Local Government, Rural Community Council, Parish Councils, National Flood Forum, Community Action Groups, BAI, Local Archives) will benefit through learning in the inter-professional exchanges and be able to take this learning back to their organisations. (vi) The virtual digital learning group (and KE project team) will gain from inter-professional/ interdisciplinary exchange of ideas that can add the understandings of CDS application in reflective social learning for resilience nationally /internationally. (vii) The wider public at flood risk will gain from the exchange of stories nationally as the project up scales in its KE activity. (viii) Wider engagement of FRM professionals nationally will be promoted through the webinars to exchange organisational learning from the project's knowledge exchange processes. (ix) The project's design has been to link the KE activity with other strategic EA projects soon to be implemented. Along with (viii), this will mean that wide ranging EA colleagues (spatially and in terms of level) will have the opportunity to engage with the KE project and its evaluation. (x) Project results will be shared with other academics working in different aspects of community engagement with FRM in the UK/internationally.
Organisations
- University of the West of England (Lead Research Organisation)
- Gloucestershire Rural Community Council (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Aarhus University (Collaboration)
- University of the West of England (Collaboration)
- Paris West University Nanterre La Défense (Collaboration)
- Nottingham Trent University (Collaboration)
- Environment Agency (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Gloucestershire County Council (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- University of Warsaw (Collaboration)
Publications
Holmes A
(2016)
Exploring the co-production of digital storytelling for lay knowledge exchange within and between flood risk communities: the case of the River Severn, UK
in E3S Web of Conferences
Lindsey McEwen
(2018)
La Crue, l'inondation: un patrimoine.
Garde-Hansen
(2020)
Media and Water
Holmes A
(2020)
How to Exchange Stories of Local Flood Resilience From Flood Rich Areas to the Flooded Areas of the Future
in Environmental Communication
| Title | Archive of 21 digital stories that capture critical reflections on flood preparedness and resilience |
| Description | The artefacts were co-produced with community members, building on research within the ESRC Flood Memories project. The focus of the reflective stories is on preparedness for flooding as viewed through different resilience lenses (e.g. institutional, infrastructural, emotional, community capital). |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | This section will be completed at the end of the project. |
| Title | Flood Memory App |
| Description | During DRY project, used catchment evidence to further develop a Flood Memory App in the Severn Catchment |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Continued beta testing of app with flood and drought prone communities for evidencing as an impact case study for REF |
| URL | https://flappy.warwick.ac.uk |
| Title | Too Much of Water |
| Description | Too Much of Water is a one-man performance written and performed by Professor Steve Bottoms (Manchester University). It uses data gathered from interviews with flood victims, and other sources to recount the River Aire - Leeds floods on Boxing Day 2015. It creates a narrative around the experiences of 5 residents, before during and after the flood. It is performed live using a simple set and props. It has been performed at a number of settings including the Saltaire River Festival 2016. It has also been filmed in Bath Spa University TV studios and will be released in 2017 |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | Agencies with reposibility for flood resillience (Environment Agency) are are aware of this output and have supported its producted and requested to view it |
| Title | Too Much of Water - Film |
| Description | This is a film version of the one man play Too Much of Water created in Bath Spa University TV studios and will be released in 2017. Too Much of Water is a one-man performance written and performed by Professor Steve Bottoms (Manchester University). It uses data gathered from interviews with flood victims, and other sources to recount the River Aire - Leeds floods on Boxing Day 2015. It creates a narrative around the experiences of 5 residents, before during and after the flood. It is performed live using a simple set and props. It has been performed at a number of settings including the Saltaire River Festival 2016. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | TBC |
| Description | DEVELOPING KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE WITHIN THE SUSTAINABLE FLOOD MEMORIES PROJECT Over 35 months (Jan 2011- Nov 2013), the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories Project gathered semi-structured interviews from residents in the lower Severn catchment on how they recorded, communicated, maintained or discarded their flood memories in the aftermath of the 2007 floods, and their perceived relationship of flood memory to the development of community resilience. In August 2013, having interviewed 65 people and amassed an archive of newspaper scrap books, photographs, videos and letters, the project team sought to explore how these garnered memories could be exchanged to help encourage reflection on flood memories, and their relationships to 'preparedness' in building community resilience to flooding. This exploration was applied not just in the locations where the narratives were originally captured, but also in other different types of flood risk setting. Within the Knowledge Exchange Project, the team shared what they had learnt in the original Sustainable Flood Memories Project with other stakeholders, including the Environment Agency (EA), Gloucestershire County Council and Gloucestershire Rural Community Council. Together this inter-professional team then began a process to identify short narratives or stories within the project's original interview transcripts that described and reflected on different aspects of 'preparedness for flood risk' through different resilience frames (see below). This was initially achieved by drawing off those NVIVO codes (qualitative thematic analysis) that captured varied aspects of 'preparedness' and resilience. These resilience frames included: economic resilience (relative levels of deprivation, employment status, home ownership, ability to pay for infrastructural changes, take up of insurance); institutional resilience (flood experience; engagement with institutional arrangements for flood resilience, responsibilities for protection); social resilience (age, gender, ethnicity, disability, household size, family relations, connectivity); emotional/psychological resilience (individual's ability to cope with stress and adversity); infrastructural resilience (resistance and resilience of property; individual or collective adjustments to property to mitigate risk); adaptive resilience (leadership and governance, innovation, situation awareness; management of vulnerabilities); community capital and competency (resources, skills, networks, knowledge, nodes). Very specific pieces of narrative on preparedness and resilience were then co-produced into digital stories (audio and images) working with individuals and small clusters (2-3 people). These stories were then shared in several different settings with flood risk (the lower Severn - original case-study area; other attenuated flood risk setting - Thames; rapid response catchment - SW). CO-DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL STORIES ON FLOOD MEMORY, PREPAREDNESS AND RESILIENCE: The inter-professional team learnt about the strengths and limitations of different models for the co-development of such digital stories working with community members. Whereas within the bid document, the team had planned to use narratives/ oral history clips verbatim from the original interviews, this was not the eventual dominant process. Three ways were explored in how to co-create digital stories: Method 1 involved selecting text verbatim from the original interview, discussing the content again with the interviewee in context of knowledge exchange, and then co-working to find appropriate images to illustrate the story. In Method 2 for the co-development of digital stories, the original narrative was used as a stimulus for the development of the story, which was then captured as audio with images selected by the individual. Method 3 developed the model of the community digital storytelling workshop. These workshops were held in three of the original case-study locations within community settings/venues - and acted as stimuli for the generation of new stories. Workshops drew upon community relationships which had already been established, before and over the course of this project, and made the workshop a key element in the iteration of on-going contact. With relationships in place, and awareness that the project team would continue to engage with the participants, the emphasis for the workshops was on creating narratives, as opposed to completed stories. There were significant benefits to the narrative processes of participants sparking flood memories off each other, and in sharing learning about memory, flood preparedness and resilience. Some stories created through Model 3 were collaborative. All digital stories produced through these processes are available both online (see esrcfloodmemories.wordpress.com; UWE You tube channel), and as a DVD that is being distributed to key interest groups (400 DVDs and guidance produced). The learning point here (from practice) is that online distribution is not always the best way to reach communities that do not have internet access in the shared spaces where they wish to exhibit the material, e.g. village halls. KEY FINDINGS FROM ENGAGEMENT PROCESS THE VALUE OF ON-GOING LONGITUDINAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH COMMUNITIES: When the Knowledge Exchange Project began in August 2013, it was the latest in a series of research projects (2004- ) to draw upon the longitudinal engagement that had taken place between the researchers and members of the public in the Severn catchment. Three participants in the knowledge exchange project had not only contributed to the Sustainable Flood Memories Project but had also taken part in other research projects between 2004-6 and 2010/11. The process of creating digital stories requires a level of trust between the research team and individuals within these communities - a trust that develops and enhances the partnership and the project outcomes. The Knowledge Exchange Project built on the trust generated in the Sustainable Flood Memories Project and added another working relationship - that of the Environment Agency (national and regional levels) - to the partnership. VALUE OF A NARRATIVE APPROACH: The Knowledge Exchange Project found that a narrative approach to lay/local knowledge sharing had significant value for knowledge exchange when placed alongside or integrated with other forms of 'expert knowledge'. ETHICS: Whereas the original semi-structured interviews with participants had been analysed anonymously, within digital stories the author cannot be concealed. Indeed that authorship is part of the development of digital stories. Only a minority of participants did not progress their stories for this reason. SHARING FLOOD STORIES: As part of the development process, stories were shared both within the communities who created them, and within new communities. At all community events, the experience of sharing the stories was observed and evaluated in different ways (using participant and facilitator questionnaires with open and likert scale questions, and independent observation of the dynamics of the event). The evaluation identified a number of key learning points - both for community members and the local stakeholders in Flood Risk Management (FRM) who helped facilitate the process. When shared in digital storytelling community events, the value of the digital media, nature of the story construction (simple, layered, nuanced), the local or transferable nature of the message between settings, and empathy levels or emotional weight given to the story were all evaluated. This applied both in settings where there had been previous flood experience but also in other settings at flood risk but without recent flood experience. "What I am liking about the videos is, because they are a personal account, they are not too structured and not too corporate [unlike] the one's we have tried before as an organisation, which I think haven't quite hit the mark because they have felt a bit staged, where we have tried to cram in our core messages around safety and everything. I like these because they are points of discussion: they are not going to have all the answers in a two minute clip but they are helping people to think. If we want to generate discussion and thinking within people, this feels like a good way of doing it" (national EA partner). The stories stimulated new discussions within different community groups (including flood action groups) and in multi-stakeholder meetings. The conversations generated by the same digital story were found to be potentially quite different in different settings (e.g. small businesses or in rural/urban settings). Another frequent observation was the degree of empathy with the stories (within and between communities), and the emotional weight of stories. "The meeting on Monday night went very well and I think the group found the stories to be powerful and they sparked a lively conversation" (EA Partner, Exeter). LEARNING ABOUT PARTNERSHIP WORKING: The Environment Agency was a key partner within the Knowledge Exchange Project. There were several external factors that challenged progress with that partnership. The loss of EA staff (e.g. in digital media within regional settings) or the movement of staff in roles, along with the incidence of severe floods in winter 2013/2014 all meant that proactive working by all partners was needed to ensure continuity. Another challenge was the different organisational practices for allowing access to digital media (e.g. You Tube) within the work place. There were significant benefits in working with the Environment Agency colleagues through the project, offering valuable windows into different worlds. For example, this involved co-exploring the relationships between flood memory, preparedness and resilience in terms of practice, and the language of engagement around digital narratives. VALUE OF THE STAKEHOLDER COMPETENCY GROUP MODEL: The original Sustainable Flood Memories project had used a Stakeholder Competency Group (SCG) model to co-develop the research process. The SCG was keen to continue its 6-month meetings (and interim virtual exchanges) during the lifespan of the Knowledge Exchange project. This led to additional shared inter-agency and community learning about the value of digital storytelling/ narratives for knowledge exchange, and additional impacts. The SCG members supported the digital storytelling process in various ways (e.g. writing articles in local outlets to promote the archive (e.g. in Cotswold Life); sharing the archive with colleagues; tweeting information about the project events and outputs around their networks). |
| Exploitation Route | •TRAINING: a range of agencies involved in flood risk management are already using the archive of 21 digital stories with communities in resilience planning. The national Environment Agency lead partner has already shared the archive with the Environment Agency's 16 Community Engagement Officers operating across England. This use is being evaluated on an on-going basis - particularly the need (or otherwise) to link flood narratives to the local setting. •USAGE OF DIGITAL STORIES BY THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY IN THEIR APPROACH TO COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: The findings about the value of using knowledge exchange rather than more passive knowledge transfer is informing practice within the Environment Agency. Traditionally the EA's approach to engaging the public about flood risk preparedness has been a marketing one. The sharing of digital stories in community settings necessitates a different language - e.g. 'stories as gifts' from community to community. •A RESOURCE FOR OTHER ORGANISATIONS IN THEIR RESILIENCE WORK WITH COMMUNITIES: The archive is being used by other agencies as a way of sharing flood experiences between communities (e.g. by Gloucestershire Rural Community Council as an addition to its Community Resilience Toolkit; Gloucestershire Local Resilience Forum in its community engagement). • RESEARCH ON NARRATIVE (IN KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE) FEEDING INTO OTHER RESEARCH PROJECTS: The learning from the narrative element of the knowledge exchange processes is feeding into the research design within the RCUK Drought and Water Scarcity project (DRY- Drought Risk and You). DRY is integrating science-narrative approaches in engagement of a range of stakeholders including the public/communities to provide a utility for decision-making in drought risk management. •SHARING THE STORIES WITH COMMUNITY FLOOD GROUPS IN ENGLAND AND WALES: Every Flood Action Group on the National Flood Forum's database will receive a DVD with the archive of 21 digital stories - along with guidance on how these stories might be shared in community settings. Flood Action Groups are also being encouraged to evaluate their experience of listening to, and discussing the content of, the stories (through an e-survey) so that evaluative data can feed back into the project's research processes and exchanged with other stakeholders. •USE OF STORIES AS AN INTERVENTION IN DIFFERENT PROFESSIONAL SETTINGS: The team has exchanged the stories co-produced during the project in a range of academic and professional settings, e.g. with SW Emergency Services and SW Public Health Development; Royal Geographical Society 2014. The project team is currently writing up a paper on the outcomes of the evaluation of 'digital stories for knowledge exchange' for the Journal of Flood Risk Management so that the learning from the project can be shared with other academics and practitioners. •NEW DIRECTIONS FOR KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE: The resources and learning from the project are feeding into an ESRC Impact Acceleration Project being developed with computing specialists at the University of Warwick. The concept here is to develop and test a prototype flood memory app with participants (professions in FRM, the Environment Agency and local beta testers) on the lower Severn, UK. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Environment,Healthcare,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://esrcfloodmemories.wordpress.com |
| Description | 1. Impact strategy Our impact strategy comprises: • Advancement of knowledge: to provide new insights into how knowledge exchange through digital storytelling might work to build individual and community capital and capabilities for community resilience to flooding - both when used as an approach by communities themselves and by supporting agencies in flood risk management (FRM). • Development of skills and capabilities in organisations and communities: to develop skills in how to develop, sustain and work with community/collective/archival memory and lay knowledge through the framing of 'sustainable flood memory', and in the use of community-based digital storytelling as a participatory media approach to knowledge exchange. Co-working with the Environment Agency and other FRM organisations (including local government and the National Flood Forum; see SCG below) throughout the project provided new opportunities for critical reflection at an organisational level about the relative merits of different forms of knowledge (scientific/lay) and different approaches to community engagement for knowledge integration. • Impact on health, wealth and culture: to benefit the local communities in our four case-study areas and other communities at risk of flooding by offering new participatory ways to exchange and archive lay/local knowledges that encourage preparedness and action for future flooding and flood risk. This includes reflections on what constitutes emotional resilience as a shareable resource and how this might be developed. • Economic development: to offer new approaches to knowledge exchange - individual/community to individual/community; community to community - that can contribute to increased preparedness for flood risk. 2. Emerging economic and societal impact In the ESRC Knowledge Exchange award, we worked with flood risk communities on the lower River Severn, national and regional Environment Agency partners, the County Rural Community Council, Local Government and Gloucestershire Archives to generate digital stories based upon our research. This involved longitudinal co-production - further developing the ways of working and building trust from the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project. The digital storytelling processes involved collaboratively (with the EA) drawing themes on 'preparedness' (viewed through different resilience lenses) from our original semi-structured interviews. This process provided opportunities for communities themselves and partner agencies to facilitate new exchanges within and between communities about preparedness and resilience in relation to flood risk. The impact of the digital storytelling part of the Sustainable Flood Memories (SFM) project is difficult to separate from the original ESRC SFM project as the two projects were staggered to develop in an integrated fashion. The additional KE funding provided a valuable opportunity to trial different co-produced and participatory media processes of knowledge exchange using digital storytelling. The key societal impacts of our research/KE activities have included increased awareness of the relationships between memory, lay knowledge and resilience amongst UK and international flood risk management professionals, and the public in community settings. This has generated targeted impact at local/regional/national levels as set out below, and we continue to work with our research communities and FRM agencies (regionally/nationally) in increasing this impact (e.g. developing a flood memory app at Warwick with Computer Science). We have also increased the scope of those organisations that might be considered to have a place in local/regional FRM (e.g. formal archives; local media). 3. Impact settings The project methodology was crafted to maximise stakeholder engagement and impact throughout the project in varied ways. We have had impact insofar as we have communities and agencies engaging with, and in several cases acting on, our messages - through our Stakeholder Competency Group (SCG) and other engagement activities. In the end, 21 digital stories were produced, and are available online on the UWE website and our project website (esrcfloodmemories.wordpress.com). We were unable to lodge the stories on the Environment Agency website as originally planned due to organisational protocols. We found that many community venues did not have reliable internet, and hence a DVD and explanatory pamphlet were produced later to mailshot potential interest groups nationally. • Stakeholder Competency Group: Our original methodology in the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memory project integrated co-production throughout the project with a Stakeholder Competency Group of ca. 10 key stakeholders from communities (representatives including local councillor, flood action group representative), local government, the Environment Agency, National Flood Forum (including Scottish Flood Forum), Rural Community Council, emergency services, and county archives. The SCG operated through six-monthly face-to-face meetings, with an email group for interim exchanges. All members of the SCG agreed to continue on to the digital storytelling part of the project. This allowed us to work with, and exchange knowledge with, key stakeholders throughout the project to ensure that organisational and societal impacts were on-going. This ensured opportunities for legacy right through the process with individuals keeping an eye to trialling the digital stories in their engagement. For example: 'One of my colleagues Stuart Matthews is involved in a Flooding Event Cheltenham Borough Council/ EA next Friday 15th May 2015. The event is being held in Charlton Kings as the focus will be on the Rapid Response Catchment planning the EA and Council have been undertaking in that area. However, they'll also be some more general information about flooding/ community resilience etc., and if possible they'd like to have some of the Flood Memories digital stories playing at the event if that's suitable.' Jessica Howells (Gloucestershire County Council): Feedback from stakeholders indicated that they benefited from inter-professional exchanges and learning, and from being part of a learning community of practice around community-based digital storytelling. The relationships built through this project have benefited our ability to work with the same stakeholders on other subsequent projects (EPSRC SESAME - adaptive learning for flood resilience within small businesses; DEFRA Flood Repairable - pathways into implementing flood resilient measures in community/ businesses) - where Tewkesbury has been selected as a case-study flood risk setting. DVDs were also distributed to all 16 of the EA's Community engagement officers - with data on their use being collected by the EA. We found that the research findings and associated digital stories are being used in various ways, for example, in the training of FRM professionals in the Environment Agency; and in thinking anew about strategies for community engagement by agencies that do not rely on marketing methods (as previously). Previous quotes from the stakeholders included: 'I feel that some of the outputs of the project such as the Flood Stories are a really useful 'thought provoking' tool to provide awareness and a 'voice' from flood victims to use in training sessions etc.' 'Communities learn from their peers in particular. Would be good to use local memories in training the groups working in association with the community plan.' 'We could update the communities section of our Community Emergency Plan toolkit with such memories and point to good practice and avoiding issues.' • Working with communities: There were also benefits from mutual learning within the communities that we engaged with - with several contributors working with us longitudinally during both the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project and the ESRC Knowledge Exchange project. This engendered associated critical reflection on the relationships between individual and community flood memory, lay knowledges and preparedness for future flooding. The digital storytelling archive is also being used by community groups (e.g. flood action groups) to help promote the value of flood memory and exchange of lay knowledges in flood risk contexts. • Working with advisors to government: We were invited to present/ contribute to panel discussions at the Royal United Services Institute conference (RUSI; organisation that generates independent thinking to inform resilience planning in UK government) in November 2014. This talk engendered inter-professional dialogue, particularly about the implications of 'active forgetting' and 'active remembering' about flood risk in community resilience planning. It was clear from that event that some of the learning about relationships between memory, lay knowledge and resilience was relevant to other risk settings (e.g. in overseas work on polio with UNICEF). • Promoting inter-professional dialogue: the research results of the project have been shared in other fora - with mixed participation and co-learning. These included: - mixed academic-invited practitioner audiences (e.g. conferences like Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference in 2012 and 2013 where we involved the National Flood Forum (as invited practitioners); a keynote to mixed audiences of Irish and UK academics and Irish FRM professionals (such as the Irish Drainage Board) at NUI Galway in March 2012). - targeted knowledge exchange with specific professional groups who are active in building more general community resilience. These groups include arts practitioners who co-work with communities on environmental issues (e.g. in keynote to an audience of arts practitioners - co-working with water/flood risk/ resilience themes - and academics at Middlesex University in June 2013). - tailored exchange of research findings to groups with particular resilience interests. For example, we shared our research findings and digital stories reflecting emotional resilience through leading a themed workshop in SW Health Development Annual Conference (Dartlington, 2014). - On-going engagement with other professional groups in discussion around the research results - e.g. the regional (SW) Fire and Rescue community and the Gloucestershire Local Resilience Forum - about how the insights into how memory, lay knowledge and resilience interweave might be used both in in-house training and in informing engagement strategies with communities who have experienced recent flooding or are at future flood risk. This has resulted in closer longitudinal engagement with these groups beyond the project lifespan. - In addition through the project, there has been a strong attention to regional public engagement - through lectures, media articles and radio contributions. This included an open access public lecture at UWE, Bristol with flood risk professionals and the general public in May 2013. The stories have been shared in formal and informal settings (e.g. Royal United Services Institute). 4. On-going impact activities • Targeted knowledge exchange using digital stories: Through our partnership working, there has been on-going knowledge exchange between the academic project team and the professional partners (e.g. discussions around the different languages of engagement with communities when sharing digital stories). We continue to evaluate how the medium and messages in community-generated stories are exchanged in communities, using digital stories as a medium, and also our academic-professional partnership processes. This means that a wider group of organisations and community are engaged with, and learning from, the project (e.g. Tewkesbury Borough Council - waiving workshop room hire costs on account of the perceived benefits to local communities in terms of flood awareness, and Slough District Council - also involved in a DEFRA Community Pathfinder Project). A key impact has been increased awareness of the power/significance of narrative in communication/knowledge exchange with communities and different interested constituencies - through the sharing with the governance agency community. We have evidence that is beginning to happen through our work with the Environment Agency. • On-going exchange with community flood groups nationally Digital storytelling has been promoted both as both an approach and learning resource within community action groups: Copies of the DVD and pamphlet from the project have been mailshotted to 200+ flood groups in England and Wales, working with the National Flood Form as gatekeeper. The National Flood Forum has also tweeted at intervals to promote to the digital archive resource to its follower. A link to a short survey monkey questionnaire accompanied the DVDs but was unfortunately not used by recipients. However, some groups emailed feedback subsequently having viewed the stories, for example: - Sturmer Flood Action Group Members received a DVD and watched it. "We thought it was a good record. I was impressed at how resilient and robust people are when faced with flooding." - Dr Harry Buckland (founder of the Freshney Flood Watch) received and watched the DVD and asked if we would like to come and gather some testimonials in his catchment (http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/story-11533182-detail/story.html) • Work with schools: Our exchange strategy (on-going) involves preparing a paper for the Journal Geography that is for UK geography teachers to promote our research findings in ways that might inform the schools' curriculum around risk, drawing on the digital stories. We also shared and evaluated the impact of, our digital stories with schools as part of Political Studies Association workshop on 'The Politics of Flooding and Climate Change' at Bath Spa University in December 2014. • Exchange in other UK Government community resilience initiatives: At regional and levels, we continue to exchange learning from the digital storytelling part of the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project with our regional partners in the Severn catchment but also in other flood risk management settings. For example, experiences in drawing on memory and lay knowledge around flood risk from the project have been shared with local government and the other FRM agencies like the National Flood Forum through the DEFRA Community Pathfinder project to help build community resilience in the Swindon case-study. Abena Dadze-Arthur (University of Birmingham) asked to use the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project as one of the case studies on the Government Knowledge Navigator (http://www.lgkn.org), which is the new platform for collaboration between academics and local government practitioners. This includes links to the digital story archive. • Exchange with sustainability/ resilience professional beyond the project. The link to digital archive (and a DVD + pamphlet) has been shared widely around our networks. Some recipients have provided feedback. For example: Alan Carr, Sustainability Adviser, Sustainability West Midlands: "I also took the time to watch the Sustainable Flood Memories DVD, which is excellent. All of the videos tell their own, often quite heartfelt stories. If I had to pick a favourite, it would be between Tewkesbury Spirit and Twelve Things to Prepare. I don't know if there is scope or if it would be appropriate to use these at the workshop on 28 January Lindsey but it would be great to at least signpost the videos to delegates as they will be interested in watching them!". This was followed up by an invited presentation at Sustainability West Midlands Conference in January 2016, where a representative from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Building Research Establishment (BRE) expressed interest in the narrative approach as a medium for knowledge exchange. - The Centre for Floods, Communities and Resilience, UWE, Bristol has an annual partnership event for community engagement officers within the Environment Agency, Local Authorities and Fire and Rescue Services. In last year's workshop (May 2015), we showcased the digital story archive as a learning resource when working with communities, and for internal training within FRM organisations. This gained positive feedback within the event evaluation. • Use of social media for legacy and on-going impact: Our archive of digital stories is accessible both through the project website (esrcfloodmemories.ac.uk) and UWE Bristol's YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/BristolUWE/playlists- Flood Memory. This is intended to facilitate greater impact amongst a wide age-range, and is being monitored for hits and impact (just under 1000 hits; 25th Feb 2016). Garde-Hansen at University of Warwick (using ESRC Accelerator monies) progressed the concept of a Flood App, working with professionals and communities in Tewkesbury. The project Twitter feed @floodmemories is still live and used to promote project outputs and related activities. • Links to local archives: Copies of the DVD and pamphlet have been sent to local archives. For example, Gloucestershire Archives have added the Digital Story DVD to their regional collections (ref: D13866 accession 13866). One of the authors of the stories contacted us: 'I have been talking to the curator of the John Moore Museum in Church St, Tewkesbury, and he would be interested in having a copy of the DVD. They specialise in Natural History, Heritage and Living voices, and I am about to help them with an article about the restoration of the old Baptist Chapel in Church Street. They are hoping to do a similar project to yours, it seems.' • Feed in to other inter-professional research projects that aim to inform strategies to build community resilience: The evaluation of knowledge exchange through digital storytelling phase of the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memory has also informed new research work within other 'engaged' inter-professional research projects. Learning from the co-production of digital stories within flood contexts has fed into three other projects. - the EPSRC SESAME project with its focus on adaptive learning for small business resilience (see http://sesame.uk.com) by highlighting the potential role of digital stories in learning around flood risk response. Digital stories were shown to the Stakeholder Group and the Business Research Partnership Group (Tewkesbury small businesses) as a way in to the potential of this medium and business to business knowledge exchange; - the UK-Brazil project SPRINT-FAPESP on 'Narratives of Water' for trans-national knowledge exchange between Warwick and UNESP, Sao Paulo; - the DEFRA 'Flood repairable' project which is using digital testimonies as a way of capturing the learning from people who have implemented resilient measures within their home; - the RCUK project - DRY - Drought Risk and You (see DRYproject.co.uk) which is exploring the interaction between narrative and science in providing an evidence base for decision-making in drought and water scarcity. Here digital stories have been shared with the interdisciplinary project team and the national Stakeholder Competency Group for that project as exemplars of knowledge exchange using community-based approaches. • Development of skills base: The research associate on the digital storytelling project has brought his learning about co-production of digital stories to the RCUK DRY project as well as contributions to other projects listed above.as well as contributions to other projects listed above. . Promotion to academic/policy audiences: A paper evaluating the digital storytelling approach is close to submission for the Journal of Flood Risk Management. ResearchFish will be updated when this output is accepted for publication. As a precursor, we have written a conference paper on the work for an accepted presentation at the European Floodrisk 2016 Conference (Lyons, October 2016). This conference paper will be in the public domain in its own right. 5. Challenges to achieve impact • One challenge was the transitory nature of staff deployment to flood risk responsibilities within some partner organisations, particularly in the current climate of financial cutbacks post the 2007 crash. For example, our national contact in the Environment Agency changed several times over the lifespan of the knowledge exchange project. This has required strong inter-professional effort to try and ensure continuity of dialogue for impact. The fact that the ESRC Knowledge Exchange project has been integrated with the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project has been important for project legacy. This partnership working with the Environment Agency, County Rural Community Council and Local Government has allowed us the opportunity to reflect in-depth on the relationships between flood memory, local knowledge and resilience, but also in how research might be linked to practice in how communities can draw on flood memory to engage around flood risk preparedness through different resilience frames. • Another area of challenge was the sharing of research/knowledge exchange resources ('captured community voices') with FRM agencies, where the use of digital technologies (like YouTube) is not allowed in the workplace for some staff. • There was some evidence of flood fatigue (specifically in Tewkesbury) in relation to the flood app - with residents working to portray the town as 'back in business'. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | Amphibious Screens - Sustainable Cultures of Water Seminar Series - international network grant |
| Amount | £9,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Warwick |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2022 |
| End | 05/2022 |
| Description | Research Development Fund |
| Amount | £5,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Warwick |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2017 |
| End | 07/2018 |
| Description | Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change |
| Amount | € 125,000 (EUR) |
| Organisation | European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Belgium |
| Start | 10/2021 |
| End | 10/2025 |
| Description | ACUMEN - Archives for Climate Uncertainty, Memory and Engagement |
| Organisation | University of the West of England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | A collaboration between University of West of England, University of Warwick, Loughborough University, Mass Observation Archive, Modern Records Centre and variety of regional and professional archives to explore uncertainty evidence. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Partners from the Afterlives of Protest network (Mass Observation Archive, Modern Records Centre) brought their expertise and knowledge of holding s to the development of a large AHRC grant submitted February 27th 2020. |
| Impact | This is a multi-disciplinary collaboration. ACUMEN is exploring reconnecting communities with their cultural memories of everyday uncertainty. National repositories such as The National Archives, Mass Observation Archive (MOA), BBC Archives, BFI, MetLib, British Geological Survey (BGS) Archives and the Modern Records Centre will be mobilised to re-visit their roles and collections for evidence of climate uncertainty experience and adaptation. Regional and local collections (such as the Media Archive for Central England, Gloucestershire Heritage Hub, John Moore's Museum, Tewkesbury) and the informal archives of local flood action groups are being explored to creatively connect to address the need for communities to learn to live with uncertainty in place-specific ways. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Partnership working on ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories - Digital Storytelling |
| Organisation | Environment Agency |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | The academic team contributed learning about the relationships between flood memory, lay knowledge and resilience (from the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project) to the collaborative partnership. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Co-working on the development of the knowledge exchange project. |
| Impact | An archive of 21 digital stories exchanging community voices that link flood memory, local knowledge and flood preparedness for resilience. Evaluation of the exchange of these stories in different 'community' flood risk settings is now on-going. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Partnership working on ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories - Digital Storytelling |
| Organisation | Gloucestershire County Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | The academic team contributed learning about the relationships between flood memory, lay knowledge and resilience (from the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project) to the collaborative partnership. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Co-working on the development of the knowledge exchange project. |
| Impact | An archive of 21 digital stories exchanging community voices that link flood memory, local knowledge and flood preparedness for resilience. Evaluation of the exchange of these stories in different 'community' flood risk settings is now on-going. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Partnership working on ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories - Digital Storytelling |
| Organisation | Gloucestershire Rural Community Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | The academic team contributed learning about the relationships between flood memory, lay knowledge and resilience (from the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project) to the collaborative partnership. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Co-working on the development of the knowledge exchange project. |
| Impact | An archive of 21 digital stories exchanging community voices that link flood memory, local knowledge and flood preparedness for resilience. Evaluation of the exchange of these stories in different 'community' flood risk settings is now on-going. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Transformative Memory - Confronting the Past in Grand-Scale Socio-Economic Change |
| Organisation | Aarhus University |
| Country | Denmark |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project seeks to move memory and heritage studies beyond an exclusive focus on "conflictual pasts" in the traditional sense, while not neglecting the importance of understanding collective responses to historical violence. We aim to bring together scholars to discuss memory from a holistic perspective of large-scale transformation processes. The following areas have been identified as starting points for framing discussions: Post-industrial communities Reconfiguration of welfare and social care systems Post-conflict divisions in society Changing political landscapes Environmental change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Researchers of protest memory are contributing in terms of leadership, conference contributions and research meetings across Europe to develop a COST network bid for April 2020. |
| Impact | Conference at Nottingham Trent University, 3-5 June 2020 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Transformative Memory - Confronting the Past in Grand-Scale Socio-Economic Change |
| Organisation | Nottingham Trent University |
| Department | School of Arts and Humanities |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project seeks to move memory and heritage studies beyond an exclusive focus on "conflictual pasts" in the traditional sense, while not neglecting the importance of understanding collective responses to historical violence. We aim to bring together scholars to discuss memory from a holistic perspective of large-scale transformation processes. The following areas have been identified as starting points for framing discussions: Post-industrial communities Reconfiguration of welfare and social care systems Post-conflict divisions in society Changing political landscapes Environmental change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Researchers of protest memory are contributing in terms of leadership, conference contributions and research meetings across Europe to develop a COST network bid for April 2020. |
| Impact | Conference at Nottingham Trent University, 3-5 June 2020 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Transformative Memory - Confronting the Past in Grand-Scale Socio-Economic Change |
| Organisation | Paris West University Nanterre La Défense |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project seeks to move memory and heritage studies beyond an exclusive focus on "conflictual pasts" in the traditional sense, while not neglecting the importance of understanding collective responses to historical violence. We aim to bring together scholars to discuss memory from a holistic perspective of large-scale transformation processes. The following areas have been identified as starting points for framing discussions: Post-industrial communities Reconfiguration of welfare and social care systems Post-conflict divisions in society Changing political landscapes Environmental change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Researchers of protest memory are contributing in terms of leadership, conference contributions and research meetings across Europe to develop a COST network bid for April 2020. |
| Impact | Conference at Nottingham Trent University, 3-5 June 2020 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Transformative Memory - Confronting the Past in Grand-Scale Socio-Economic Change |
| Organisation | University of Warsaw |
| Country | Poland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project seeks to move memory and heritage studies beyond an exclusive focus on "conflictual pasts" in the traditional sense, while not neglecting the importance of understanding collective responses to historical violence. We aim to bring together scholars to discuss memory from a holistic perspective of large-scale transformation processes. The following areas have been identified as starting points for framing discussions: Post-industrial communities Reconfiguration of welfare and social care systems Post-conflict divisions in society Changing political landscapes Environmental change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Researchers of protest memory are contributing in terms of leadership, conference contributions and research meetings across Europe to develop a COST network bid for April 2020. |
| Impact | Conference at Nottingham Trent University, 3-5 June 2020 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Community digital storytelling exchange event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The overall workshop (organised by Tewkesbury Borough Council) aimed to encourage communities to produce a community plan, and gain support in putting in applications for government funding after the winter 2013/2014 floods. Digital Stories were shown to a group of individuals to engender discussion and trial the media of engagement with groups beyond the original project participants but within the same geographic area. The event was evaluated as part of the knowledge exchange processes. [ The output was a greater awareness of the strengths and limitations of co-working to exchange digital stories within community settings. Here the stories were integrated with other resilience-building activities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Exeter St Thomas Community Emergency Plan meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The engaged group was a community group developing Emergency/Flood Plans but without recent flood experience. Four Digital stories from the Knowledge Exchange Project were selected by the Environment Agency Community engagement officer, followed by discussion. Of particular interest to this community group was how community could galvanise itself during a crisis. The stories exchanged the experiences of the Severnside flood risk communities with a community in a very different setting (Exeter). The evaluation indicated that some elements of stories (e.g. around community capital; emotional resilience) were transferable beyond their locality. The feedback from the experience of this engagement event has fed into the guidance that has been designed to accompany the DVD of the archive of digital stories. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Flood Action Group Meeting - Slough |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Flood Action Group meeting with a group which had not experienced catastrophic flooding. The four digital stories were shown and discussions followed on the implications of the stories but in this new setting. The event was set up by the National Flood Forum as part of the DEFRA Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder project in Slough. The project team were participants and observers. After this activity, it was agreed that the National Flood Forum would help in the exchange of the flood archive DVDs nationally so ensuring that all flood action groups have access to a copy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Invited Conference Panel 'Memory Studies Association' Madrid June 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Development of a new strand of research to the Arts and Humanities based on water and media. A key part of the Memory Studies International Conference June 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/ |
| Description | Invited Talk: Liquid memory and water environment activism, Memory Studies Association Conference, Copenhagen, Dec 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The paper offered examples of art/media/memory activism in Brazil and the UK on drought, flood and water management as interventions from the perspective of water itself and its ability to remember where it once was. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/copenhagen-conference-2017-program |
| Description | Policy making discussions on the UK Bricks and Water flood policy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Expert contribution to Policy Connect events Sustainability priorities for the new Parliament All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, All Party Sustainable Resource Group, Carbon Connect, the Westminster Sustainable Business Forum and the Sustainable Resource Forum Feb 2020 Sustainable Drainage Systems and Green Infrastructure (10.03.20, 10.00-12.00) - This roundtable will explore methods for controlling surface water runoff, requirements for SuDS in new development and options for adoption and retrofit of SuDS at the property-level. Chaired by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering. Property Flood Resilience for New and Existing Homes (25.03.20, 10.00-12.00) - This roundtable will review the forthcoming code of practice on property flood resilience and discuss best practice for flood resistance and resilience in vulnerable communities. Chaired by Ruth Jones MP (TBC) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.policyconnect.org.uk/research/bricks-water-plan-action-building-homes-and-managing-water... |
| Description | Presentation and extended abstract at Flood and Coasts 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation and discussion - to promote ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories and its digital storytelling archive to a national practitioner audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Presentation at Sustainability West Midlands Climate Resilient Communities Conference 2016 - 28 January 2016. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This was a presentation to regional practitioners to promote outcomes of the ESRC Sustainable Flood Memories project, and to share the archive of 'preparedness' stories for work with communities and professional training. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation to Fire and Rescue Services in SW region (meeting was hosted by Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In the presentation, selected results of the ESRC Flood Memories project (of interest to Fire and Rescue) were shared. Selected digital stories were also used as a stimulus for discussion. After the presentation there was discussion about the information/ knowledge needs for the Fire and Rescue Services. The main impact was follow up requests for information, and the potential for closer future working. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Presentation to Gloucestershire Local Resilience Forum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The presentation shared key insights from the ESRC Flood Memories project. This stimulated discussion and questions afterwards. One of the members of the Local Resilience Forum (from Gloucestershire County Council) has been part of our Stakeholder Competency Group throughout the project so the project already has strong links with LRF. The key impact is increased engagement of the LRF with the outcomes of our work. This has included requests for follow up individual discussions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Stakeholder Competency Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Stakeholder Competency Group is a key part of the project's research processes. The project has had iterative engagement with end users as partners throughout the project lifespan (with six monthly meetings and interim individual engagement by email and face-to-face). This group has continued in this role in the ESRC knowledge exchange part of the project. The principal impacts are: improved communication and knowledge sharing between academic and professional partners; a core of practitioners who have become friends and ambassadors of the project to mutual benefit; and the development of a particular type of stakeholder competency group where research outcomes are developed and shared through the project, so that 'impact' is not just at the end. The learning from this experience has been applied elsewhere (e.g. in the RCUK Drought and Water Scarcity programme with a project just started - DRY: Drought Risk and You). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012,2013,2014 |
| Description | Three Community-generated Digital Storytelling workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Sharing of flood resilience stories; co-creation of digital stories about flood preparedness within and between communities Increased awareness of the value of knowledge exchange between community members in building local knowledge for flood resilience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Workshop to SW Public Health Development Association |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | At the workshop, results of the Sustainable Flood Memories project were shared - with particular reference to emotional/ psychological issues. Digital stories (from the ESRC Knowledge exchange project) were also shown as stimuli. These triggered discussion about the emotional impact of floods and the longer-term support needs of individuals and groups affected. There has been follow up contact, and sign posting of resources to several of the participants. The main impact was of participant feedback as to heightened awareness of some of the issues around the psychological impacts of floods (e.g. trauma) and the need to build emotional resilience. This has implications for those working in the health professions, and is particularly pertinent as these professionals are working in the SW - in areas badly affected by the January 2014 floods. A further impact was the discussion of further research possibilities with a couple of participants. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |