Planning for floods and droughts in the face of climate change - a continuum approach

Over the past ten years, water related risks have emerged as key symptoms of climate change faced by UK society. It has been estimated that flood damage could account for £10bn to the UK economy in 25 years and that risks relating to precipitation, over the next 30-100 years, will increase by 2-4 times across the UK (Foresight, 2004). Repeated high profile flooding events have resulted in heightened public and policy perceptions of this risk. However, the counterpart of flooding, drought, has received much less attention. This is despite the fact that 2003 saw a Europe wide drought with associated costs of Euro8.7bn (Commission of the EC, 2007). Whilst at first glance, it appears counter-intuitive that the hazard of too much water might co-exist with the threat of too little water, this is an emerging phenomenon in the UK. The 2007 floods were preceded by two years of heat waves and droughts (Pitt, 2008) and in 2009-10, the UK faced rainfall levels lower than the long term average and accompanying drought in some areas (Commission of the EC, 2011). Just as global warming is leading to milder, wetter winters, so too, increases in global temperatures are also likely to lead to greater levels of evaporation from the land surface resulting in drought in some areas as well as subsidence. Whilst trends in climate change are discernible, forecasting is more problematic; both flooding and drought are characterised by high levels of uncertainty, unpredictability and emergence. Consequently, novel responses that are multi-dimensional, involving relevant stakeholders and spanning regulative, cultural-cognitive and normative domains are required for effective mitigation strategies. This research project adopts an integrative approach to understanding climate change perturbations to the water environment. This is achieved through viewing water management as a continuum from over-supply to under-supply, rather than focussing upon overt manifestations of water supply extremes i.e. flood and drought. By adopting this lens, commonalities which extend across different forms of water related risk can be identified, as can barriers to effective management and mitigation. Through the collection and analysis of primary and secondary data using both traditional and novel research strategies, an evidence based framework will be developed to assist decision making across institutions and behaviours across stakeholder groups. This framework shall be informed by an initial literature review drawing upon academic literature across a range of disciplines, including: risk perception and communication; natural sciences and engineering perspectives on water flows and catchment; political and legal perspectives on governance and regulation, risk management and strategic perspectives on resource utilisation, capabilities and decision making and national/international best practice. Rich data gathered from in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders shall add a qualitative dimension to the research strategy. Live data on flood/drought captured from social media for a case study in the Yorkshire region shall make a novel contribution to the proposed framework by allowing the incorporation of inferences derived from real time data on stakeholder perceptions, communications and behaviours to varying levels of flood and drought risk. In effect, the framework shall translate the academic, policy and practice findings into a tool which can be utilised to enhance stakeholder behaviour and decision making. This integrated framework can then be tested through two validation workshops where stakeholders will be invited participants thereby ensuring the robustness of this research output. During the later stages of the research project, opportunities for further trialling of the framework as well as potential sources and partners for funding the further development of this integrated approach will be explored by the researcher and the research partners.