Sub-Contracting Risk: Neoliberal Policy Agendas and the Changing Nature of Flood Risk Management
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Hull
Department Name: Geography, Environment and Earth Science
Abstract
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Organisations
Publications
Bankoff G
(2013)
The 'English Lowlands' and the North Sea Basin System: A History of Shared Risk
in Environment and History
Coulthard T
(2010)
The Hull floods of 2007: implications for the governance and management of urban drainage systems
in Journal of Flood Risk Management
Haughton G
(2015)
In search of 'lost' knowledge and outsourced expertise in flood risk management
in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Haughton G
(2014)
The murky waters of flood policy
in Town and Country Planning
Haughton G
(2016)
Groundhogday: the great floods of 2015
in Town and Country Planning
Haughton G
(2018)
Risky spaces: Creating, contesting and communicating lines on environmental hazard maps
in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
| Description | Our research examines the parallel discourses of 'lost' local flood expertise and the growing use of commercial consultancies to outsource aspects of flood risk work. We critically examine the various claims and counter-claims about lost, local and external expertise in flood management, focusing on the aftermath of the 2007 floods in East Yorkshire. Drawing on interviews with consultants, drainage engineers and others we caution against claims that privilege 'local' floods knowledge as 'good' and expert knowledge as somehow suspect. By presenting partial pictures of the reconfiguration of professional, lay and other sources of knowledge, powerful credibility claims are being made that invoke selective accounts of the benefits of local knowledge which rely in part on the parallel denigrating of expert knowledge, appealing to populist 'common sense' notions about the respective merits of locals and remote experts. |
| Exploitation Route | Listen carefully and be critical about those who claim that flood risk knowledge is 'lost' or that 'local' flood risk knowledge is somehow more trustworthy than other sources of knowledge. There is a danger of poor policy emerging out of such over-simplistic claims. |
| Sectors | Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |