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URflood: Case Studies

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URflood hopes to produce guidance for use throughout the EU looking at how to implement good practice flood communications and how to respond to differences in how information is interpreted and utilised.

Please use the links below to read more about the country specific case studies

Scotland

Will use discussion groups to elicit what information is reaching our participants, how they make sense of it and how they have or will use the information to respond to long term flood risk and acute flood events. We also intend handing out questionnaires to occupants of properties who have been flooded and those that have not to obtain a basline data set relating to public perceptions fo flood risk, warning and communication.

We intend on having both urban and rural flood risk case study areas and to have two groups in each one representing emergency responders and responsible authorities and the other being the general public.

The case study areas we have chosen are as follows:-

  • Huntly, which is located in Aberdeenshire and has been affected by river flooding. Please click here to view questionnaire sent out to the flood affected area of Huntly (Meadows Area), and here to view questionnaire sent out to an area unaffected by flooding in Huntly (Castle Park and Bogie Area).
  • Newburgh, which is located in Aberdeenshire and has been affected by coastal flooding
  • Moffat, which is located in Dumfries & Galloway and has been affected by river flooding . Please click here to view Moffat questionnaire.
  • Dalbeattie, which is located in Kirkcudbrightshire and has been affected by river flooding.
  • Newton Stewart, whihc is located in Wigtownshire and has been affected by river flooding. Please click here to view Newton Stewart questionnaire.
  • White Cart, which is located in Glasgow which has been risk from river flooding, although also benefits from a flood protection scheme. Please click here to view Glasgow questionnaire.

These groups will then be reconvened to ask individuals to evaluate the new communication process and discuss their responses to this material and the implications of our findings for knowledge systems more generally. A new conceptual map of how the new information is used in their knowledge systems will be produced.

Participatory concept mapping techniques will be used to understand different knowledge systems, getting individuals to create their models and then comparing them in a facilitated discussion.

Ireland

Surveys and focus groups of both stakeholders and the agencies responsible for implementing flood measures will be undertaken to develop case studies in areas that have experienced serious flooding. These case study areas include Dublin; Clonmel, Co. Tipperary; Ballinasloe, Co. Galway and Wexford Town, Co. Wexford. The reasons behind choosing these sites are discussed below:-

  • The downstream extent of the River Dodder in Dublin was chosen as communities in this area are vulnerable to fluvial, pluvial and coastal flood risks. Please click here to view Dublin questionnaire.
  • Clonmel, Co. Tipperary has a long history of fluvial flooding from the River Suir and was included for this reason. Please click here to view Clonmel questionnaire.
  • Ballinasloe, Co. Galway was selected as a case study area where the risk is relatively new. Areas of this town were severely flooded from the River Suck in November 2009, but prior to this, there was little history of significant floods in the area. Please click here to view Ballinasloe questionnaire.
  • Wexford Town experienced extensive inundation from a tidal surge in October 2004 and was chosen as a case study site where coastal floods are the main risk. Please click here to view Wexford questionnaire.

Each case study draws on the experiences of those affected by these risks to determine how interpretive uncertainties in the communication chain can be better understood so that improved communication strategies for effective flood risk management can be developed.

Finland

The approach will be on the regional scale using a survey with a sample characterized on the basis of their type of living and age.  The survey will be implemented in Rovaniemi to establish attitudes to communication and interaction. Rovaniemi was last flooded in 1993. Please click here to view Rovaniemi questionnaire.

In the flood prone area, any new flood information (e.g. internet, posting maps, putting signs beside roads) will be disseminated and inhabitants’ responses to this material will be assessed.  The analysis will then compare to previous findings and in a participatory seminar at the study area.

Italy

Interviews and focus groups will be undertaken, in order to establish base line knowledge systems both on flooding in a specific area and on the existing local systems of information and communication. Data will be gathered using samples from populations belonging to the selected case study area in which flood risk is of particular interested in Italy.

The chosen case study site is the Prima Porta area of Rome which is located within an area prone to river flooding and Venice, in which the issue of coastal flooding is of increasing importance.

Using the same sample groups quantitative methods will be used in order to test the efficacy and efficiency of different communication systems: It is envisaged that the following methods will be adopted:-

  1. questionnaires including different written flooding scenarios which will be created manipulating theoretically relevant variables; Please click here to view Prima Porta Questionnaire
  2. simulations using video flooding scenarios which again will be created manipulating theoretically relevant variables.

These methods will be applied according to a between-subjects design, namely using different but equivalent samples for different experimental conditions (communication systems). If there will be the opportunity, also a within-subjects design will be carried out using a pre- post- intervention study with an equivalent control group.

Both quantitative and qualitative features of the communication system will be considered as independent variables.

Research

Areas of Interest


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The James Hutton Research Institute is the result of the merger in April 2011 of MLURI and SCRI. This merger formed a new powerhouse for research into food, land use, and climate change.