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

Forrest, Steven; Trell, Elen‐Maarja; Woltjer, Johan

Authors

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Mr Steven Forrest S.A.Forrest@hull.ac.uk
Lecturer in Flood Resilience and Sustainable Transformations

Elen‐Maarja Trell

Johan Woltjer



Abstract

There is an increasing emphasis on the local level as well as growing expectations regarding civil society actors in flood‐risk management in the UK. However, not enough is known about the potential contributions of civil society to flood resilience at the local level. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by conceptualising flood resilience at the local level across three phases inherent to flood disasters: pre‐flood, during the flood and post‐flood. These phases act as the foundation for this paper's exploration of the contributions of civil society to local‐level flood resilience. Data were collected before, during and after the 2015 Boxing Day floods through interviews (in 2015 and 2017) and from secondary data sources. The paper identifies the importance of time and place when analysing civil society contributions to local level flood resilience. These contributions were dynamic over time with a strong initial response that diminished over time due to apathy, “active forgetting” and lack of further exposure. Exposure and a sense of community strongly influenced civil society contributions to flood resilience in the Upper Calder Valley. Issues of representation and varying place‐based capacities were also identified as relevant for flood resilience‐based policies. These results have larger implications for our understanding of the contributions of civil society actors to flood resilience and suggest that while they can deliver better local context‐specific approaches, there needs to be caution over the long‐term sustainability and longevity of their contributions.

Citation

Forrest, S., Trell, E., & Woltjer, J. (2019). Civil society contributions to local level flood resilience: Before, during and after the 2015 Boxing Day floods in the Upper Calder Valley. Transactions - Institute of British Geographers, 44(2), 422-436. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12279

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 4, 2018
Online Publication Date Nov 30, 2018
Publication Date 2019-06
Deposit Date May 5, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Print ISSN 0020-2754
Electronic ISSN 1475-5661
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 44
Issue 2
Pages 422-436
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12279
Keywords Civil society; England; Flood groups; Flooding; Resilience
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3689079

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Publisher Licence URL
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).© 2018 The Authors. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute ofBritish Geographers).

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.





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