Mapping Flood Recovery Gaps Phase 2: Final Report. Scaling up and creating legacy

Amen-Thompson, Ejuma; Davidson, Giles; Forrest, Steven; Smith, Kate

Abstract

Executive Summary:
the Aviva Foundation, addresses critical gaps in UK post-flood recovery processes. In Phase 1, a systematic literature review and stakeholder interviews were the foundation of an innovative and interactive tool, the bespoke serious game, “The Flood Recovery Game,” created to explore this challenge. (De Ita et.al, 2022). Phase 2 of the project focused on evaluating demand, refining the Flood Recovery Game workshopping toolkit, and exploring strategies for sustainable and scalable deployment, to improve recovery outcomes across diverse regions and stakeholder groups.

Accordingly, Phase 2 provided useful insights into the demand, refinement, and scalability of the Flood Recovery Game:

Strong Demand Across Sectors: Surveys and workshops revealed significant interest in the toolkit, with up to 81% of respondents recognising its utility in disaster preparedness, education, and decision-making.

Identified Modifications: Stakeholders recommended enhancements, including user-friendly features, diverse scenarios, tailored guidance, and accessibility improvements, to ensure the toolkit’s applicability across varied contexts.

Barriers to Adoption: Affordability, lack of awareness, and resource constraints emerged as key barriers, highlighting the need for flexible funding models.

Collaborative Engagement: Workshops demonstrated the toolkit’s ability to bridge communication gaps, strengthen collaboration, and support community engagement around flood recovery challenges.

Phase 2 findings underscore the utility of the Flood Recovery Game toolkit and confirm potential for continued/wider deployment. Three complementary and potentially sequential routes for deployment are identified:

1. In-house model: least upfront investment, shortest lead-time, strong research connectivity, dependent on availability of in-house resource, smallest reach

2. Franchise/Partner model: modest upfront investment, relatively short lead time, good research connectivity, accesses wider delivery resources, medium reach

3. Open market model: requires substantial additional investment upfront, longest lead time, potential for high volume of research data but less control of data quality, potential for widest reach and impact.

It is recommended that future work should focus on implementing identified refinements to the toolkit, piloting sustainable deployment models and building capacity towards deploying widely to ensure broad impact and legacy. The University of Hull is actively exploring partnerships and strategies to scale and sustain these efforts. These next steps aim to enhance community resilience, foster collaboration, and support the optimisation of flood recovery practices in a changing climate.

Citation

Amen-Thompson, E., Davidson, G., Forrest, S., & Smith, K. (2025). Mapping Flood Recovery Gaps Phase 2: Final Report. Scaling up and creating legacy. Aviva

• Report Type: Research Report
• Online Publication Date: Jun 19, 2025
• Publication Date: 2025
• Deposit Date: Jun 12, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 19, 2025
• Publisher: University of Hull
• Pages: 30
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/5235245