This cover sheet may not be removed from the document.Please scroll down to view the document.©2013. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Integrating Vulnerability Analysis and Risk Assessment in Flood Loss Mitigation: An evaluation of barriers and challenges based on evidence from IrelandDespite well established critiques from hazards geographers, political ecologists and other social scientists, flood hazards policy and decision-making remain dominated by a technocratic approach to risk. Environmental hazards are understood through an ecological modernisation lens that emphasises quantifying biophysical risk and technological fixes. Flood induced losses are not distinguished from flood events with prevention becoming the overall goal of decision-making and policy. Risk is viewed as an egalitarian force impacting everyone equally and socio-economic vulnerability is rarely considered in local decision-making. Drawing on empirical research from three of Ireland's coastal cities this paper presents evidence for the persistence of the technocratic approach and examines several reasons for its perseverance. The results of qualitative research including semi-structured interviews with local decisionmakers and content analyses of local and national policies illustrate that the persistence of the technocratic approach can be explained by several barriers and challenges to the integration of vulnerability research into public policy. The lack of an agreed methodology to present socio-economic vulnerability in applied and policy ready formats is a significant limitation. However the conceptual barriers to integrating perspectives on vulnerability into a decision-making and policy system that structurally and discursively frames flood risk almost exclusively in terms of physical exposure may represent an even greater challenge.

Double Exposures and Decision-Making: Adaptation policy and planning in Ireland's coastal cities during a boom-bust cycleThe importance of the interactions between global environmental and socio-economic changes in shaping vulnerability and exposure to hazards is now increasingly recognised. However relatively little attention has been focused on the ways in which these interactions help to shape planning and policy in response to both processes. This

No abstract

No abstract

This paper analyses the causes and consequences of public participation failures in flood hazards management and the important lessons they offer for climate change adaptation. Despite the potential for participatory adaptation decision-making, scholarship on adaptation has remained largely separate from the literature on participatory environmental governance. This paper brings these literatures into conversation by applying the concept of transformation to both adaptation outcomes and adaptation decision-making. Through an examination of a disputed flood relief scheme in Cork, Ireland this paper develops three main arguments. (1) It demonstrates the need for analytical approaches which recognise that what constitutes transformative adaptation will vary depending on the definitions of transformation that are used, the contexts in which these definitions are applied, and the perspectives of local stakeholders. (2) It argues that by producing an intractable conflict and damaging the reputation of the organisations responsible for hazards management, public participation failures create formidable new barriers to transformative adaptation outcomes. (3) It concludes that incremental changes to the decision-making process will prove insufficient to overcome these barriers. In order to facilitate more effective public participation in hazards management and climate change adaptation, much wider change in hazards management policy and resourcing will be required.