‘Signals’ from pre-crisis discourse: Lessons from UK flooding for global environmental policy change?

Penning‐Rowsell, Edmund C.; Johnson, Clare; Tunstall, Sylvia

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.01.006

Cited by 158 publications

(134 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…This effect can be mainly attributed to the enhanced coping and adaptation capacities gained by the community during their earlier experience of flooding. Besides informal dynamics, flood risk management policy also responds to flood events [Johnson et al, 2005;Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013;Penning-Rowsell et al, 2006]. Early warning systems, community engagement programs to raise awareness to flood risk, and changes to land use planning are examples of adaptation measures that often occur at the local or central government level following a flood event.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Baldassarre

Viglione²,

Carr

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

392

369

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In flood risk assessment, there remains a lack of analytical frameworks capturing the dynamics emerging from two-way feedbacks between physical and social processes, such as adaptation and levee effect. The former, ''adaptation effect'', relates to the observation that the occurrence of more frequent flooding is often associated with decreasing vulnerability. The latter, ''levee effect'', relates to the observation that the non-occurrence of frequent flooding (possibly caused by flood protection structures, e.g. levees) is often associated to increasing vulnerability. As current analytical frameworks do not capture these dynamics, projections of future flood risk are not realistic. In this paper, we develop a new approach whereby the mutual interactions and continuous feedbacks between floods and societies are explicitly accounted for. Moreover, we show an application of this approach by using a socio-hydrological model to simulate the behavior of two main prototypes of societies: green societies, which cope with flooding by resettling out of flood-prone areas; and technological societies, which deal with flooding also by building levees or dikes. This application shows that the proposed approach is able to capture and explain the aforementioned dynamics (i.e. adaptation and levee effect) and therefore contribute to a better understanding of changes in flood risk, within an iterative process of theory development and empirical research.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Baldassarre

Viglione²,

Carr

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

392

369

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the context of flood policy, Penning-Rowsell et al (2006) examined four major flood events in the UK and the policies step changes that followed. They provide empirical evidence in support of Kingdon's "windows of opportunity" thesis as well as highlighting long periods of relatively stable policies.…”

Section: Kingdon's Multiple Streams Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Policy change is often driven by the immediacy of the event (Wilkins 2000) and the news media provide a powerful means of emphasising a need for urgent action. This sense of urgency can risk compromising long-term approaches to risk reduction and tends to bring forward ideas that already exist (Penning-Rowsell et al 2006). In this case, engineering-oriented policy responses to previous flooding, since superseded in influence, became resurgent in the development of a new 20-year flood plan and the revitalization of dredging regional rivers.…”

Section: Media Influence On Shaping Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kingdon's (1995) thesis on policy change, known as the Multiple Streams Framework, offers a heuristic for understanding how and why environmental policies gain or lose political support in fields such as climate change (Keskitalo et al 2013;Pralle 2009), flood risk (Johnson et al 2005;Penning-Rowsell et al 2006), and food production (Ackrill & Kay 2011). For Kingdon, a major crisis can act as a catalyst for change, opening up 'windows of opportunity' that allow new ideas, or existing ones, to jump up the policy agenda as the three streams: (i) defining what is the problem, (ii) identifying what are the policy responses, and (iii) the politics of the situation at hand, all converge.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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“We cannot let this happen again”: reversing UK flood policy in response to the Somerset Levels floods, 2014

Smith

Porter

Upham

2016

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

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“…This transition has been characterised into three key phases and phrases: 'land drainage', 'flood defence' and, more recently, 'flood risk management' -each of which reflect a fundamental shift in the dominant beliefs, values and attitudes of society towards the flood problem (Johnson, Tunstall & Penning-Rowsell, 2005;Tunstall et al, 2004). Research has also examined the impact of flood crises as creating 'windows of opportunity' for promoting and fostering policy change (Penning-Rowsell, Johnson & Tunstall, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of UK flood insurance: incremental change over six decades

Penning‐Rowsell

Priest

Johnson

2014

International Journal of Water Resources Development

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The evolution of UK flood insurance: Incremental change over six decades Our theorising here shifts away from the catalytic role of the flood itself -or other crises -towards a deeper understanding of the relationship between change and stability, taking the example of UK flood insurance and the agreements -and the implicit policy approaches -between the relevant actors involved: the private insurers and the government. This research relies upon in-depth analysis of the policy agreements governing flood insurance since the 1960s, and semistructured interviews with six current or ex-flood insurance professionals. We have found that the important agents of change have been, firstly, the threat to existing household insurers from new entrants unencumbered by agreements to insure all-comers. Secondly, the march of technological change has made exposure more explicit and pricing risk both easier and less expensive. But the slow pace of change and the relatively stable role of the different actors and coalitions is now clearer. The many significant windows of opportunity created by major flooding or financial crises have not significantly affected the pace or direction of policy change. The overriding importance of the London location for -and the profitability of -the insurance industry, both to government and to the insurers themselves, is our explanation for the extraordinary policy stability that we have described. This particular history suggests that the UK may not be a good model for imitation elsewhere.

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‘Signals’ from pre-crisis discourse: Lessons from UK flooding for global environmental policy change?

Cited by 158 publications

References 15 publications

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

“We cannot let this happen again”: reversing UK flood policy in response to the Somerset Levels floods, 2014

The evolution of UK flood insurance: incremental change over six decades

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