Flooding and Professional

Dialogue: scientists and local

decision-makers exchange ideas

Carolyn Roberts1, Alison Stokes1,

Lindsey McEwen2 and Kate Crowley3

1University of Oxford, UK 2University of the West of England, UK

3CAFOD

Water Security, Risk and Society, International Water Security Conference, 16-18th

April 2012, University of Oxford, Oxford

Funded by NERC Knowledge Exchange Grant NE/HOO1786/1

• ‘Most local decision-makers are extremely busy with routine matters, and rarely find time to consider research findings from hydrologists carefully’ (Weis, 1986)

• ‘Engaging the public in science and technology is a popular theme within government and academia’ (Stocklmayer et al., 2001)

• ‘Dissemination of scientific findings is rarely evaluated and so the effectiveness of different styles of programme is usually unknown’ (Meyer, 2010)

• Science excellence is the primary criterion for assessing proposals

• User engagement is key to achieving successful impact

• Knowledge exchange is the process by which impact is achieved (NERC: Pathways to Impact, 2011)

July 2007,

approximately

4,000 houses and

500 businesses

flooded in

Gloucestershire

alone

Old and new

properties in towns

and villages, many

on ‘non-floodplain’

areas, were

inundated

‘In terms of scale, complexity

and duration, this is simply

the largest <UK> peacetime

emergency we’ve seen’

Chief Constable, Dr. Tim

Brain

A ‘1 in 400+ year’ event? • 1st June to 31st August: 200-

250% long term average rainfall across most of the catchment.

• July 2007: 400-450% long term average rainfall

• 20th July: 78mm in 12 hours widely, peaking 110mm in 2 hrs locally (1 in 443 yrs estim). 2 months rainfall in 12 hours

• Flood return period ranges between 200 and >1000 years

• Relatively few direct deaths,

unlike the 1947 flood event

• Serious economic consequences

for UK businesses, local

authorities and emergency

services. Estimated UK damage c.

£3.2 billion or US$ 5 billion across

the UK

• Single critical points of failure

emerged, such as water treatment

plants, electricity stations and

transport infrastructure

• c. 400,000 people lacked safe

piped water for up to 21 days

• c. 10,000 people trapped on

flooded M5 motorway for up to 18

hours

• Civil disobedience narrowly

averted

Changes in UK legislative

responsibilities followed

The ‘Pitt

Review’, 2008

Word cloud from

Executive Summary of

Pitt Review

‘Wicked’ problems (Rittel

and Webber,1973) • Poorly formulated and complex issues,

that may not be fully understood by the

decision makers

• Physical and human/social dimensions

• Many ‘actors’ or stakeholders

• Competing value systems

• Ambiguous terminology and language

• Spatial and temporal interdependency

• Lack of clear, agreed solutions

• ‘Wicked’ planning problems require new,

more fluid ways of thinking, sharing of

ideas and taking decisions even in the

light of uncertainty

• Empowered participation is required

Learning for the next flood – Agreed needs of Local Authority

stakeholders

• Understanding, to enable application of

principles in new, unfamiliar circumstances

to improve emergency response and

community resilience

• Ability to translate for other non-specialists

• Ability to communicate complexity to

residents or fellow workers

• Ability to have a dialogue with specialists

• ‘Reframing’ and ‘transformation’ not sought

Characteristics of the Local

Authority participants

Officers • Technical through to

social or admin. roles

• Senior to junior positions

• Wide age range

• More men than women

• May not be motivated, but may be required to undertake staff development

• May be emotionally involved

Elected Members • Diverse personal

circumstances

• Typically retired and elderly (60+)

• Frequently ex-professional occupations

• Some with limited formal educational backgrounds

• Motivated and astute

• Short of time

• Emotionally involved

• Theory-informed pedagogic design

• Scientific inquiry/problem-based activities

• Focussed on co-creation of knowledge

• Scientific literacy promoted

• Critical and evaluative skills developed

• Reflection and adaptive learning built in

• Interaction and communication skills enhanced

• Inclusive and emancipatory

• Communities of practice developed

• Motivational and exciting

Desirable characteristics of

their learning experiences

Virtual on-line workshops

Through Second Life, participants take part in an interactive seminar, framed around basic and research-related material and case studies, using personal avatars

Participant-led (role play) workshops

Participants interact, socialise and develop understanding through case study-related role-plays, drawing upon specialist research materials when they see a need

Expert-led (conventional) workshops

Basic and research-related material presented to the participants through seminars and short interactive activities

Picture courtesy of the deep|think islands, Department of Computing, The Open University, UK

• Encourages

collaboration and

socialization

• Individual presence

• Stimulating

interactive

environment

• Knowledge sharing capabilities

• Creativity

• Experiential

learning

• Dissolution of

social and

professional

barriers

• Cost benefit

• No travel

• Cross

county/country

networking

Why VLEs?

SecondLife?

“Members find email enough of a challenge! I can’t imagine them getting on well with

the virtual world approach”

“It may motivate those who do not enjoy technology or do not respond

well to other training practices”

Preferences for ‘engagement’

methods (pre workshop)

Need to know...skills and

content for ‘understanding’

• Basics of flood science and systems thinking

• Shared language

• Concepts of probability, risk and uncertainty

• Flood forecasting, mapping and modelling

• Influence of climate change

• Human influence on flooding

• Social and economic impact of flooding

• Solving ‘wicked’ problems, for example

through Sustainable Drainage Systems

Weather

generator

rainfall

G2G Flows

Flood risk and

inundation

modelling using

Infoworks RS

Flood scientists explaining

their research - ‘Talking Heads’

Evaluation of process and outcomes by

triangulating semi-quantitative,

‘grounded theory’ and emergent themes

approaches

• 100 pre-workshop questionnaires (24% Councillors)

• 83 post-workshop questionnaires (20% Councillors)

• 36 individual pre-workshop interviews

• 29 individual post-workshop interviews

• Five partner focus groups, and three partner interviews

• Three facilitator interviews

• Observations of workshop sessions

Experiences in workshops

Expert-led

It has to be interactive, which

it was. You’ve got to allow

enough time for questions

and answers (Officer)

Personally I don’t like

interaction very

much so I’d rather sit

back and take in

information. (Officer)

...even though I

personally quite like

lecture style...you just

don’t get that

interaction with

different people,

different partners...

(Officer)

I think it will be invaluable

to elected Members

because you’ve got to be

able to put it on the radar,

keep it on the radar, in a

way. The simple messages

are the ones that stick

(Councillor)

I’d have to say that the

final bit in relation to

the Cypress Gardens

(case study) was

invaluable (Councillor)

...although there’s no

substitute for actual real

life incidents, the nearest

you can get to that is

through role play (Officer)

Experiences in workshops

Participant-led/Role play

... there was some

opportunity for some

people to be very proactive

and very active in the

group, and others sitting

back... (Officer)

...it helps break down

barriers in the group

because some people can

be fairly outgoing and

boisterous and some

people can be quite shy...

(Officer)

...you can just go off and

start talking about

something different and

then it goes off in the

wrong direction really. It’s

bad for learning the

specific things but still

good just to hear (Officer)

...the thought of it was

worse than it actually

was... (Councillor)

Experiences in workshops

Virtual, SecondLife™

It’s a different style. It

probably kept my

attention for longer than

just sitting in a room in a

lecture-style listening to

somebody although it still

involved slideshows

(Officer)

We all lead busy lives and I can see real

advantages of joining that group...all

the obvious ones about saving

transport costs, but there was

something else there that I wasn’t really

expecting. I still can’t explain why I was

taken by it (Officer)

...it was interactive. I

never thought [the

facilitator] was just

talking to us because she

was provoking questions,

and making us think. I

thought she did that well

(Councillor)

Strangely enough, I found it a

d**m sight easier than I thought

it was going to be! When I

walked in on that first morning,

I saw the laptops and I thought

‘Oh my God, no’... (Resilience

Group Member)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Officer* Councillor Tutor-led Role play* Virtual* All*

Mean

sco

re

Participants’ self-ratings of sufficiency of flood-related knowledge for professional role: rated from 1=entirely insufficient to 10-entirely sufficient, * denotes statistically significant difference between pre and post-workshop mean scores (p<0.05).

Pre-workshop Post-workshop

Perceived impact on knowledge

Key influences on attitudes

to participation • Prior knowledge and skills (information,

technical, spatial, temporal understanding)

• Motivations, such as job role

• Institutional and legal requirements

• Economic opportunities and constraints

• Individual personal and cultural

characteristics of stakeholders

• Contextual and networking aspects

• Procedural aspects of interactions

Procedural Aspects of

Interactions

• Role of specialist versus generic delivery teams,

and their credibility in various realms

• Role of ‘leaders’ as deliverers or facilitators

• Availability and navigability of IT systems

• Choice of content, including local exemplification,

and currency

• Acceptability and context of interaction methods

• Choice of curriculum content and style

• Integration of ‘expert science’ with basic principles

General lessons about

‘communicating flood science’ • Work in partnership from the start – listen to,

and act on, stakeholders’ needs

• Scientists must provide straightforward,

concise and jargon-free information

• Use diagrams, visualisations and animations of

risk and uncertainty

• Define terminology and methods used clearly

• Be clear about the uncertainty and

assumptions embedded in hydrological models

• Find the points of connection and choose the

interaction method carefully