session 6: the challenge of public participation - …...multiple flood risk strategies and the...

Session 6:The challenge of public participation

Thursday 4 February 2016, 16:15-17:45

Brussels, STAR-FLOOD final conference

Classic approach: investments in ‘flood defence’

Participation, a necessity

� Involvement of diverse policy domains

� Involvement of a broad range of public, private and

civil society actors

Multiple calls to involve the public

� Aarhus convention 1998

� Floods directive 2007/60/EC

� Making space for water strategy 2004, England

� Act on civil security 2004, France

� …

Multiple initiatives to start sharing responsibility

�Multiple initiatives to encourage citizens to embrace

partial responsibility for flood risk managemnt

� For the uptake of property-level measures

� Enhancing preparedness for flooding etc.

Participation, a challenge

Involving the public in Flood Risk Management (FRM) is

a challenge. How to get people involved? Who to

involve? What to expect from participation?

Guest lecture of prof. dr. Marc Craps

Session programme

16:15 – 16:20 Introduction

16:20 – 16:40 Keynote speach, prof. dr. Marc Craps

16:40 – 16:45 Short intro to the roundtable discussions

16:45 – 17:25 Two round table discussions in parallel

� Efforts to engage citizens in flood emergency management

� Involving citizens in flood risk mitigation

17:25 – 17:35 Plenary feedback of the roundtables

17:35 – 17:45 Some concluding reflections, ir. Jan van den Bossche, Grontmij Belgium

Keynote speach

“The challenge of

public participation in

flood risk management”

by prof. dr. Marc Craps

Available time:

16:20 – 16:40

The Challenge of Public Participation

in Flood Risk Management

Marc Craps, Centre for Economics and Corporate

Sustainability, KU Leuven, Belgium

Star Flood ConferenceBrussels, February 4, 2016

Towards resilient flood risk governance

arrangements

• Introduction: resilience & flood risk

o Social-relational approach

o Multiple strategies simultaneously

• Governance arrangements

o Different actors & blurring boundaries

o Different discourses: framing & reframing

o Power resources – action strategies

o Interaction rules to co-create knowledge

• Concluding reflections

Craps (2016) Participation in flood risk - StarFlood Conference, Brussels

“…Resilience is the capacity of a system — be

it an individual, a forest, a city, or an economy

— to deal with change and continue to

develop. It is both about withstanding shocks

and disturbances (like climate change or

financial crisis) and using such events to

catalyze renewal, novelty, and innovation.

In human systems, resilience thinking

emphasizes learning and social diversity.

At the level of the biosphere, it focuses on the

interdependence of people and nature, the

dynamic interplay of slow and gradual

change…”

Carl Folke,

Director

Stockholm

Resilience

Institute, Doctor

Honoris Causa

KU Leuven 2015

A social-relational approach of

sustainability


Multiple flood risk

strategies and

the challenge of

participation


Prevention

p.ej.

Spatial

planning

Flood

defence

p.ej.

Dikes &

dams

Mitigation

p.ej.

Green

infrastruct

.Urban

managmt

Preparation

p.ej.

Warning

systems,

evacuation

Recovery

p.ej.

Restoring,

insurance

Complex situations & interdependent actors

Multiple actors – blurring boundaries

From government to

multi-actor

governance

From consumers to

active civil society

From business only

to corporate

sustainability

From “the Science”

to co-creating

knowledge


Different discoursese.g. framing of river basin

“a representational process in which we present or express how we make sense of situations” (Gray, 2003)

Framing river basin management as: Preferred by:

Policy preparation Public officers

Technical study Consultants, technical

specialists

Nature conservation Citizen groups identified

with nature

Flood prevention Local governments


From participation to multi-actor governance

• Institutions

• Legal power

• Positional

• Bureaucracy

• Efficiency, transparency,

accountability, participation

• Stakeholders

• Legitimate interests

• Relational

• Community

• Networks, partnerships,

distributed initiatives

“We define together our

problem and solutions”

Multi-actor

network

Government

People

Public

participation


From participation to multi-actor governance

Citizens Governments

Representative Passive Directing

Consultative Defensive Listening &

controlling

Interactive Actively

contributing

Proactively

involving

Direct Issuing,

initiating, co-

deciding

Facilitating and

supporting


Power & different action strategies (based on Bouwen & Fry, 1991)

Positionalpower

Discursivepower

Knowledge power

Joint learning

Role leader

Authority Communi-cator

Specialist Coach,facilitator

Decisionprocess

Impose top-down

Influence, convince

Analytical, rational decision

2-way communication, consultation, consensus

Criteria Quick % of followers

Technical criteria

Shared meaning

Learning Accept Imitate Learn cognitively

Why and how change

When? Crisis, lack of time

One-sided interest

Structured problem

Complexproblem, Inter-dependence


Co-creating knowledge

Transactional mode

• Dominant way

• Defending vested

interests

• Each actor focusing on

own interests

• Distributive negotiations,

bargaining (win – lose)

• Formal procedures:

interactions between

institutional

“representatives”

Co-creating mode

• Mutual, open-ended

commitment

• Actors think and act

identifying with what they

share

• Integrative negotiations,

looking for synergies

• Relational process:

interactions between

“authentic” persons


• Search Conference,

World Café, Open

Space, …

• Art works

• Prototyping

• Outdoor activities

• …

Co-creating knowledge


Relational practices

“Relational practices are

task-centered actions

with relational qualities

of reciprocity and reflexivity,

enabling all relevant stakeholders

to connect with a shared domain,

in a meaningful way for themselves

and for the rest of the group.”

“There is no method, just watch the relationship”

(McNamee)


Some concluding reflections• Structures and procedures for public participation:

o necessary but not sufficient

o Motivation to engage

o Quality of mutual listening and contributing

• Histories of non-involvement:

o Skepticism, anger, anxiety

o Trust = slow to gain, easy to loose

• Expert and local (lay) persons

o Local communities and governments need experts!

o But expertise need also contextualization by local knowledge

• Not “less government” but different involvement and sharedresponsibilities

o Organizing and facilitating participation & dialogue

o Stimulate citizen initiatives


Roundtable discussions

Roundtable 1: Efforts to engage citizens in flood emergency

management

Chaired by: Dr. Meghan Alexander

Roundtable 2: Involving citizens in flood risk mitigation

Chaired by: Hannelore Mees & Maria Kaufmann

Overarching questions

1. What are the opportunities and barriers to

delivering effective public participation initiatives?

2. What are the conditions for success in public

participation initiatives?

3. What factors constrain public participation

initiatives?

4. What factors constrain the transferability of one

initiative from one country to another?

Efforts to engage citizens in flood

emergency management Chaired by Dr. Meghan Alexander

1. In what ways are the citizens

being encouraged to engage

with flood emergency

management?

2. What are the opportunities

and barriers to delivering

effective public participation

initiatives in emergency

management?

3. What are the conditions for

success in such initiatives?

Speakers:

Francis Comyn, Rochdale Borough

Council, England

Jakub Lewandowski, sociologist of the

Institute of Agricultural and Forest

Environment of the Polish Academy of

Sciences in Poznan (Poland) and STAR-

FLOOD researcher

Sylvia Gahlin of the City of Nice –

Department of Risk Management

Involving citizens in flood risk mitigation

Chaired by Hannelore Mees & Maria Kaufmann

• Presentation by Robbie Craig (Defra, UK):

Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder Scheme

• First responses by Bram Vogels (VMM, Flanders) and François Mayer (SPW, Wallonia)

• Group discussion on opportunities of and barriersto flood damage prevention at household-level

Overarching questions





3. What factors constrain public participation initiatives?



Roundtable discussionsAvailable time: 16:45 – 17:25

Plenary feedback of the roundtable discussions

Responses to overarching questions:





3. What factors constrain public participation initiatives?



Available time: 17:25 – 17:35

Closingby Jan van den Bossche

Good practices on participation

• PAPI (Action plan for flood risk prevention): France (intigrated planning)

• River contracts in Wallonia (how to collaborate in river basins)

• Multi-level cooperation in Dordrecht, the Netherland (How to build

bridges between different governmental levels).

• Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder Scheme in England (How to

raise awareness and action by citizens)

• Flood action groups and flood wardens in England

• Firefighters, volunteers and local leaders in Poland

Still today:

18:00 - 19:00 Drinks

19:00 – 21:30 Dinner

Tomorrow 8:30 – 9:45

Three new parallel sessions

session 6: the challenge of public participation - …...multiple flood risk strategies and the...

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