Characteristics of flood risk research and methodological requirements to understand the dynamics of human-flood relationships

Characteristics of flood risk research and methodological requirements to understand the dynamics of human-flood relationships

Flood risk is one of the most pressing global challenges, exacerbated by climate change, urbanisation and land-use change leading to more frequent and severe flood events. Addressing these risks requires overcoming three key challenges: building a robust knowledge base for disaster risk reduction at all stages, developing strategies and measures that address current risks while managing uncertainties, and effectively implementing these strategies within the disaster risk reduction cycle. Understanding the feedback loops in human water and flood risk systems is a prerequisite for overcoming these challenges.

Transdisciplinary approaches integrate scientific methods with regional knowledge and practical expertise. For example, transdisciplinary or participatory methods can be used to validate data, identify regional hot spots, develop relevant scenarios and possible adaptation measures and identify implementation and decision-making structures for the actual realisation of measures.

Flood risk research has certain characteristics. It is highly complex. Various interlinked factors influence flood risk within and between environmental and social systems. Different flood risk factors at different spatial and temporal scales influence the occurrence of floods, and exposure and vulnerability affect the actual risk that materialises. Different temporal scales lead to different levels of flood risk and require targeted measures. Technical tools such as hydrological and hydrodynamic flood models are crucial for understanding and visualising processes and interrelationships as well as possible development options. Missing data or a lack of detail influence the informative value and increase uncertainties, especially at the local level. Finally yet importantly, flood risk and vulnerability are highly context-specific and localised in specific historical, cultural and social circumstances.

In this article, we describe the requirements arising from these characteristics and the resulting demands on and potential for transdisciplinary research. We draw on findings from the PARADeS project, a collaborative research initiative on flood risk management in Ghana.

We describe the framework and possible methods for a. knowledge co-production to understand interactions within the flood risk system, among others; b. social learning to understand the complexity of human-flood interactions and causes; and b. capacity building, e.g. to create and use a flood information system to learn about impacts and feedbacks in the Ghanaian flood risk system.

The combined and complementary quantitative and qualitative methods significantly improve the information base for proactive flood risk prevention, clarify structural and social conditions, interlinkages and contexts for implementation and thus identify efficient flood risk reduction measures.