| Imagining flood futures: risk assessment and management in practice. | |
| | |
MedLine Citation:
|
PMID: 21464071 Owner: NLM Status: In-Data-Review |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
|
The mantra that policy and management should be 'evidence-based' is well established. Less so are the implications that follow from 'evidence' being predictions of the future (forecasts, scenarios, horizons) even though such futures define the actions taken today to make the future sustainable. Here, we consider the tension between 'evidence', reliable because it is observed, and predictions of the future, unobservable in conventional terms. For flood risk management in England and Wales, we show that futures are actively constituted, and so imagined, through 'suites of practices' entwining policy, management and scientific analysis. Management has to constrain analysis because of the many ways in which flood futures can be constructed, but also because of commitment to an accounting calculus, which requires risk to be expressed in monetary terms. It is grounded in numerical simulation, undertaken by scientific consultants who follow policy/management guidelines that define the futures to be considered. Historical evidence is needed to deal with process and parameter uncertainties and the futures imagined are tied to pasts experienced. Reliance on past events is a challenge for prediction, given changing probability (e.g. climate change) and consequence (e.g. development on floodplains). So, risk management allows some elements of risk analysis to become unstable (notably in relation to climate change) but forces others to remain stable (e.g. invoking regulation to prevent inappropriate floodplain development). We conclude that the assumed separation of risk assessment and management is false because the risk calculation has to be defined by management. Making this process accountable requires openness about the procedures that make flood risk analysis more (or less) reliable to those we entrust to produce and act upon them such that, unlike the 'pseudosciences', they can be put to the test of public interrogation by those who have to live with their consequences. |
| | |
Authors:
|
Stuart N Lane; Catharina Landström; Sarah J Whatmore |
Publication Detail:
|
Type: Journal Article |
Journal Detail:
|
Title: Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences Volume: 369 ISSN: 1364-503X ISO Abbreviation: Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci Publication Date: 2011 May |
Date Detail:
|
Created Date: 2011-04-05 Completed Date: - Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
|
Nlm Unique ID: 101133385 Medline TA: Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci Country: England |
Other Details:
|
Languages: eng Pagination: 1784-806 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
|
Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience and Department of Geography, Durham University, , Durham, UK. |
Export Citation:
|
APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex |
| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
|
|
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Previous Document: How urban societies can adapt to resource shortage and climate change.
Next Document: Why genetically modified crops?