Building constituencies for flood risk management: Critical insights from a flood defences dispute in Ireland

Abstract

Stakeholder consultation and participation are often viewed as an essential component of hazards governance and disaster risk reduction. However, an extensive literature in the fields of hazards management, disaster risk reduction, planning, and environmental governance has highlighted numerous challenges that have constrained attempts to increase participation in decision-making. Some scholars have called for transformative alternative approaches based on engaging broader constituencies of interest or on refocusing decision-making from knowledge transfer to relationship building. This paper contrasts consultative and constituency building models of hazards governance through an examination of a disputed flood relief scheme in Cork, Ireland. Despite extensive stakeholder consultation, the proposed Lower Lee Flood Relief Scheme has been the subject of an ongoing dispute between local groups supporting and opposing its implementation. This dispute has prompted a range of interested parties to become involved in debating flood risk management options for Cork City. This has increased both the number of people engaging with issues related to flood risk management and the basis on which they have done so. The ways in which these wider constituencies of interest have emerged highlight important challenges and opportunities for flood risk management, as well as for hazards governance more generally.