Sustainable flood memory - trialling digital storytelling as a form of adaptive learning and knowledge exchange for resilience in at risk communities

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It is well known in the research /policy literature that there is a large gap between public awareness of flood risk, and the move towards preparedness and action. This KE project will explore how the research outcomes of the ESRC Sustainable flood memory project can be materialised and cascaded in communities and to FRM stakeholders by developing community-generated digital storytelling (CDS) practice. This ESRC knowledge exchange project will involve close co-working between the original interdisciplinary project team, and the national lead in FRM, the EA, for mutual knowledge exchange and increased impact. The ESRC Sustainable Flood Memory research project has been exploring concept of sustainable flood memory (SFM) and its links to lay knowledges and social learning for community resilience. SFM has been conceived as an approach to memory work that is community focused, archival, integrating individual and collective experiences, involving inter- and intra-generational communication and strategies for its future. Such memory incorporates watery senses of place, folk memory of flooding and flood heritage. The original ESRC Sustainable Flood Memory project has involved semi-structured interviews in three different floodplain groups, with different prior flood experience, socio-economic setting and including an urban/rural contrast. This is generating diverse thematic areas for exploration including discourses around preparedness, coping strategies and approaches to increasing resilience. The project has generated a large archive of flood narrative and materialisation (60 extended audio recordings and transcripts; photographs; media cuttings etc.). It will draw on the original research experience and its resources to explore how an approach of using community-generated and owned digital stories (CDS; 3-7 minutes audio with accompanying images) for knowledge exchange can inform how lay flood knowledge is shared, and how it can be used to build preparedness in communities. The KE process will allow a fresh exploration of strategies for social learning/ transformative learning that are vital components of flood risk planning for community preparedness, both for communities themselves and for other FRM stakeholders (like Local Authorities, Rural Community Councils etc.). The project's design will initially involve sharing/exchanging knowledge around the CDS with other flood risk communities in the lower Severn catchment. The Environment Agency has proposed Gloucester as a setting for this work as it is already going to carry out community engagement work there (two year project) related to a new flood warning area. The ESRC KE project will then trial the CDS as interventions for learning in new catchments distinct from the lower Severn catchment that are either similar and different hydrologically. The case study areas for these knowledge exchanges will be selected to be catchments where the Environment Agency is already carrying out strategic work (e.g. national programme of work on 'rapid response catchments' in SW region). All learnings gained from co-working and sharing digital stories will be shared nationally within the Environment Agency through online workshops. The project will therefore contribute to defining new active participatory approaches to engagement by the Environment Agency (and other FRM agencies) responsible for increasing community resilience to risk. The impact of the KE project will be high in policy, process and practical terms, in regional, national and international contexts that focus on increasing adaptive capacity and post flood learning - both neglected areas in flood education. This is important in the organisational and community capacity/ capability building required for the ownership of distributed approaches to residual flood risk management that devolves increased responsibility to floodplain groups/communities in dealing with residual flood risk.