Implementing catchment-wide flood risk management plans: futures and justice conflicts
LAND4CLIMATE together with colleagues from Radboud University in Nijmegen (the Netherlands) recently published a new scientific article in the journal ‘Futures’, as part of the special issue “Futures for just sustainable transformations: anticipating (in)justice futures”. The article explores how projected futures are utilized to legitimize the unequal distributive outcomes of catchment-wide flood risk management plans, which have gained traction as a response to climate change-induced flood risks. These plans often implement risk reduction measures (often Nature-based Solutions (NBS)) in rural, privately owned upstream areas to protect downstream urban centers, resulting in spatial and economic limitations for the rural areas involved. Drawing on foresight and futuring studies (examining expected, preferable, and probable futures) and distributive justice theory, the paper analyses these dynamics.
The results show, first of all, that the implementation of Nature-based Solutions can create substantial impacts on individuals and communities; how to share the burdens and benefits. However, these questions are often not discussed or solved. In particular, the mismatch between what farmers, policymakers, citizens, and other actors expect and desire for future development of the area, can cause a wide range of conflicts, resulting in protests and rejection of the use of Nature-based Solutions in flood risk management.
Please find the link to the full paper here.
This article was written by LAND4CLIMATE consortium member BOKU.
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