Rural Society | VOL. 23
Read
Flooding and food security: A case study of community resilience in Rockhampton
Abstract
In early 2011 the regional city of Rockhampton was cut-off from its main sources of food supply by unprecedented flooding across the State of Queensland. Despite the existence of local and state government disaster management plans, the Rockhampton community was highly vulnerable to food insecurity during this time. We argue that this vulnerability was due both to its reliance on long food supply chains that were disrupted due to loss of transport access and infrastructure, as well as to the relative lack of local, alternative, food distribution channels. However, the experience of Rockhampton also illustrates numerous examples of community resilience. In this article, we consider the ways that different actors within the community (including government, private sector, industry and community groups) mobilised resources, information and relationships in order to ensure food security for the city during the flooding crisis of 2011. This draws upon an understanding of community resilience as the capacity to thrive and transform in an environment of change. Based on policy analysis and qualitative interviews with key actors in Rockhampton, we found that despite many examples of positive ‘collective community capacity’ in the immediate period of crisis, such as flexible and innovative use of personal ‘networking’ to move food from one location to another, numerous challenges arose in relation to formal decisionmaking and information-sharing processes. Finally, we question the extent to which the 2011 events might be influencing ...
Round-ups are the summaries of handpicked papers around trending topics published every week. These would enable you to scan through a collection of papers and decide if the paper is relevant to you before actually investing time into reading it.
Climate change Research Articles published between Aug 08, 2022 to Aug 14, 2022
Introduction: There is no consensus on the policies that should be seen as implicitly pricing carbon (see World Bank (2019a) for a discussion). The OE...
Read MoreGender Equality Research Articles published between Aug 08, 2022 to Aug 14, 2022
I would like to thank Anna Khakee, Federica Zardo and Ragnar Weilandt for their very useful comments as well as the participants of the workshop of 21...
Read MoreDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on “as is” basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The Copyright Law.