The promise of a “people-centred” approach to floods: Types of participation in the global literature of citizen science and community-based flood risk reduction in the context of the Sendai Framework

Abstract

Floods are expected to become more intense and increasingly frequent over the coming years. Over the last few decades, scholars, policy makers and risk managers have been gradually acknowledging that community-based initiatives can represent a promising alternative for addressing the hazard of floods at the local scale. In the context of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR), this article presents a systematic literature review of the recent global body of literature on the topic. This work analyses 40 articles published over the last five years to identify the types of engagement allowed in the projects and to discuss the emerging debates in the field since the establishment of the SFDRR. The literature review interrogates where these approaches are being developed and how community-based approaches have been supporting the achievement of the SFDRR targets. The review shows that a growing body of literature has been applying community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) and citizen science methods in order to respond to the call for a more people-centred approach towards floods. This call, outlined by the SFDRR, is particularly relevant in the context of vulnerable communities such as the residents of informal settlements, which have historically been disproportionately affected by floods. The article then provides an original contribution to the field by documenting and reflecting on the firsthand findings of a long-term community-based program assessing flood risks conducted within the Revitalising Informal settlements and Their Environments (RISE) program. The article outlines the implementation, operation and initial findings of the project, which involved community-members in the documentation of flood-levels in informal settlements in Suva, Fiji and Makassar, Indonesia between 2018 and 2020. The findings from the case study suggest that approaches involving communities in flood monitoring can, beyond facilitating flood documentation, unlock additional risk reduction benefits such as enhancing social capital and facilitating risk communication. The conclusions highlight that, similar to RISE’s flood monitoring project, several other community-based initiatives have been developed all over the world. While these initiatives vary significantly in the degrees of community participation and their methods, most of the literature agrees that these emerging methods are considered particularly promising in terms of improving disaster knowledge and awareness when community members participate in disaster risk reduction. The review of this body of literature, however, indicates that more research is needed to examine how social capital as well as cultural and political aspects can be harnessed and strengthened to play important roles in the response to floods.