Announcing a new collaboration between COIN and Exeter University
After a series of workshops around the UK helping communities affected by the flooding of early 2014 to begin facing the reality of climate change, we know that most people agree on one thing: the need to be more prepared the next time the flood waters rise.
So we’re very pleased to announce that over the next 12 months, COIN is partnering with Dr Stewart Barr and Dr Ewan Woodley (of the University of Exeter), a range of regional stakeholders, and a number of local community members to develop a community resilience plan for Crediton, near Exeter.
The ‘action research’ project (where the research team investigates, but also helps to answer the question of how to increase community resilience to flooding) will ‘co-produce’ valuable new learning about the impacts, causes and management of flood events in the Crediton community.
Using an approach known as ‘competency group’ meetings, the aim is to bring together and provide a voice for people with different perspectives, skills and experience – from scientists who use computer models to predict how river catchments and flood levels will change, to local citizens’ memories of past flood events and local emergency services’ knowledge about how to manage floods in the future.
The research aims to explore the potential for this kind of knowledge co-production to enable other communities to develop their own strategies for becoming more resilient to flood events.
The project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and has been developed in collaboration with Devon County Council who will, as the co-ordinating local authority with responsibility for emergency planning, provide local knowledge and expertise. The project will also include contributions from the Environment Agency and Devon and Somerset Fire Authority.