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This impact case emerges from a series of research projects in the Philosophy Department at the University of Manchester (UoM) concerned with limitations in the market modes of governance that are increasingly dominant in environmental policy making. The primary impact has been on current policy debates concerning the future of flood insurance in the UK. In collaboration with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the research provided a philosophical grounding for those amongst flood affected communities, and the insurance industry, who have argued against a risk sensitive free market in insurance and for solidarity in flood insurance. This has had a significant impact on Government negotiations on the future of flood insurance — a pressing issue, as the current policy lapses in 2013 — as well as the position of the opposition Labour Party. Subsidiary impacts have been evident on the work of international NGOs working on environmental justice and debates on emerging biodiversity offset markets.
People's welfare, particularly in poorer countries, is undermined by both social vulnerability (linked to poverty, age or lack of education) and environmental hazards (both natural and the consequences of business activity). These factors are typically treated as separate policy agendas, yet in practice often negatively reinforce each other to create so-called `risk hotspots'. Research carried out by members of Cardiff Business School (CBS), created an innovative conceptual framework and a methodology to help businesses, policy-makers and communities to identify hotspots and generate well-informed management strategies to deal with underlying risk factors. Through interdisciplinary, collaborative research, the method has been developed and applied in four countries, demonstrably aiding governments in their planning and decision making to protect vulnerable populations, for example, by enabling targeted improvements of vital infrastructure.
Contingency planning to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies, including natural disasters such as flooding, is a priority for all governments. However, such planning has traditionally focussed on risk assessment and emergency response, with recovery conceived of solely in terms of repairs to infrastructure and short-term health protection. Consequently, residents' needs for support during the longer-term recovery process hardly featured at all in policy prior to our research, which has provided new insights into the nature of disaster recovery. Starting from a focussed case study of the 2007 floods in Hull, we have delivered leading research that has advanced understanding of the social, economic and practical challenges faced by people impacted by disasters. Our research has transformed the ways in which policy makers understand and manage the human impacts of the recovery from natural disasters. It has had a key role in shaping guidance, strategy and practice not only in UK responses, but globally, for example informing Australian authorities to improve their responses to both floods and bush-fires. Our impact was recognized by the ESRC in 2013, winning second place for Outstanding Impact in Public Policy, in their first ever `Celebrating Impact' awards.
Throughout the REF period our research - driven by risk assessment theory - has provided a continuously updated set of unique models, data and techniques for assessing the benefits of UK flood alleviation investment. These have been used to justify all flood alleviation investment for the whole of the UK for the whole of the REF period (c. £3bn), as well as for the previous 30 years. Our work has been central to all assessments by Defra and the Environment Agency (EA) of national flood risk (Foresight; NaFRA (England, Wales, and Scotland); LTIS) and all the Catchment Flood Management Plans for England and Wales. The research is also used in Scotland (by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, SEPA), by international and national insurers (e.g. through Risk Management Solutions Ltd), and in many other countries.
Thorne's research for the Flood Foresight project changed UK policy towards sustainable Integrated Flood Risk Management (IFRM), as implemented by the Floods and Water Management Act (2010). This legislation introduced new systems of governance to clarify responsibilities, support co-ordinated actions, strengthen the roles of local stakeholders, foster the co-production of knowledge, and work with natural processes. Flood Foresight has attracted international attention and stimulated projects and policy changes elsewhere, including in the Taihu Basin in China and around the city of Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
This research has demonstrated the effectiveness of an experimental method of public engagement - Competency Groups (CGs) - in situations in which the expertise involved in managing flood risk is called into question by the communities living with such risk. Working in two test areas (Ryedale, Yorkshire and the Uck catchment, Sussex) it has enabled novel research collaborations between scientists and concerned citizens that have generated bespoke flood models and new flood management options. The work of the Ryedale CG and the `upstream storage' proposals that it generated were incorporated into a successful multi-agency bid to a national competition launched by Defra for a project to test new flood management solutions for Pickering, and are now under construction in the catchment. Having become a national exemplar, the reach of the Competency Group approach in tackling public controversies about environmental expertise continues to extend beyond these two areas, within the UK and also abroad.
Historical research into natural disasters has underpinned emergency planning and management in the UK and overseas. Undertaken by colleagues in Hull and other HEIs, the output of this research has contributed to the setting of industry standards, informed the development of modern technology, highlighted issues of social justice, prompted cultural comparisons of `best practice', assisted in reducing communities' vulnerability and linked reconstruction work to developmental issues. Non-academic beneficiaries of the research are communities and individuals in disaster-affected areas, and the governments and NGOs involved in managing disasters.
Professor Andrew Geddes' research on international migration has directly impacted upon the thinking of officials and the subsequent reshaping of policy at national and international levels concerning connections between environmental change and migration. Impact has occurred in several countries and at different governance levels. The result is that a previously deterministic policy debate about environmental change triggering mass flight is now based on a changed and far more sophisticated understanding of the evidence with different assumptions now informing policy development. Geddes was appointed in 2009 by the UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor to be a member of the 6-member Lead Expert Group overseeing the `Foresight' report Migration and Global Environmental Change: Future Challenges and Opportunities (MGEC) for the UK Government Office for Science, published in 2011. The report and associated work has had major international reach and has informed policies and practices in UK government departments (DFID, DEFRA) and the agendas and operations of the European Union (especially the Commission), World Bank and within the UN system.