Coproducing Flood Risk Knowledge: Redistributing Expertise in Critical ‘Participatory Modelling’

Catharina Landström, Sarah J Whatmore, Stuart N Lane, Nicholas A Odoni, Neil Ward and Susan Bradley
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Catharina Landström: School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, England
Sarah J Whatmore: School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, England
Stuart N Lane: Institut de Géographie, Faculté des Géosciences et de l'Environnement, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne CH 1015, Switzerland
Nicholas A Odoni: School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol BS8 1SS, England
Neil Ward: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, England
Susan Bradley: Centre for Rural Economy, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, England

Environment and Planning A, 2011, vol. 43, issue 7, 1617-1633

Abstract: This paper suggests that computer simulation modelling can offer opportunities for redistributing expertise between science and affected publics in relation to environmental problems. However, in order for scientific modelling to contribute to the coproduction of new knowledge claims about environmental processes, scientists need to reposition themselves with respect to their modelling practices. In the paper we examine a process in which two hydrological modellers became part of an extended research collective generating new knowledge about flooding in a small rural town in the UK. This process emerged in a project trialling a novel participatory research apparatus—competency groups—aiming to harness the energy generated in public controversy and enable other than scientific expertise to contribute to environmental knowledge. Analysing the process repositioning the scientists in terms of a dynamic of ‘dissociation’ and ‘attachment’, we map the ways in which prevailing alignments of expertise were unravelled and new connections assembled, in relation to the matter of concern. We show how the redistribution of knowledge and skills in the extended research collective resulted in a new computer model, embodying the coproduced flood risk knowledge.

Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:7:p:1617-1633

DOI: 10.1068/a43482

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