Vulnerability of remote coastal communities to water challenges: Perception, valuation and coping mechanisms

Challenges

In many parts of the world, climate change is predicted to lead to more extreme weather patterns, including rainfall and affecting the availability of freshwater. The impact of those events raises concerns about meeting the demands for water and food in the future. Management measures are needed to alleviate the negative consequences of water scarcity (whether from drought, or poor water quality) and floods on water and food systems. While many countries have developed expertise in dealing with floods and droughts, some face novel challenges.

One issue that has been mostly overlooked thus far, including in current UK water management frameworks, is dealing with relative water scarcity in regions that are traditionally percieved as water abundant. In the popular imagination, Scotland is a water-abundant country, where droughts are not an area of concern. The Scottish Government’s Hydro Nation policy is built on the idea that the country has abundant water resources, which shape the nation’s character, economy, and society. Thus, it is of particular interest to understand how people adapt and respond to all forms of water challenges in Scotland.

In the climate emergency, place-based action and policy are crucial to building sustainable, resilient, and adaptive communities. Policy mechanisms, which have the flexibility to reflect community diversity and therefore deliver focused and appropriate policy responses to crises, are imperative if we are to empower communities to adapt and effectively manage their natural resources. At the heart of this lies the need to adopt and support partnership working and community involvement for tailored policy responses.

It is well understood that action at the local level is often the underpinning support in times of crisis. This has been observed repeatedly for flooding events in the UK, and, it has been seen as a widespread reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, there is often a disconnect between local action and needs, and the institutional-level policies which govern them, leading to inefficient use of social capital and disengagement and increased vulnerability of local communities. More knowledge is required to explore how communities perceive water challenges and act and react to develop resilience to a changing water environment.

Questions

Solutions

This project aims to determine what drives the response of remote coastal communities to existing and anticipated water challenges in Scotland, addressing the risk of low flows and water scarcity, as well as high flows.  

Understanding different views and discourses

We are using a mixed-method approach to evaluate the perspectives of different groups of stakeholders and will offer an opportunity to identify points about which different groups of people agree or disagree. This highlights the potential for additional support or further work done to connect different scales of community and sectors in collectively addressing water issues. The findings provide lessons for the water management process across Scotland but identify ways in which connectivity across scales can be improved. This varies for different locations within the country.

Case Studies

The development of five case studies allows for in-depth data to be gathered on specific real-world situations, in a variety of formats which give full coverage to the breadth of the situation to provide a detailed evaluation of how several different communities have dealt with water challenges (including successes and barriers). The key issues include seasonal water scarcity, poor water quality, mains connectivity, flooding, and conflict over water needs. The case studies help to identify examples of good practice, opportunities for social learning and areas of vulnerability for communities. These findings allow focused and reflective policy design for future water challenges, especially through the development of considerations that should be made on a place-based basis.

Network Analysis

We develop a policy and stakeholder network through desk-based research and co-creation exercises with key industry stakeholders. This allows for the mapping of influential policies and their impact on high-level decision-making. The resulting database will be transformed into a network database. The network database is being used with new software programmes, to map social policy and stakeholder information networks. This network map is being analysed using social network analysis. Specifically, we identify the most influential policies and information sources.

Co-production of tools

A process of co-production and creative design based on input from a range of participants allows the key themes and issues identified through the research process to be collated into useful data and communicated with extensive communities within Scotland. Co-creative methods such as participatory video-making, experiential knowledge sharing or design thinking are being used to integrate lessons from across the scales and sectors and produce a networking tool to connect vulnerable communities and those with skills and experience to share, and packages of information regarding key water issues, accessible to any interested community.

Overall, this project and the resulting guidance, communication and networking tools are helping to join up policy development with community-level knowledge and action, to prepare and enhance community resilience if and when water-related challenges arise.