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Changing attitudes towards rivers: implications of climate change risk on river conservation
- 1. Changing attitudes towards rivers: Implications of climate change risk on river conservation Dr Kate Walker-Springett Dr Catherine Butler Prof. Lorraine Whitmarsh
- 2. Overview • Public attitudes towards rivers (NERC/ESRC PhD studentship, Cardiff University) • When it goes wrong: Flooding and well-being (ESRC Urgency Grant/NIHR HPRU, Exeter University) • Final Thoughts Photo: Matilda Temperley
- 3. Methods - qualitative Public Attitudes towards rivers: Mixed Methods FG’s Cardiff (participant n = 11); Northern Ireland (n = 9) Kate Walker-Springett: k.walker- springett@exeter.ac.uk Photo: Matilda Temperley
- 4. Photo: Matilda Temperley In-depth longitudinal research – Somerset case study (n = 109), August 2014 - May 2015 Methods - qualitative Flooding and well-being:
- 5. c River Importance • Rivers are valued: potable water, recreation, nature and cultural reasons, agriculture1. • Established link between blue space and human health and well-being2,3,4,5. • Water has long been recognised as an important aspect of landscape aesthetics 6.7 1DALRYMPLE, G. 2006. In: SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE, E., AMP & RURAL AFFAIRS, D. (eds.). Edinburgh: Scottish Executive. 2MILLER, D., et al. 2012. BlueHealth: Water, Health and Well-Being. The James Hutton Institute. 3VOELKER, S. & KISTEMANN, T. 2011. Int. J. Hyg. Environ. Heal., 214, 449-460. 4VOLKER, S. & KISTEMANN, T. 2013. Soc. Sci. Med. 78, 113-124. 5WHITE, M., et. al. 2010. J. Environ. Psychol. 30, 482-493. 6KAPLAN, R. 1977. Proceedings of River Recreation Management & Research Symposium, Minneapolis, USA. 7KAPLAN, R., et al. 1989. Environ. Behav, 21, 509-530.
- 6. Public Attitudes towards rivers WALKER-SPRINGETT, K. 2014. The Development of Integrated Conservation Strategies based on Environmental Science and Psychology: A Case Study of the Freshwater Pearl Mussel. PhD, University of Cardiff.
- 7. c “you know, people having an affinity with their river, you know it is included in songs and paintings and it is a part of any local culture” L, FG4 “I think there seems to be a move towards doing something . . .you know, restoring the habitat, people are finally seem[ing] to realise it’s important to do it” E, FG1 “now certainly our river, I live in a mining village an apparently 20 years ago, 30 years ago it was totally uninhabitable for wildlife and now we’ve got otters and you now we, everything in it indicates it is doing really well” F, FG2 Public Attitudes towards rivers WALKER-SPRINGETT, K. 2014. The Development of Integrated Conservation Strategies based on Environmental Science and Psychology: A Case Study of the Freshwater Pearl Mussel. PhD, University of Cardiff.
- 8. Major UK floods; 1947; 1952/3; 1973; 1998; 2000; 2004; 2007; 2012; 2013/14 At risk: 5.2 million homes Cost: £1.1 billion / €1.54 billion annually in flood damages £2.34 billion/ €3.26 billion 2011 – 2015 on flood and coastal defense
- 9. Winter Floods 2013/14 Somerset - Land of the Summer People
- 10. Sense of Place “I'm a bit of an enthusiast about this little gem in South Somerset . . . . I think you could find most things to float your boat, whether you're sporty or artistic or there’s a couple of churches, a decent pub, it’s a good place to be” P18
- 11. Sense of Place “Well to me as an artist, it's because there's such contrast. There's the hills there's the plains, there's the rivers. I drive for an hour and I get to the coast, north or south, I love Somerset it's absolutely gorgeous, it's a beautiful place to live.” P5 “As a place to live, from a wildlife point of view, we get damsel flies, dragon flies, we get kingfishers, last year we had a large egret and a small egret patrolling the waters.” P2
- 15. Well-Being Impacts “I found it [the floods] I found it hugely, threatening and oppressive but also hugely dominating because everybody around here is going round with their shoulders hunched, in the Spring when it finally stopped, you just got a sense of people slowly, slowly kind of dropping their shoulders. But there had been this sort of tension all winter, people not knowing if it’s going to get worse, people who had flooded.” P16 “The internal walls are just plasterboard so there’s no soundproofing, so if anybody is in the toilet, everybody else in the house can hear them, it’s so horrible, I can’t tell you. It just is vile compared to my own home, it’s just horrible. Really horrible.” P20
- 16. Well-Being Impacts “Interestingly, there’s no doubt that I think once you flood, you flood and you deal with it but the worst part is when you dry out and the builders come in, it’s so stressful.” P23 “I don't think anything emotional or anything is any different really, still really concerned about you know, the drop in house prices and that sort of thing, it’s a real worry, not just for me but for everybody.” P6
- 17. Public Problem Framings “So this time of year … you would see large tractors and dredging machines cleaning all the rhyne system out, which meant the water could get away to at least the pumping station ... That ceased about 15 years ago and most of the ditches are overgrown and not really cleaned out very much, and the Department of Environment just kind of crossed them off their list, I think.” P25 “This land has been managed since Roman times, and since the founding the inauguration or whatever it is of the Environment Agency, it's just stopped. Nobody voted for it being stopped, it was very undemocratic.” P4
- 18. “Farming has changed and I think there is a cry that with the change from grass, which is a binding nature for the soil, to crops, then when the rain comes, the earth will flow off much quicker and much easier and therefore more management will be needed.” P17 Public Problem Framing It was a lot of rain, it did feel like it rained the whole of winter, it was particularly wet” P22
- 19. Conflict The Somerset Levels and Moors has been a bit of a battleground between environmentalists and the landowning and draining community – and peat extraction as well – so it’s been one of the most difficult areas in the country.” SH5 I would hope that their role overrides the Environment Agency when it comes to environmental matters, in that the people and businesses must come first, you probably saw the story about £2,500 per vole being moved?” P17
- 20. Looking to the Future No, we would never move and I don't think anybody would ever move, it will be interesting to see when all the houses are put back together, if the flood prevention is done and it works, then there won’t be any need to move.” P17
- 21. Final Thoughts “Suddenly they can’t trust their river any more. It’s like a loved one who has developed symptoms of psychosis. Anyone who has loved a river can tell you that the loss of a river is a terrible, aching thing.” (Arundhati Roy 1999: 61)
Editor's Notes
- Hi, I’m Kate Walker-Springett, and my talk is going to focus on the implication for river conservation of changing public attitudes as a result of climate change,
- So, the format of my talk talk is as follows. I am going to start with some background about public attitudes towards rivers, which comes from my PhD research at Cardiff University, funded by ESRC and NERC and then I am going to move onto talking about well-being and rivers in the context fo floods, which is the project I am currently working on at Exeter University, with Catherine Butler, Neil Adger, Louisa Evans and Saffron O’Neil which is funded by ESRC and National Institute for Health Research
- All the results I will be discussing today are qualitative. The results from my PhD came from mixed methods focus groups with members of the public and stakeholders who had some connection with their local rivers, for example members of the river association or local fisherman, for example. I sampled in two locations, the first was Cardiff from the Community Panel that Cardiff University holds and then through connections I had with the Balinderry River Enhancement Association in northern Ireland, I conducted the stakeholder focus groups, which were identical to those with the public in Cardiff over there.
- For the floods project, we undertook in-depth intensive longitudinal research that takes Somerset as a case study within the national context. We conducted semi-structured interviews with flood affected publics and we sampled flood affected people across different badly affected villages and homes within Somerset Levels and Moors (focus on covering different forms of experience, as well as demographics and social characteristics) and flood professionals, although today I am going to focus mainly on the public cohort. We’re have just begun the analytic stage so for this talk today I’m going to talk through some of the initial data and some early thougths about the impact of flood on well-being and the implication for river management in the future.
- To start with a very brief introduction, rivers are valued for a variety of reasons, historically cities were built around rivers to ensure freshwater and a means of transportation, currently they are valued for their role in recreation, and as a place to experience nature. The wellbeing and health benefits of blue space are relatively well- established, and are related to the promotion of increased physical activity, the restorative physiological benefit of experiencing nature and the social contact facilitated or enhanced by natural spaces. Water in the landscpae has long been recognised as an important factor for determining preference in relation to landscape aesthetics, and although blue spaces is a term often used to refer to the coastline, studies have shown that images with increasing amounts of aquatic features, be that river, ponds or the coastline, increase people preferences for such images.
- So starting of with a brief description of public attitudes towards rivers, one of the first exercises in my PhD focus groups was a mind-mapping exercise, and I asked aprticpants to tell me all the words connected with rivers they could think of. Now here I have drawn out the words related to emotions as I think that these perfectly summarise the general consensus about rivers from the participants of my focus groups. The words here are all positive words, and reflect other work in the fields about the postive well-being impacts of rivers in the landscape
- Throughout the focus groups it became clear that rivers were valued for any reasons, both as a place to recreate and having a deeper cultural meaning connecting people to places. And emphasise this, there were also several comments made regarding the importance placed on restoring rivers a previous pristine state and the pleasure of being able to see wildlife as part of healthy rivers. So, the overriding feeling coming from the focus groups from my phd was the value of rivers and the desire to see them conserved into the future. So I guess I really wanted you to have that in the back of you mind as we move through into the next section of the talk,
- because rivers can also cause major flood events, now flooding is the climate change impact that the UK is most likely to experience, over the last 70 years the UK has seen nine major flood events and of those, 5 have occurred since 2000. Ti give an indication of the scale of the problem in the UK, 5.2 million homes are classified as being at risk, and annually 1.1 billion pounds is spend on flood damages. In terms of defense, between 2011 and 2015, 2.34 billion pounds has been spend on flood and coastal defense.
- Somerset is a county in SW England and was historically known as the land of the summer people because Somerset was only inhabitable during the summer months, indicating its vulnerability to flooding especially since parts of this area are below sea level. Despite draining, this area is liable to flood, and during wet winters, it is not unusual for the moors to be underwater, but just to stress that this is land that is flooded and flooding of property’s less frequent. The winter of 2013/14 saw high levels rainfall across the UK, it was the wettest winter since records began in 1766 and there were more days of rain during this winter than since 1961. 12 major winter storms came across the UK – affected UK, but we are using Somerset as a case study within a national context. – where there was prolonged flooding spanning the months December 2013 – March 2014 with some people having water in their homes for up to four weeks or more – an estimated 200-250 homes were flooded as well as large areas of agricultural land, infrastructure (roads, train network), and other businesses. The image on the RHS shows the extend of the flooded areas in Somerset, some of which remained flooded for approximately 3 months. There is no doubt that this was a really extreme events, however, this is set against a backdrop of reduced funding in a time of austerity where resources have been cut, leading to less active flood risk management, changes to land management practices in the upland regions of the catchment, increased urbanization
- As part of the interviews, we asked our public cohort why they lived in Somerset, what drew them to the area and what was special about Somerset, and there were a variety of reasons, including family and friends, work and also the convenient location of Somerset within the SW of England in terms of transport links. But one of the frequently cited reason was the natural environment
- The uniqueness of the landscape, the range of wildlife which all relies on the networks of rivers and drainage ditches, were all aspects drew people to Somerset and were reasons people gave for Somerset being special. So, its clear that even here, where flooding of land occurs relatively frequently in the winter that the rivers are viewed positively.
- Just before I move on to discuss some of the quotes related to impacts on well being, I just wanted to try to get across exactly what it was like in Somerset during these floods, because I think it is quite difficult to get a feel for how large an extent was flooded but also ow deep the waters were . .so this first image is not an unusual one, people often spoke about using canoes or rowing boats to travel locally, because the water was too deep to drive trough and walking through water for long periods of time is really physically difficult.
- And this photo is of a well known willow and wicker shop, on the tourist trail, on one of the main roads through Somerset. Certinaly this image really brought home to me exactly how sever these floods had been.
- And here is again, during the floods . . Certainly this image really brought home to me exactly how sever these floods had been.
- However during the 2013/14 floods, it was homes as well as land that were flooded and this had severe and long lasting impacts on peoples mental health and well-being. The first quotes here typifies the impacts of the long term stress of watching and waiting to see if the flood waters would enter your home. And I think its important to reiterate here that this flood event last over 3 months in some parts of Somerset. The second quote is form a participant who was evacuated and gives a flavor of the impacts of having to leave your home, without many of your belongings and live in alternative accommodation. It is important to reflect here that whilst the flood waters receded, many people were out of their homes for up to year and in fact there were still several residents that were not back in their homes where we did the second round of interview across Easter of this year.
- And of course there is not just the immediate stress and anxiety of the period during which there is water in the house, there are also secondary stressors, such as the stress of dealing with insurance claims and builders, and even longer term, the implication of raised insurance premiums or being refused insurance, and the drop in house prices which effectively means that you cannot sell and leave the area even if you wanted to.
- So, how to we marry up these to potentially conflicting sides to the story, one the one hand the natural environment and in particular the rivers are a major draw for residents in the area an could be described as restorative, and yet the flooding that occurred had such a detrimental impact on peoples well being and happiness living on the area. And I think if we dig a bit deeper, the answer probably lies in the ways the public frames the causes of the floods. The dominant discourse from the public cohort, that in different ways related to institutional failure to undertake the necessary works to maintain the area. In the top quote, the participant is speaking about the cessation of river maintenance about 15 years ago as the cause of the recent flood events, citing overgrown ditches and no where for the water to go as reason. The second quote is in the same vein, speaking to the necessity for on-going management of the landscape which has been managed for many years, and that again, it was the lack of maintenance that is the reason behind the floods.
- Further frames again about failings of different institution in this case farming practices, particularly in the upper catchment. And then the rain, it wasn’t that the public disregarded rainfall or climate change as a cause, but a much greater emphasis of the failings of particular actors or groups, allude to a set of expectations that had not been met,
- The view that such floods could have been avoided with mechanical or technical operations could potentially have consequences on river conservation, The top quote here speaks about current conflicts between different land owners and environmental organizations and If we go forward into a future with heavily regulated river networks with more visible infrastructure, then there is risk that seemingly natural environments become more and more industrialized. As a result of these floods, and the influence the the local communities were able to generate, river dredging works were begun but these also had to adhere to EU and UK legislation regarding nature conservation. The dredging was welcomed by the local community they were also critical of the money and time spent relocating water voles which are protected un der UK law and are a priority species under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. This example highlights a potential conflict between restorative natural rivers in the landscape and reducing flood risk.
- And yet, for many (not all) of our public participants, they still enjoy living in the area, the unique landscape and special feature of Somerset override the risk form flooding, especially if the current program of works continues and flood risk in the area is reduced. So, there is an inherent trade off and potential conflict between reducing flood risk with infrastructure and maintaining landscape that people enjoy living in and with future prediction of increased flooding in the UK, it is likely to become a more contentious issue
- So, my final thoughts to bring this to a close, are that potentially we have a tale of two rivers almost, one the one and blue space, in this case rivers, can be restorative, people enjoy experiencing, so much so that some choose to live near them. It is a draw for tourism and positive health and well-being effects have been seen I connection with time spend in aquatic environment. And yet, as climate change impacts increase this research suggests that the nature of these effects could be altered in the longer-term, and there is much research that needs to be done to understand what this means for river management going forward. I just wanted to leave you with a quote that I think really fits with the key message of this talk. It’s a quote by Arundhati Roy, who writes about the reasons that the Indian Government want to build the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada River, and the subsequent consequences for the local population who are forced to migrate because of the construction and the flooding river: Suddenly they can’t trust their river any more. It’s like a loved one who has developed symptoms of psychosis. Anyone who has loved a river can tell you that the loss of river is a terrible, aching thing. (Arundhati Roy 1999: 61)