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Flooding and Farming: Exploring institutional responses across different challenges
Dr Kate Walker-SpringettDr Catherine Butler
Dr Karen Parkhill
Overview
• Background• Case Study One: Tree planting to reducing the
carbon footprint of agriculture(Welsh Government, Bangor University)• Case Study Two: 2013/4 Winter Floods(ESRC/NIHR, Exeter University)• Final Thoughts
Background
• Rural communities often directly dependent on natural resources1,2
• Competing land use pressures3
• Climate change is an additional pressure on already stressed rural communities
1THOMAS, D. S. G. & TWYMAN, C. 2005. Equity and justice in climate change adaptation amongst natural-resource-dependent societies. Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 15, 115-124.2TUBIELLO, F. N. & VAN DER VELDE, M. (n.d) Land and water use options for climate change adaptation and mitigation in agriculture. New York: FAO.3VAN DEN BRINK, A. 2014. Climate Adaptation for Rural Areas. Knowledge for Climate. Programme Office Knowledge for Climate, Wagenigen University.
Methods
• Case Study One: Tree planting to reduce the carbon footprint of agriculture
Deliberative focus groups (n = 22) with farmers and telephone interviews with local authorities (n = 9)(April – May 2015)
Methods
• Case Study Two: 2013/14 Winter Floods
In-depth longitudinal research – semi-structured interviews with public and stakeholders (n=109)
August 2014 - May 2015
Case Study One:Tree planting to reduce carbon footprint
• Welsh Government policy to increase areas of woodland across Wales as a method of combatting carbon footprint of agricultural sector
• Achieved through agri-environment scheme Glastir
• Aimed at both farmers and landowners
Case Study One
I have planted 14 odd hectares into woodland in a Glastir scheme and the moral decision to plant on land that could produce food was quite a difficult one. R5, Abergavenny
“that’s the key responsibility, its not only providing our yearly income, but to achieve that you’ve got to look after the land, you keep it in good condition and these interests which you must have in the environment you must be supportive of it.” R1, Newtown
Case Study One
“ . . there’s not enough flexibility for individual farmers to keep control of the situation under different weather conditions and different stock conditions and so on and that’s a major problem which is why with our Glastir. . we were very careful about what we put in and what we didn’t” R5, Bangor
“The only thing that I’d be wary of with the Glastir Woodland Management is not to commit the Council to too much work under the scheme because of the way the scheme rules if you default on an operation then you will get fined.” LA4
Case Study One
“They gave us loads of money for thinning the forest that’s going to more or less pay for itself anyway and there’s about the same amount of money for putting in the track that cost about six times that.” R6, Bangor
“Yes I think for something like thinning or habitat restoration it’s probably not actually important because we’re not getting that much payment for it. For other sorts of work it really depends on the payments we’re getting really I mean work like sort of fencing like access if we can get it its going to be crucial to doing the work.” LA6
Case Study Two: Winter Floods 2013/14
Somerset - Land of the Summer People
Case Study Two
“There’s an awful lot of knowledge here, all the farmers here who have managed this land since the dinosaurs wandered off, know what they’re doing. It may not be scientific but it works.” P25
“There just wasn’t any information other than what you went out and found. Nothing came through saying, "this is a contingency, this is a level, this is when you need to be worried.” P4
Case Study Two
“I think it’s good now that they’ve brought back the idea of the kind of inland water management group and engaging more with people here in the community as well as those agencies because I think local knowledge is really important.” P21
“The Environment Agency actually were throwing out emails and statements all the time, updating situations. If you looked at the emails, when I finally got my emails, there was this chain of almost daily emails” P23
,
Case Study Two
“We went and helped up at Burrowbridge, building the path that they built along The Parrett, we weren’t doing as much as some people, some people were really out there all the time and some people obviously weren’t doing anything! But most people were doing stuff I think in one way or another.” P16
“The farmers were amazing and were certainly [a] first response, as soon as they saw any areas of water increasing, they were just taking everyone’s cars out” P21
Conclusions
• Top-down implementation of measures
• Policies lacked engagement with those that it was designed to effect.
Necessity of institutional engagement with communities to encourage resilience for climate change
