MAN-U

The overall aim of Man-U is to improve our understanding and management of uncertainties arising from the intersection of flood risk assessment and climate change projection with policy making. While the technical and scientific challenges involved in assessing the impacts of climate change on flood risks are enormous, if anything, the institutional challenges involved in using that science for policy making and the development of adaptation options are even greater. Man-U concentrates on this interplay of science and policy. It explores how first order scientific uncertainties about future flood risk are amplified by various institutional risks arising from the uncertainties of the policymaking process itself. In addressing the relationship between these dual challenges, Man-U is both scientifically innovative and policy relevant. Man-U takes a interdisciplinary perspective and explores (i) how flooding, the risks from climate change, and the uncertainties attributed to knowledge of them are framed, (ii) whether and how those framings are contested by different science and policy actors involved in flood risk assessment and (iii) with what implications for the development of adaptation actions and strategies. To explore these frames and conflicts, Man-U focuses on the particular case of England and conducts qualitative interviews with science and policy makers (n=60). Man-U will advance the state-of-the-art of understanding the institutional challenges of translating the scientific assessments of the impacts of climate change on flood risks into adaptation actions and strategies.

To that end it achieved the following specific objectives:

– It explored the policy context influencing and defining the organisational set-up (e.g. actors involved, resources, responsibilities), the technical conduct and / or the possible conflicts and diverging interests of parties involved flood risk and climate change assessment. Its empirical focus was on so called catchment flood management plans (CFMPs), strategic flood risk assessments (SFRAs) and shoreline management plans (SMPs).

– It analysed how flooding, the risks from climate change, and the uncertainties attributed to knowledge of them are framed and contested by different science and policy actors involved in the production and use of CFMPs, SFRAs and SMPs).

– It identified the implications of those framings and debates about them for the development of adaptation actions and strategies.

– It put great effort in disseminating its results through publications and conference papers.