From community engagement to community inclusion for socially and procedurally just flood risk governance

Abstract

Urban flood risk governance (FRG) approaches increasingly seek to engage local communities—and their surrounding ecosystem in natural flood management (NFM) approaches—to co-produce socio-ecological resilience. This systematic review investigates current approaches, barriers, and enablers of community engagement in urban FRG through a flood risk justice lens. Employing a systematic search and an adapted ‘best fit’ framework synthesis methodology, and reporting results according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses transparent reporting system. The central theme of inclusivity emerged from the synthesis, which integrated sub-themes of relationality, non-universalism, power structures, and personal paradigms in a conceptual model. Results invite FRG practitioners to reframe community engagement as community inclusion in order to respond to the procedural, social, and environmental justice concerns of urban ‘flood disadvantage’ which may be reinforced by current engagement approaches. Critical discussion of evidence—informed by the conceptual model—recognised five principles for realising procedurally just community inclusion; promoting the co-production of integrated community inclusion strategies alongside the communities themselves. The study identified a gap in the literature concerning community involvement in NFM; highlighting a priority for future research with a view to realise more inclusive FRG.