Cooperation, Communication, and Networks in the Context of Inland Riverine Flooding

About This Grant

Recent floods in the rural inland riverine areas of the United States have tested communities in those regions. This project examines how communities vulnerable to flooding respond to compounding disasters of inundation and other ecological stressors. Specifically, the project explores whether the social, technical, and ecological drivers of land-use dynamics in contexts of inland riverine flooding are influenced by localized mutual aid networks. It is well documented that first responders and other officials encounter communication difficulties in the context of flooding events. The researchers ask whether mutual aid and other networks establish obligations and responsibilities that enable recovery and mitigation efforts. The research produces a community-based floodplain mapping tool to improve communication and collaboration across scales in disaster response, recovery, and mitigation. The tool is shared with local communities. The project expands participation in STEM learning for community science youth fellows, undergraduate, and graduate students. Dissemination plans improve engagement with community science and improve the public’s understanding of science and the scientific method. This project is jointly funded by Cultural Anthropology and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This project studies how rural communities respond to overlapping disasters of flood water inundation, and a range of other ecological stressors. In preliminary research, investigators have seen that community members, local responders, disaster response agents, and others do not have easy ways to communicate before, during, and after flooding. This is in part due to lack of shared language, and lack of adequate tools for collaboration across these different groups. This project studies processes of response, recovery, and mitigation work in these river valleys. The team conducts on-the-ground in these rural areas on land-use regulation and practice during and after floods; and how social forces, economic realities, and technical infrastructure shape the impacts of land use. This project focuses on how communication, responsibility, and collective community assistance works after disaster. The researcher will conduct behavioral observation at community meetings; interviews with river corridor and floodplain managers, other rural extension and food security stakeholders, and regional planning commission officers; a survey (n=500) on perceptions of optimal land and river use and risks with residents in three floodplain communities; and archival analyses to gather longitudinal data on flood risk and resilience. The project advances scientific debates about land use practices in rural floodplain contexts, asking whether municipal-level policies of zoning in upstream and downstream contexts influence community responses to flooding. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.