Flood risk, vulnerability and environmental justice: …

Evidence and evaluation of inequality in a UK context

an article by Gordon Walker (Lancaster University) and Kate Burningham (University of Surrey) published in Critical Social Policy Volume 31 Number 2 (May 2011)

Abstract

Flooding has only relatively recently been considered as an environmental justice issue. In this paper we focus on flooding as a distinct form of environmental risk and examine some of the key evidence and analysis that is needed to underpin an environmental justice framing of flood risk and flood impacts. We review and examine the UK situation and the body of existing research literature on flooding to fill out our understanding of the patterns of social inequality that exist in relation to both flood risk exposure and vulnerability to the diverse impacts of flooding. We then consider the various ways in which judgements might be made about the injustice or justice of these inequalities and the ways in which they are being sustained or responded to by current flood policy and practice. We conclude that there is both evidence of significant inequalities and grounds on which claims of injustice might be made, but that further work is needed to investigate each of these. The case for pursuing the framing of flooding as an environmental justice issue is also made.

Hazel’s comment:
And if you think about it the poor have always lived in the more vulnerable places – the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. Or the rich man on the hill and the poor man in the meadows.

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