
ABOUT THE PROJECT
This research project develops an evaluation tool for sustainable adaptation that comprehensively incorporates health and wellbeing consequences of specific adaptation interventions. The analysis will identify how flood risk adaptations impact on wider communities. Our focus is on flood risk adaptation as one of the major climate driven risks; it causes high levels of mortality globally every year; and has multiple and interacting health dimensions and outcomes.
The project is being undertaken by a team of social scientists, health economists, demographers and hydrologists at the University of Exeter, Maynooth University and the University of Ghana.
We will test and validate new evaluative criteria in the context of adaptations to flood risk. We will study a spectrum of flood risk adaptations that range from strategies of living with risk, through to engineering interventions designed to minimise risk. We select three principal forms of flood adaptation: hard flood infrastructure, planned relocation and catchment resilience planning, focussing on real world interventions currently being implemented in Ireland, Ghana, and the UK. This research project works with resident communities, public health and flood risk management practitioners across our three locations.

