Abstract/Summary

Flooding and the impacts of flooding are a diverse messy spaghetti of physical, human and social impacts, with the geographies of flooding which frame it equally as complex and wide-ranging (Thorne, 2014). This thesis aims to unpack some of this complexity and to provide a more nuanced understanding of how flooding is constructed through the lens of the flood communities that experience flooding and the flood authorities that manage flooding in England. My research explores the various ways of experiencing flooding, from the experiential impacts of having someone’s home inundated with water, with the resultant home unmaking and having to learn to live with the prospect of future flooding, through to the more physical and in-the-moment construction of flooding by the flood authorities. Within this research we learn that for flood communities, flooding is constructed through the emotions of living at risk of flooding and the ongoing processes of homemaking, unmaking and remaking which create a seemingly never-ending spiral of human impacts. This troubles disaster risk management approaches that seek to manage risk through the lens of ‘pre’ and ‘post’ events. I demonstrate that the more physical construction of flooding and the physically orientated approaches to managing flooding by the flood authorities provides no space and little understanding of the experiential and emotional construction of flooding by flood communities. This creates dissonance between what flood communities require in terms of support and what is provided. The thesis concludes by providing policy recommendations aimed at providing flood communities with support to ensure that they can live good quality lives whilst living at risk of flooding.