Finbarr Brereton

Rural change and individual well-being the case of Ireland and rural quality of life

Much of rural Europe has witnessed vast changes over the past two decades, including major demographic and economic change. The question of how these changes have affected individual well-being and quality of life remains largely unanswered. This paper aims to shed light on this topic by employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods in the analysis of rural quality of life in Ireland, including focus groups, locally-specific surveys and two representative surveys of individuals carried out in 2001 and 2007. We use the respondents’ self-reported life satisfaction level as a proxy for their well-being to examine the determinants of quality of life and also examine how attitudes have changed over this period. Results show a consistently high life satisfaction in rural Ireland. The greatest changes are witnessed in attitudes to the provision of facilities and services. Respondents’ perceptions of the benefits and limitations of rural living remain constant between the two periods, focusing on quality of life and environmental issues. However, the main problems of rural living have shifted away from the cost of housing to access to healthcare and public transport. Issues that are found to be important at the local scale include economic indicators (for example, security of income, home ownership), dwelling characteristics, social factors (for example, belonging to the community) and environmental amenities (for example, access to green space, good-quality environment). The importance of these issues is born out by the analysis at the national scale. The paper concludes by exploring the policy implications of these findings.

Exploring a spatial statistical approach to quantify flood risk perception using cognitive maps

Modern flood risk management strategies have evolved from flood resistance to a holistic approach incorporating prevention, protection and preparedness with the aim of reducing the likelihood and/or impact of flooding. This evolution has been driven by a trend of increasingly damaging and frequent flood events due to climate change. Populations at risk are required to be an active participant within modern flood risk management plans, resulting in management plan effectiveness being partially dependent on the relevant population’s flood risk perception. Thus, understanding how at-risk populations perceive their own flood risk, and how this compares to the reality of the situation, is a significant component of flood risk management. This paper compares subjective risk perception to an objective measure of risk within a specific case study area, where 305 residents were surveyed on their perception of flood risk. As part of the survey, respondents were asked to delineate the areas of the study area that they perceived would be at risk of inundation during a severe flood event. Using spatial statistical indicators, including Fuzzy Kappa comparison, it was possible to quantify the divergence between subjective and objective measures of risk extent, enabling an assessment of the ‘correctness’ of subjective perceived risk. This novel approach identified significant deviations between risk perception and objective risk measures at an individual level. The paper concludes by considering potential policy implications.

The Impact of Perceived Flood Exposure on Flood-Risk Perception: The Role of Distance

Natural hazards, such as major flood events, are occurring with increasing frequency and inflicting increasing levels of financial damages upon affected communities. The experience of such major flood events has brought about a significant change in attitudes to flood-risk management, with a shift away from built engineering solutions alone towards a more multifaceted approach. Europes experience with damaging flood episodes provided the impetus for the introduction of the European Floods Directive, requiring the establishment of flood-risk management plans at the river-basin scale. The effectiveness of such plans, focusing on prevention, protection, and preparedness, is dependent on adequate flood awareness and preparedness, and this is related to perception of flood risk. This is an important factor in the design and assessment of flood-risk management. Whilst there is a modern body of literature exploring flood perception issues, there have been few examples that explore its spatial manifestations. Previous literature has examined perceived and real distance to a hazard source (such as a river, nuclear facility, landfill, or incinerator, etc.), whereas this article advances the literature by including an objectively assessed measure of distance to a perceived flood zone, using a cognitive mapping methodology. The article finds that distance to the perceived flood zone (perceived flood exposure) is a crucial factor in determining flood-risk perception, both the cognitive and affective components. Furthermore, we find an interesting phenomenon of misperception among respondents. The article concludes by discussing the implications for flood-risk management.

Exploring the spatial dimension of community-level flood risk perception: a cognitive mapping approach

ABSTRACT Environmental perceptions are central to individuals’ behavioural interactions with the environment. Cognitive maps, portraying a spatial representation of an individual’s environmental perception, can be aggregated to gain insight into the collective environmental perception of groups and populations. This paper uses cognitive mapping techniques to examine one aspect of environmental perception, flood risk perception, within a residential population (n = 305). Flood risk perception was examined for the whole sample and six subgroup pairs. Using subgroups allowed examination of how factors previously shown to influence flood risk perception influence the cognitive map production in this population. We use a novel technique (slope analysis) to examine how the population’s perception of flood risk compares with expert assessments of flood risk, and compare the results of this novel technique with a commonly used cognitive map analysis technique (majority threshold method). Both methods identify areas where there is consensus within the population as to which areas are at risk of flooding. However, slope analysis usefully identifies areas where the population’s perception of flood risk lacks consensus, and is at odds with expert assessments of flood risk, without the loss of information inherent in the majority threshold method. Thus, this technique provides a novel approach to studies of environmental perception that can be widely applied within many fields.

Towards measuring societal impact of research: Insights from an Irish case study:

Academic research is increasingly required to demonstrate economic and policy relevance, with this becoming a key metric by which the success of research projects are being judged. Furthermore, the active, as opposed to passive, participation of citizens in science is now encouraged through dissemination and outreach, using, for example, co-production techniques. These non-traditional academic impacts have become a key component of a number of funding agency calls, most notably the European Union’s research funding programme Horizon 2020. However, exactly how measurable these ‘impacts’ are, particularly social and policy impacts, is unclear as there is not an obvious metric. Additionally, there is no standardised approach to assessing research impact recognised in the social sciences. Using a case study which describes the experience of using public engagement seminars as a means to disseminate academic research to stakeholder communities, this article aims to develop an impact assessment strategy to measure societal impact applicable in the social sciences. Based on recommendations in the UK Research Excellence Framework, amongst other literature, we put forward three steps to better capture research ‘impact’ in a more meaningful way in future research projects: (i) establish the quality of the academic research, (ii) choose appropriate discipline-specific criteria for measuring societal impact and (iii) choose appropriate measurable indicators. Other useful insights include the difficulty of motivating public interest in topics that are no longer high profile or emotive, and hence the necessity to provide access to research findings as early as possible in the research cycle. The article concludes with a discussion of the difficulties of measuring ‘impact’ in a meaningful sense.