Building Capacity for Difficult Conversations on Flood Risk Management in Canadian Coastal Communities

Flooding is a complex problem involving diverse stakeholders with conflicting interests and it requires social innovations. Flood risk management (FRM) is contentious because it touches on core values of safety, property rights and economic security. Conflicts surrounding solutions often overwhelm decision-makers, deadlock policies and privilege top-down approaches at the expense of legitimacy—participation, equity, accountability and transparency—which is essential for good governance. Dr. Bogdon’s project’s aim is to develop an innovative process, the Tough Conversations Protocol, to facilitate a shift to a more integrated FRM approach in Canada which will, in turn, increase the legitimacy of FRM policies. Read more about the work here.