Adapting to Uncertainty: Community-Based Approaches to Flood Risk in Castel Bolognese (Italy)

Rare floods are increasing worldwide as an effect of climate alteration, resulting in a multiplication of disaster events. This is triggering significant changes in public policy and research, even though how actors and local communities are able to deal with uncertainty and surprise related to rare floods in the future is still open to many questions and debates in flood risk management research and practice. This paper asks how dealing with the unexpected may be bettered through community-based disaster risk management strategies and collaborative governance processes between citizens and local stakeholders. In the context of the post-flood events (May 2023) in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, this study examines how the small town of Castel Bolognese (RA) achieved the activation of community-driven flood risk management practices through the creation of a new Civil Defence group, aimed at protecting the city from future flooding events. This place-based approach makes it possible to tackle broader aspects of disaster management, by challenging the dominant ‘disaster cycle’ framework in the handling of undesired events and emphasising the topicality of preparedness practices and ontologies to today’s uncertainties. In response to the research aims, data were gathered through direct observations, semi-structured interviews and a survey addressed to the new-born group of Civil Protection Service. The paper aims to contribute to current debates on preparedness and community-driven disaster risk reduction (DRR), as well as to inform policymaking about the importance of disaster training and risk education to deal with future uncertainties.