Adaptations to Repetitive Flooding: Understanding Cross-Cultural and Legal Possibilities for Long-Term Solutions to Flooding Disaster

Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

Investigators

Abstract

There is growing consensus among Arctic researchers and nations that it is important to operationalize Arctic scientific knowledge for the purposes of achieving societal goals, including better understanding and adapting to extreme events and disasters. In Alaska and throughout the US, persistent and habitual floods are a particularly expensive and challenging disaster to solve. Repetitive flooding properties account for only 1% of all properties represented by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) yet are responsible for approximately 38% of the claims made. In Alaska, solutions to repetitive flooding for Inupiat and other Indigenous communities in the Arctic have not been forthcoming, despite experiencing repetitive flooding events. Additionally, there is some indication that policy options for relocation are more challenging when decision-making occurs at the community level, as it often does in Indigenous communities, instead of at the household level. This project addresses two lines of inquiry into this complex problem. First, we will analyze relocation policy options for communities experiencing repetitive flooding. We will do so by analyzing policy application when and where communities and individuals have relocated in Alaska and the US, including how bureaucratic discretion has been used in relocation scenarios. Included in this analysis is mapping the political and economic costs, historical corollaries, and feasibility of relocation policy solutions - from creating wholly new agencies, to amending current hazard mitigation and disaster policies to include a wider range of options for relocation. Mapping possible solutions to repetitive flooding is critical and might be applied to hundreds of communities across the United States. Our second line of inquiry is to examine what constitutes culturally relevant relocation from an Inupiat perspective. We hypothesize that 'adaptation' is distinct from 'coping,' the latter being bare survival, while the former is a subjective experience of wellbeing, following changes in lifeways in response to social and/or ecological pressure. By analyzing adaptation from an Inupiat perspective, we will better understand how cultural subjectivities interact with disaster response to inform culturally-relevant adaptation strategies. The end of our analysis will be to triangulate these lines of inquiry to understand how cultural multiplicity and disaster response possibilities are interconnected in successful risk mitigation. This award is cofunded by the Prediction of and Resilience against Extreme Events (PREEVENTS) program This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.