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AbstractAlthough environmental justice (EJ) research in the United States has traditionally focused on technological hazards such as air pollution or hazardous waste, the adverse and unequal impacts of Hurricane Katrina have prompted researchers to examine the EJ implications of natural events such as hurricanes and floods. This paper contributes to this emerging literature on EJ and social vulnerability to natural hazards by analyzing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequities in the distribution of flood risk exposure in the Miami Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), Florida—one of the most hurricane-prone areas in the world and one of the most ethnically and socioeconomically diverse MSAs in the United States. Although previous studies have relied exclusively on the 100-year floodplain to assess the spatial extent of flood exposure, this study makes a systematic distinction between different types of flood zones on the basis of both the probability (100-year versus 500-year versus low/no risk) of flood...

Carlisle in northwest England suffered its worse floods for more than 180 years in 2005. A study, reported here, was undertaken to assess the health and social impacts of these floods via in‐depth, taped individual and focus‐group interviews with people whose homes had been flooded and with agency workers who helped them. Respondents spoke of physical health ailments, psychological stress, water health‐and‐safety issues related to the floods, and disputes with insurance and construction companies, which they felt had caused and exacerbated psychological health problems. Support workers also suffered from psychological stress. Furthermore, it was found that people had low expectations of a flood and were not prepared. The findings are presented in five sections covering flood risk awareness, water contamination issues, physical health, mental health, and impact on frontline support workers. The discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for policy and practice vis‐à‐vis psychological health provision, contamination issues, training and support for frontline support workers, matters relating to restoration, and preparation for flooding.

Cet article vise à partager les résultats préliminaires du projet de recherche « Les travailleuses sociales cinq ans après l’implantation de la réforme Barrette : standardisation de la pratique ou nouvelles normes locales des établissements? ». Ce projet de recherche a pour but de mieux comprendre la mise en oeuvre de la réforme du système de santé et des services sociaux de 2015 au Québec. De juin à décembre 2022, près de 60 personnes participantes ont accepté de répondre à un entretien semi-dirigé. La très grande majorité d’entre elles détiennent plus de dix ans d’expérience, ce qui permet de comprendre l’avant et l’après réforme Barrette et de saisir les effets de cette réforme sur les équipes de travail, mais aussi sur la prestation des services fournis à la population. L’analyse initiale des données met en lumière la poursuite, voire l’accentuation, de la perspective descendante (top down) du processus décisionnel, de la reddition de comptes par le biais de mesures quantitatives et de l’harmonisation des services s’illustrant en standardisation des pratiques, en dépit des particularités territoriales inhérentes aux différentes régions du Québec. Par rapport à notre recherche précédente, force est de constater que les méthodes de la nouvelle gestion publique se sont accentuées au sein du réseau de la santé et des services sociaux, qualifié de « maison des fous » par plusieurs personnes participantes.

Parfois contestée, faiblement théorisée, la notion d’acceptabilité sociale tend néanmoins à s’imposer dans divers secteurs d’activité. Face à ce constat, cet article fait le pari qu’il peut être pertinent de la conserver et de l’utiliser comme « locution frontière » permettant de communiquer avec de nombreux acteurs. Mais cette concession est redoublée par une ambition de consolidation théorique de la notion, et par un souci de symétrisation de la charge d’acceptabilité d’un projet : celle-ci ne peut reposer uniquement sur un social récalcitrant à éduquer et à convaincre, elle doit également remettre en jeu le design du projet. L’article prend appui pour ce faire sur l’analyse des conflits spatialisés autour des équipements d’environnement. Il s’inscrit au croisement des approches STS et pragmatistes : ce cadre conceptuel est retenu car il permet d’étudier la composition d’un collectif (le monde social étendu à sa matérialité constitutive) sans présupposer d’asymétrie entre négociations sociales et techniques. L’épreuve d’acceptabilité porte plus précisément sur la compatibilité problématique entre deux ensembles rendus provisoirement indéterminés par le conflit : un dispositif sociotechnique d’un côté, un ou plusieurs milieux concernés de l’autre. L’article interprète cette épreuve d’acceptabilité en tant que régulation civique d’un projet technique, complétant la régulation de base dont il est normalement l’objet. Il prolonge enfin l’usage de cette notion avec une perspective opérationnelle, en proposant des pistes permettant à un éventuel tiers arbitre de piloter cette épreuve et d’en tirer démocratiquement les leçons.

Après les nombreuses crues printanières qui ont affecté le sud du Québec depuis 2011, le gouvernement du Québec a annoncé en avril 2019 une refonte importante de son programme d’aide financière aux sinistrés. Le programme introduit désormais une couverture limitée à vie de 100 000 $ pour les inondations successives, une mesure unique au Canada. L’objectif de cet article est d’analyser le coût des inondations successives et les impacts financiers de cette limite de couverture pour les ménages.

Summary The questionable ability of the U.S. pension system to provide for the growing elderly population combined with the rising number of people affected by depression and other mental health issues magnifies the need to understand how these household characteristics affect retirement. Mental health problems have a large and significant negative effect on retirement savings. Specifically, psychological distress is associated with decreasing the probability of holding retirement accounts by as much as 24 percentage points and decreasing retirement savings as a share of financial assets by as much as 67 percentage points. The magnitude of these effects underscores the importance of employer management policy and government regulation of these accounts to help ensure households have adequate retirement savings.

Abstract Characterizing and identification of flood‐susceptible areas can be a solution to mitigate the damages and fatality rate. This study proposes a novel hybrid MCDM framework to assess flood susceptibility in large ungauged watersheds dealing with data scarcity issues. The proposed method examines the interdependencies and causal relationships between various criteria affecting the flooding procedure using the DEcision‐MAking Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL). Moreover, since experts' opinions contain uncertainty, the fuzzy logic is integrated with DEMATEL to overcome this shortcoming. Then, the local weights of criteria were estimated using the Best–Worst Method (BWM) to enhance the pairwise comparisons process. Final criteria weights were obtained using Fuzzy DEMATEL and BWM results in Analytical Network Process (ANP) super‐matrix. Finally, the criteria were distributed spatially using the Complex Proportional Assessment of Alternatives (COPRAS) method based on obtained weights. The proposed method was compared with different approaches such as Fuzzy‐DEMATEL ANP, BWM, and AHP using several statistical measures. We concluded that the novel hybrid proposed method outperformed other approaches based on our results. Moreover, by overlaying classified maps with the historical flood events locations, it was concluded that 85.96% of flooded areas were classified as “high” and “very high.”

The fall 2021 climate events in British Columbia raise questions about the resiliency of communities, but also of critical systems, with respect to the allocation of roads, telecommunications, drinking water, electricity, etc. The interdependence of these systems can quickly generate serious consequences for populations and socio-economic activities that local and regional authorities must manage. The diversity and number of stakeholders require these authorities to coordinate well. How then can the risks to which they are exposed be better assessed? How can we ensure coherence in the measures put in place in terms of planning, preparation and response? The concepts and results presented in this article are the result of an action-research project carried out with the participation of numerous partners, particularly, but not exclusively, from municipal milieus in two regions of Quebec (Argenteuil and Brome-Missisquoi MRCs). This active collaboration with these regional partners has made it possible to propose an approach for implementing a collaborative governance framework combined with a risk assessment process. The tools and mechanisms associated with this approach will allow regional authorities to better understand the impact of climate change on the territory and to ensure consistency in the risk management actions of the various stakeholders. , Les événements climatiques de l’automne 2021 en Colombie-Britannique soulèvent des questions sur la résilience des communautés, mais aussi des systèmes essentiels, en regard de l’affectation des réseaux routiers, de télécommunication, d’eau potable, d’électricité, etc. L’interdépendance de ces systèmes génère rapidement des conséquences graves pour la population et les activités socioéconomiques que les autorités locales et régionales doivent gérer. La diversité des intervenants ainsi que leur nombre exigent de ces autorités de bien se coordonner. Comment alors peut-on mieux apprécier les risques auxquels ils sont exposés ? Comment s’assurer d’une cohérence dans les mesures mises en place autant dans la planification, la préparation que l’intervention ? Les concepts et résultats présentés dans cet article sont issus d’un projet de recherche-action réalisé avec la participation de nombreux partenaires, particulièrement, mais non exclusivement du milieu municipal dans deux régions du Québec (MRC d’Argenteuil et de Brome-Missisquoi). Cette collaboration active avec ces partenaires régionaux permet de proposer une démarche pour mettre en place un cadre de gouvernance collaboratif combiné à un processus d’appréciation des risques. Les outils et mécanismes associés à cette démarche permettront, alors, aux autorités régionales de mieux comprendre l’impact des changements climatiques sur le territoire et d’assurer une cohérence dans les actions de gestion des risques des différentes parties prenantes.

Coastal socio-ecological systems are complex adaptive systems with nonlinear changing properties and multi-scale dynamics. They are influenced by unpredictable coastal hazards accentuated by the effects of climate change, and they can quickly be altered if critical thresholds are crossed. Additional pressures come from coastal activities and development, both of which attracting stakeholders with different perspectives and interests. While coastal defence measures (CDMs) have been implemented to mitigate coastal hazards for centuries, a lack of knowledge and tools available to make informed decision has led to coastal managers favouring the choice of seawalls or rock armours with little consideration for socio-ecological systems features, and stakeholders’ priorities. Though it is not currently widely applied in coastal zone management, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a tool that can be useful to facilitate decision making. PROMETHEE, an outranking method, was chosen to support the multicriteria decision analysis for the evaluation of CDMs in the context of four study sites characterized by distinct environmental features. The aim was to determine the relevance and benefits of a MCDA by integrating coastal zone stakeholders in a participatory decision-making process in order to select CDMs that are better adapted to the whole socio-ecological system. First, in a series of five workshops, stakeholders were asked to identify and weigh criteria that were relevant to their local conditions. Second and third, CDMs were evaluated in relation to each criterion within the local context, then, hierarchized. Initial results show that vegetation came first in three of the four sites, while rock armour ranked first in the fourth site. A post-evaluation of the participatory process indicated that the weighting phase is an effective way to integrate local knowledge into the decision-making process, but the identification of criteria could be streamlined by the presentation of a predefined list from which participants could make a selection. This would ensure criteria that are standardized, and in a format that is compatible with the MCDA. Coupled with a participatory process MCDA proved to be a flexible methodology that can synthetize multiple aspects of the problem, and contribute in a meaningful way to the coastal engineering and management decision-making process.

Abstract Homeowners around the world elevate houses to manage flood risks. Deciding how high to elevate a house poses a nontrivial decision problem. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends elevating existing houses to the Base Flood Elevation (the elevation of the 100-year flood) plus a freeboard. This recommendation neglects many uncertainties. Here we analyze a case-study of riverine flood risk management using a multi-objective robust decision-making framework in the face of deep uncertainties. While the quantitative results are location-specific, the approach and overall insights are generalizable. We find strong interactions between the economic, engineering, and Earth science uncertainties, illustrating the need for expanding on previous integrated analyses to further understand the nature and strength of these connections. Considering deep uncertainties surrounding flood hazards, the discount rate, the house lifetime, and the fragility can increase the economically optimal house elevation to values well above FEMA’s recommendation.