Barriers to enabling principles of uncertainty and controversy in urban flood decision-making in the context of climate change: the case of Quy Nhon city, Vietnam

Canh Toan Vu

doi:10.25907/00230

Making decisions to address urban flooding is highly challenging due to the magnified uncertainty and controversy associated with climate change and urbanisation processes. Despite substantial academic and practical endeavours in this field, a comprehensive understanding of how decision makers consider climate change uncertainty and controversy in the light of the available information and knowledge is yet to be developed. Moreover, knowledge of the barriers to the integration of climate change uncertainty and controversy, and especially the reasons for the emergence and persistence of such barriers, remains limited and fragmented. This study addresses these knowledge gaps by drawing on evidence from Quy Nhon city, Vietnam. It examines the barriers to integrating the consideration of climate change uncertainty and controversy into urban flood-related decision-making processes; and the reasons why such barriers emerge and persist. To do so, it employs an interpretivist case study approach that utilises qualitative data collected from project documents and semi-structured interviews. The findings of this study show that most top-down flood-related decision-making processes in Vietnam are dominated by official decision makers that often exclude other stakeholders, especially those with differing views. They also favour a traditional linear predict-then-act approach without cognisance of its systemic impacts or the inequities that tend to be reproduced. Consequently, flood risk is often exacerbated and redistributed instead of reduced. This lack of consideration of climate change uncertainty and controversy is caused by a number of interrelated barriers that work together across scales. These can initially be attributed to the typical official explanations, such as insufficient financial resources, inappropriate information, limited capacity, poor regulatory frameworks and trade-offs with economic growth. However, the further findings of this research suggest that the most fundamental barriers are rooted in the dominance of a political elite, interest-driven agendas and the influence of the private sector. These, in turn, result from interrelated barriers such as a lack of accountability, overlapping roles and structures in the political system, and the distortion of existing legal rules. The findings of this study highlight the importance of addressing the second order questions of how and why barriers emerge and persist. Furthermore, they demonstrate that if the objective is to achieve sustainable flood management and successful adaptation, there is considerable urgency to move beyond the linear assumption that enhanced information, capacity, financial resources and regulation will lead to better decisions; and instead focus on the fundamental drivers of decision-making processes such as the distribution of power in the institutional and political realms.

Barriers to enabling principles of uncertainty and controversy in urban flood decision-making in the context of climate change: the case of Quy Nhon city, Vietnam

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