Welcome to new PhD student at University of Reading who will join the Twenty65 PhD community.

Phiala Mehring, ‘Get you water out of my lounge’ Understanding the societal perception of flood risk and the ‘ownership’ of flooding to facilitate the implementation of integrated catchment based flood risk management. Work is funded by University of Reading Regional Bursary, and supervised by Hilary Geoghegan, Joanna Clark and Hannah Cloke.

“I didn’t find the subject of flooding it found me,’ says Phiala. “In 2007 the flood waters approached my house to within inches of the front door. Repeat events in 2008 and 2009 prompted me to set up Loddon Valley Residents Associationhttp://www.loddonvalleyra.org.uk/. Over the intervening years I have worked, in partnership, with the flood authorities, stakeholders and communities of the Loddon Catchment to make us all more flood resilient using natural flood risk management techniques.

“But we have encountered barriers to implementing this approach, in particular, the way society perceives flooding and flood risk management. There is dissonance between how flooding is perceived by the flood authorities contrasted with those living at risk of flooding. My PhD aims to understand this dissonance along with its origins and to develop the tools and techniques to circumnavigate this barrier and enable catchment based flood risk management to succeed.”