Project Groundwater values the social aspects that can influence flood resilience just as highly the technical ones. That's why we work closely with communities to increase understanding and to co-create solutions.
By doing this, we hope that people will feel more invested in our work and the measures we develop together to tackle groundwater flooding.
2024
Building relationships
In 2024, Groundwork, the Project’s specialist engagement team, continued to develop relationships with community contacts and Project technical teams. This led to a significant increase in activity.
Over 40 community events and meetings took place throughout the year, drawing in a variety of stakeholders including flood groups, forums and flood wardens. Our work with the Pang Valley Flood Forum on their Flood Protection Exhibition, also involved FloodMary and the FloodMobile - an interactive demonstration vehicle with over 50 practical measures on show.
To raise awareness amongst residents, and to help prepare the community for flooding incidents, two project communities – Chalfont St Peter and South Oxford – were supported to set up new flood groups.
The team continued to monitor and engage with each of the nine project communities individually which helped to identify and develop targeted opportunities for engagement. They also worked hard to increase awareness about the Project and to manage expectations about potential support.
Throughout the year, the team also provided engagement support and advice to the Project’s technical teams. Five focus groups were set up in July, inviting 25 community residents to look at the new groundwater flooding warning service and provide feedback on its development. The team also delivered a flood experience questionnaire, designed by the Project to identify the most suitable properties for a survey to determine potential property flood resilience measures.
Engagement activity increased in 2024
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Connectivity and conversations
Relationships, and awareness about groundwater flooding, grew outside, as well as inside, the Project in 2024. With established social media channels in place, our Communications team put increased focus on ramping up its content stream and building its networks.
The Annual Report, blogs, newsletters, website content and videos all provided fresh and engaging stories about our work. We saw a significant rise in interactions with social media posts, in particular on LinkedIn. This year also saw the development and introduction of a key communications channel, ‘Groundwater Rising’, our podcast. This has been notably successful at widening our reach to industry and helping to cement the Project as a key driver of conversations about groundwater flooding.
The team stepped up the Project’s visibility through enhanced promotion of events and speeches. At CIWEM’s industry-leading Flood and Coast conference, this included a workshop, promotion of a drone display and key speech. Throughout the year the team also facilitated and supported a stream of speaking opportunities for Jed Ramsay, Project lead.
Awareness and relationships grew this year
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Collaboration
Close working with other Project workstreams became increasingly key for Engagement and Communications as more Project activities began implementation in 2024.
Project-wide Workstream meetings provided a space for everyone to discuss challenges, ask for support or advice and identify opportunities to work together.
We played an integral part in the work of the Research and Education’s workstream this year. This included looking at how communities can be involved in the creation of more qualitative engagement measures, and supporting data collection to inform a journal article on social innovation and communication.
Collaboration across the Project and with community colleagues saw the development of community funding streams to help build capacity and resilience locally. By the end of the year, a Community Innovation Fund and a Community Seed Fund had been developed.
A collaboration with wider Groundwork teams led to their national community resilience training programme, ’Communities Prepared’, being offered to Project Groundwater communities. This included flood volunteer training and community emergency planning. Work also began this year to develop a groundwater flooding training course as part of the package.
The engagement team also supported the Environment Agency in 2024 by sharing a survey seeking feedback from communities about groundwater flooding information on GOV.UK.
2025
In 2025 we will continue to provide a vital link between the Project and our communities through close relationships and tailored engagement. We will continue to expand industry and public awareness about groundwater flooding, and drive discussion through an increase in publications, speeches, and organisational development.
Engagement
- Through close collaboration with other workstreams, we will develop campaigns to support the introduction of Project activities.
- We will continue to support the newly established flood groups, and help to set up other groups where needed.
- We will increasingly work with communities on co-creation: we will develop or update their flood action plans, together, and feed these community actions into the new groundwater flooding warning service.
- We will help to raise awareness about the community seed funding and innovation funding.
- We will roll out the new groundwater flooding training, through online content and facilitated community discussions.
- We will continue to organise community events to further raise awareness and encourage engagement with the Project.
- We will continue working with Research and Education colleagues to submit a journal article about social innovation and communication on Project Groundwater.
Communications
- We will continue to extend our reach to raise awareness and understanding about groundwater flooding.
- We will seek out new, and more targeted, ways to engage with communities and amplify our message to them via communications.
- We will roll out a project wide Plan and Forward Look to identify, collate and share our achievements and learning.
- We will collaborate more with our current Project Groundwater Network to share our learning and expand our reach.
- We will extend our industry connections and conversations with the establishment of Let’s Talk Groundwater Flooding, a network, open to all.
- We will work closely with partners and communities to support the development of our legacy strategy.
Find out more about Project Groundwater
