Evaluating the Success of Participatory Flood Risk Mapping—A Case Study from Dharavi, Mumbai

Abstract

In recent decades, several participatory tools and techniques have been introduced in disaster risk management. These tools vary from each other at great extent in terms of their structure, function, scope, facilitation process, required time and resources and so on; however, the sole objective of all of them is to ensure effective involvement of local communities in disaster risk management. If involving community in the decision-making process is simple and unidimensional, then one particular tool would be enough to ensure the objective. However, the multifaceted nature of community participation, the variety of ways to operationalize them and its numerous untested claims have created enormous confusion amongst researchers and practitioners to put the idea into practice. There is urgent need to systematically define the objectives of the community-based disaster risk management and examine how and what extent the participatory tools can ascertain those objectives. To address these issues, this study introduces a participatory flood risk mapping exercise in Mumbai, India. In this study, we unraveled how and what extent the participatory flood risk mapping exercise is effective to achieve the critical parameters of good participation. Thereafter, local community themselves evaluated the success of the participatory risk mapping to ascertain various participation yardsticks. This study is one of the pioneering works in identifying the factors accountable for effective public participation in disaster management and to validate them empirically.