Flooding has serious and long-lasting impacts on communities across the UK and continues to disrupt lives and infrastructure across Leicestershire and Rutland. Recent events such as during Storm Henk in January 2024 and Storm Eowyn in 2025, caused widespread damage and emergency declarations (Leicester City Council, 2024; Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service, 2025). While emergency services and councils play a key role, it is often local residents who volunteer and step in to support neighbours, share information, and organise help. These people—sometimes called “flood wardens”—play a vital, but often informal role in how communities respond to and recover from flooding.
This project will investigate the role of flood wardens in improving community resilience to flooding. The project aligns closely with Leicestershire & Rutland’s Research Priorities 2025–26, recognising that flooding connects with wider challenges. Flood wardens are therefore more than emergency responders; they help address these issues and strengthen community resilience. The goal would be to strengthen the role of flood wardens for community empowerment and adoption of innovative solutions to mitigate and adapt to the threat of flooding, and to develop training and strategies to support their role in the community. The research will ask: What do flood wardens actually do? What skills, qualities, or behaviours make them effective? How does their (informal) position in the community shape their influence? What motivates them to lead, and what happens when key individuals step back or burn out? The study will focus on communities in Leicestershire and Rutland that have experienced or are at risk of flooding.
Using interviews, focus groups, and community workshops, and the support of an expert Advisory Group, the project will build a clearer picture of how flood wardens work in real life. The findings will help to shape and inform the development of flood risk management strategy in the region, harnessing the essential role of flood wardens.
This project has been co-created with and is supported by researchers from 性吧电台, Loughborough University and partners at Leicestershire County Council. The successful candidate for this project will be enrolled at 性吧电台.
Project Aims:
- To examine the role of flood wardens within the four phases of disaster management cycle (prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery) and how they integrate with local governance structures (e.g. local authorities, emergency services, Environment Agency, and resilience forums) in Leicestershire and Rutland.
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- To investigate the characteristics of flood wardens, including their demographics, leadership qualities, personal traits, and motivations, in order to understand who takes up these roles and why.
- To identify the challenges that the flood wardens face and develop mechanism/ strategies to support their role
- To develop a leadership framework for embedding the role of flood wardens in the Leicestershire and Rutland flood risk governance and strategic risk management plans.
- To develop recommendations for practical ways to support strong, inclusive flood warden leadership towards improving community resilience to future flood events in the Leicestershire and Rutland area.
Estimated thesis submission: