Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) Seminar Series: Brian Cook

Monday 13th October 2025

Flooded with Messages: Evidence for Participation as an alternative to awareness

Open to everyone TLC117 

Abstract: Across water management challenges, public engagement is designed to raise awareness on the assumption that it will prompt behaviour change. In flood risk management, this has meant messaging and tokenistic forms of participation have become the dominant pathways for change. Neither approach has demonstrated a consistent link to adaptation. This paper presents longitudinal evidence from more than 600 households in Melbourne, Australia, to test how different forms of learning shape adaptation. We analyse cognitive (awareness), normative (value change), and relational (social connection) learning. Normative learning is the strongest and most consistent predictor of household adaptation, while both normative and relational learning predict spillover effects. Cognitive learning shows only a modest association with adaptation and no effect on spillover, making it the weakest and least reliable pathway. These findings challenge the aim of awareness-raising, demonstrating that dialogic, dignity-based engagements generate measurable adaptation. The implications extend beyond flood risk to water management more broadly, underscoring the need to move beyond business-as-usual messaging-awareness toward approaches that demonstrably support household adaptation.  

Short biography: Brian Cook obtained his PhD from the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience at Durham University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Melbourne, and the President of the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG). His research examines the intersections of water, risk, and sustainable development, with a particular focus on how knowledge shapes governance and practice. He has conducted research in Australia, Cambodia, Canada, the UK, and Bangladesh, using qualitative and mixed-method approaches to explore knowledge production and adoption in contexts such as disaster risk reduction and agrarian change. His work highlights the complex relationships between knowledge, governance, and resilience, with recent findings contributing to key debates over behaviour change and participatory engagement. 

Readings: Cook, B. R., & Overpeck, J. T. (2019). Relationship‐building between climate scientists and publics as an alternative to information transfer. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 10(2), e570.  

Cook, B. R., Kamstra, P., Harrigan, N., Lawes, J., Brander, R., Bond, J., & Kompas, T. (2024). Normative learning generates behaviour change: The case of drowning prevention. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 114, 104942.