Kingston Case Study: Community engagement at scale
Overview
In January 2023 we began a new case study in Kingston. For this case study we returned to a traditional door-knocking approach, offering participants a widely redeemable e-gift voucher to encourage their participation. We simultaneously partnered with local community groups to enable comparison of this ‘traditional’ approach relative to signing up participants through community organisation networks.
Impact
Across 2023, our team knocked on more than 5,000 doors across the City of Kingston, with a focus on flood affected suburbs such as Mentone, Parkdale, and Mordialloc. The team spoke to over 1,200 community members at their doors, over their fences, and along suburban streets. The research team enjoyed listening to anecdotes from residents about their experiences in the local community (flood related or otherwise), and occasionally helped community members fix a broken gate or start a lawn mower. Broadly, the approach involved experiencing the local community while engaging – hearing the stories and values that guide risk mitigation in local contexts.
We conducted approximately 400 initial engagements and 300 follow-ups with residents of Kingston, providing over $20,000 directly to community members via gift vouchers.
Preliminary Summary of Research Findings
Download the preliminary participant summary below to see more detail, and keep an eye out for more detailed findings at the end of 2026.
Overall, we found that engaging community members in our research was an enjoyable, two-way learning exercise that supports risk reduction at both the household scale. From our follow-up interviews, we found that:
- 98% enjoyed participating in CEDRR.
- 64% reported that participation increased their flood risk awareness.
- 63% reported changed intentions to reduce risk.
- 48% took action to reduce risk.
Our follow-up interviews found that the impacts of participating in this research ‘spilled over’ into participants’ wider networks and communities through conversation and action. For example:
- 76% of participants spoke to other people about CEDRR and/or the risk topics it raised.
- On average, participants discussed the engagement with three others, typically from their household, family, friends, neighbours and/or affiliated community groups.
- Collective actions saw participants help neighbours clean out gutters and drains, research flood overlays, and initiate communication channels between neighbours and local community groups.
In addition to flood risk, participants identified that they were concerned about, and taking actions to reduce risk in regard to:
- Home security.
- Personal health and safety.
- Energy and climate change.
- Financial risks.
- Food security.
The community also had fantastic feedback and suggestions for our project and the wider flood risk sector, including:
- Participants want current flood data and future flood modelling to be made publicly available.
- Participants want resources that are specifically directed at inner-city environments, rather than generic resources advice aimed across rural and urban areas.
- Participants want personalised risk-assessment services.
- Participants want greater community connection and mobilisation around risk issues.
- Participants want greater transparency and action from Council in relation to flood zones, development, and available support and grants to increase household flood resilience.
- Participants with disabilities and limited mobility need recognition and support in planning for emergencies and evacuations from high-rise buildings.
In Our Participants’ Words
“I think it's a fascinating project. And I wish more people would take part in it.”
“You're talking sensible, friendly and serious matter of bringing to my attention in a good way. And you didn't lecture me and tell me what to do, it was just a general conversation, bringing up the points of what is happening, the reality and what I have to do to just control them and bring things in a little bit.”
“The initial door knock approach I thought was very, uh, that impressed me because it meant you're actually making face to face contact, which is much more effective and nicer than just a letterbox drop… I felt that was a very good follow up. I have to congratulate you, I can't think of a better survey plan than the one you’re conducting.”
“I think that it's outstanding that there's that level of care in an academic scenario.”
“But it definitely made me think about things a bit more. So I got on and I checked the topographical map for my area, which I didn't even realise I could access. So that was interesting.”
“Just a lot of gutter clearing and clearing of tree roots and things like that, that might assist with the stormwater. And I know that the neighbours had some issues with stormwater which is supposed to as you know, get rid of the any rain or water runoff that comes from rain. And so, we've been doing a little bit of clearing of trees and routes turn to assist on that side as well.”
“I think it created a conversation probably in the household and with neighbours as well, so it made [me] more aware. And you look at things like you know, torrential rain. How did the gutters cope with it and how did the street, you know, sort of cope with it?”
“It led me to do some searches on the area like the neighbourhood that I live in. And flood easements and other overlays. And so, speaking to people about it, based on that, and how interesting I found the whole process.”
“I guess it did make me think about the low-lying areas of Reservoir, where I was living and, yeah, thinking about maybe extreme weather conditions and what that might look like within where I live… Well, I think that I was probably influenced where I bought. Yep. So, I bought on what I think is higher land, than some of the lower lying parts of Reservoir. Yeah. There were some places I looked at which were quite low lying near the Darebin Creek and stuff like that. So possibly made me think about that more.”
Next Steps
With follow-up engagements completed, the CEDRR team is now working to analyse this data in finer detail. Keep your eye out on our publication page for research outputs focusing on the methodology, a comparison of recruitment pathways, degree of impacts resulting from engagement and exploration of spillover effects.
