Justice in Flood Risk Management Discourse – A Critical Analysis of Policies in Porto Alegre, Brazil

This research critically investigates how justice has been envisioned in flood risk management (FRM) policies in Porto Alegre, Brazil — a delta city with a longstanding history of river flooding. In May 2024, following days of intense rainfall upstream, the Guaíba river reached its highest-ever recorded level, flooding large portions of the city for weeks. Referred to as the region’s worst environmental disaster, this event has disproportionately burdened socio-economically disadvantaged groups and exacerbated existing inequalities. In this context, this study aims to disentangle how justice has been historically envisioned in flood risk policies in the period preceding the event, tracing developments from the 1970s – when the flood defence system of the city was built, until the extreme event. By adopting a discursive institutional perspective, this study explores the processes through which justice discourses have become institutionalized in flood risk management in the past decades. More specifically, through Critical Discourse Analysis, the research identifies prevailing justice narratives within flood risk management by examining how justice was conceptualized in policy discourses and how these definitions became embedded in institutional practices over time. The analysis is guided by Norman Fairclough’s framework for critical discourse analysis. By drawing from a database of policy documents and advisory reports issued by spatial planning and water management authorities addressing flood risk management, three dimensions will be analysed, namely: the (1) textual dimension or the description of text, (2) the discursive practice or the interpretation of relationships between discursive processes (including text production and interpretation) and the text, and the (3) socio-cultural practice that uncovers the relationships between discursive processes and broader societal dynamics. Preliminary findings of the analysis will be presented. This investigation serves as a foundational step in a broader research endeavour, which aims to explore the role of power dynamics in flood risk governance and justice conceptualization, the extent to which and how justice is institutionalized, and how flood risk management ultimately exacerbates or not social inequalities.