• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.289-301
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• 2019

This paper explores community-based flood disaster risk governance by applying a sensemaking approach. The conceptual sensemaking framework consists of individual experience, dialogue, and socialization components, which together comprise an interconnected system. This study presents a method for applying this framework by using a concerns table and a SWOT analysis to examine the concerns of residents living in a flood plain. A series of community-based workshops on flood risk reduction was conducted with residents of the flood-prone Muraida community in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. During the workshops, residents' concerns regarding flood risk surfaced. This study used an idiographic approach to examine the proceedings of the workshops. SWOT issue analysis was used to examine the strengths and weaknesses in the Muraida community's internal capacities, and examine the opportunities and threats in the external capacities (e.g., local government). Additionally, a SWOT strategy analysis was conducted to identify strategies for knowledge sharing and development of cooperative countermeasures that can be undertaken between the Muraida community and the local government. The results show that the concerns table can not only summarize the main concerns of all workshops, but also provide an understanding of alternative flood risk countermeasures that can be carried out.