Writing a master’s thesis is often the final task after many years of university studies. It may feel overwhelming before, during, and even after the process. How can you utilize the knowledge gained on different topics and research methods, and carry out independent research? You may also need to adopt completely new skills. In this blog post I describe how I navigated through the different steps of my thesis research on pluvial flood risk and adaptation in the city of Helsinki.
Formulating an initial research idea according to your interests
Having developed an interest in extreme weather events and urban climate change adaptation during my studies, I wanted to conduct my thesis on the topic and focus on urban flooding. Current trends of densifying city structures and intensifying heavy rainfall events lead to a growing need to assess pluvial flood risk and adapt to its impacts in cities, which made the topic timely and interesting. During our master’s thesis seminar I was able to discuss my thesis idea with teachers and other students from my master’s programme, and familiarize myself with theses from previous master’s students. This helped me to narrow down the topic and led to the decision to conduct a case study on the city of Helsinki.
Contacting a supervisor and getting started on the research design
After reviewing different research groups and considering where my thesis topic would fit the best, I contacted a potential supervisor. We agreed on the supervision arrangements and I started to work on the research design with the help of my supervisors. This included formulating the initial research question and aim, defining an analytical framework, and deciding which materials and methods to use.
By reviewing literature, I developed an analytical framework based on the IPCC’s climate risk framework and the social-ecological-technological systems (SETS) approach, and decided to ground the work on adaptation governance literature. The aim of the thesis was to examine the complexity of pluvial flood risk and adaptation through the following research question: How is pluvial flood risk understood and adapted to in the city of Helsinki? I constructed an interview guide based on the analytical framework to conduct interviews with the city of Helsinki employees. To complement the interview data, I chose to include city policy documents in the analysis. As the analysis method, I decided to utilize qualitative content analysis and quantification of the data to analyze both the interviews and documents.
Gathering the material and conducting analysis
The next step was to apply for a research permit from the city of Helsinki and contact potential interviewees by email, which was complemented by a snowballing approach. I was able to conduct nine expert interviews and collect nine documents, which were chosen based on internet searches and the interviews. Prior to the analysis, I developed a codebook based on the analytical framework, and together with my supervisor performed triangulation to review the codebook and ensure reliability. I then coded all interviews and documents according to the codebook, performed qualitative content analysis and quantified code frequencies. I recommend making detailed notes during these stages to make writing the material and methods section smooth and accurate.
Writing the results and discussion
The final stage of the thesis was to write the results and discussion sections. The most challenging part of structuring the results was to choose how to present and connect both the qualitative and quantitative results. I decided to use both quotes and code frequency and co-occurrence tables. I presented these in different subchapters, but in the more descriptive part reflected back on the quantitative results. In the discussion, I aimed to circle back to the background and analytical approach, and considered the results in the light of previous literature. It is also important to critically evaluate the limits of your study while being able to justify e.g. your methodological choices.
The results of my thesis highlight that in Helsinki, the understanding of pluvial flood risk focuses on exposure of infrastructural systems, for example traffic systems and buildings. While protecting citizen health and safety is one of the city’s policy priorities, efforts to mainstream protective adaptive measures and widely address vulnerable groups are not yet reached. Urban green areas are harnessed to act as adaptive systems to avoid the harmful impacts of pluvial flooding to infrastructure and city functioning, as they are considered to have adaptive capacity towards pluvial flooding. Adaptation is characterized by efforts to adapt to multiple hazards through one adaptation measure, often a nature-based solution. While adaptation is a collaborative process between different teams and experts within the city and stakeholders across private and public sectors, citizen engagement is limited. To assess and examine the adaptation goals, the city of Helsinki could benefit from a monitoring and evaluation system, which is currently lacking.
If pluvial flood risk is aimed to be examined from a comprehensive viewpoint, further efforts should be made to examine the impacts on urban ecosystems, and to assess and consider vulnerability of both ecological, social and technological systems in city strategy, planning and adaptation. This could broaden the current infrastructure-focused, exposure driven risk conception, provide a more thorough look at pluvial flood risk and thus assist the way to a more resilient and sustainable city.
I presented both the research plan and the results in our programme’s master’s thesis seminar, which provided me more feedback and a possibility to reflect on my research. After the final rounds of supervisor feedback, revisions and thorough read-throughs, I submitted my thesis in January.
After submission
This fall, I was honoured to hear that my thesis received the city of Helsinki master’s thesis award and the Yrjö Haila master’s thesis award from The Finnish Society for Environmental Social Science (YHYS).
Read the full thesis here
Lehtonen, Anna (2025). Understanding pluvial flood risk and adaptation through a social-ecological-technological systems (SETS) approach : The case of the city of Helsinki. Master’s Programme in Environmental Change and Global Sustainability, University of Helsinki.