Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/S01375X/1
(International) Expressive Mapping of Resilient Futures (E-MoRF)
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Dr F E Taylor, King's College London, Geography
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor M Pelling, University College London, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reductio
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor BD Malamud, Durham University, Geography
- Grant held at:
- King's College London, Geography
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Earth
- Freshwater
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Unknown
- ENRIs:
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Pollution and Waste
- Science Topics:
- Urban & Land Management
- GIS Mapping
- Civil society and NGOs
- Development Studies
- Geohazards
- Risk management
- Cartography and GIS
- Visualisation
- Environmental Geography
- Geography of environmental resilience
- Abstract:
- Africa is rapidly urbanising and with this growth has come a proliferation of informal settlements. Residents of informal settlements often have limited access to services, insecure tenure and high exposure to shocks and stresses such as flooding and disease. Several global and national frameworks have indicated that a key tenet of sustainable urban growth is building 'resilience'. Yet, resilience can mean different things to different decision makers - an engineer might measure it as the number of alternative cables in the electricity network if one breaks; a psychologist might describe resilience as a person's ability to adapt to adversity. Indeed, resilience often does not have a direct translation in many languages. Those involved in making cities more resilient to natural hazards (e.g., floods) such as engineers and planners tend to have highly technical training. Within these groups, traditionally there is a tendency to quantify resilience in terms of what can easily be placed on the map - such as housing, infrastructure and critical facilities. This can result in some tunnel vision about what types of projects should be taken forward when local experience and perceptions are not taken into account. In spite of these challenges there is a genuine desire in our study city of Nairobi (Kenya) to include the voices of residents in decision making. However, it is not always clear how this more qualitative, experiential information on resilience (e.g., narratives) can be incorporated to existing ways of working by city actors, nor is there necessarily the capacity to undertake major new ways of working. The Expressive Mapping of Resilience (E-MoRF) project aims to mainstream innovative, low-cost ways of representing these community voices on the map, coupled with simple ways for decision makers to incorporate this data into their existing systems to result in more inclusive planning for resilience. The work here builds upon a previous NERC funded project 'Why we Disagree about Resilience' (WhyDAR) that was delivered with Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) in Nairobi (who we work with in E-MoRF). In WhyDAR, artists and residents of informal settlements worked together in a collaborative environment to define a broad range of ways that people cope with flooding, and the threats to their resilience. Using themes that came out of the workshop, coupled with data collected in the settlement using smartphones, we generated immersive maps combining 360 deg photos, audio and text to communicate a broader perspective of what resilience meant to the community. These prototype maps were made publicly available online using free software. We showed these prototype maps to decision makers such as urban planners, consultants and NGOs who stated that these maps are an engaging way to better understand what planning interventions might support the community, and commented that the data layers could be incorporated into their existing mapping software. At present these maps are static and there is no method in place to continually update them to make them regularly useable. In the E-MoRF project, we will move from prototype to operational maps through: A. Creating and distributing training resources for community groups to identify key components of resilience specific to them and then generate expressive map data to visualise this B. Creating an open, online platform where this map data can be uploaded, viewed and distributed to a range of decision makers C. Creating and distributing training resources for decision makers to help understand these new types of map and how they can be incorporated in their daily work D. Throughout the project, having a continuous cycle of feedback from community groups and decision makers to ensure the maps are useful, useable and used E. Exploring how the process affects decision making with regards to resilience F. Disseminating resources to encourage uptake of the approach in additional cities
- NERC Reference:
- NE/S01375X/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Innovation
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Innovation Projects
This grant award has a total value of £125,342
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DI - T&S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £48,413 | £25,236 | £11,713 | £21,313 | £5,503 | £13,165 |
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