This chapter discusses both citizen and stakeholder participation as an instrument in urban gover... more This chapter discusses both citizen and stakeholder participation as an instrument in urban governance. Citizens and other non-state actors can be involved in local decision-making in many different ways. Privatization of previously public entities such as municipal water companies, port authorities or educational institutes has created new local actors, adding new challenges to urban governance. Communication technologies both facilitate and complicate interaction between actors in the governance process. Where governance outcomes are contested, ordinary citizens increasingly take recourse to legal action or mobilise on ‘the streets’ to hold their governments to account. This chapter discusses these general trends while highlighting how issues of scale and local context shape participatory practices locally.
Scenario building and related analysis is useful in several fields, ranging from military and bus... more Scenario building and related analysis is useful in several fields, ranging from military and business planning to its more recent applications in addressing global challenges such as climate change or economic crises. This chapter provides an overview of scenario building in urban governance. It introduces a corporate case (Shell) and then uses case studies on water and climate governance from the global South, specifically Lima (Peru), Guarulhos (Brazil), Durban (South Africa) and Dwarka (India) to illustrate the process of scenario building in practice. These case studies highlight the potential and challenges of scenario building as a process and tool in urban governance in fast-growing cities in emerging economies. The analysis reveals that the scenario-building process can be as important as its outcome, because the different perspectives of the participating actors, their understanding of the local context and mutual learning gained on the topic may influence their future plans and course of action. The socio-economic and political contexts of the cities under study play a significant role in shaping water governance issues, now and in the future.
Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos sobre Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres REDER, 2017
En las últimas décadas hemos asistido a una profunda reformulación de cómo entender las condicion... more En las últimas décadas hemos asistido a una profunda reformulación de cómo entender las condiciones de riesgo en el contexto urbano. Sin embargo, aún enfrentamos significativos desafíos para capturar conceptual, metodológica y empíricamente los círculos viciosos de reproducción de riesgos que configuran ‘trampas de riesgo urbano’ frecuentemente invisibilizadas. Entendemos a las trampas de riesgo como el resultado de la reproducción de riesgos cotidianos y de desastres repetitivos y frecuentes de pequeña escala, que afectan en forma desproporcional a los sectores empobrecidos en forma altamente localizada. A partir de cLIMA sin Riesgo - un proyecto de investigación-acción desarrollado por los autores en el contexto de Lima - este artículo explora las condiciones que producen y reproducen estas trampas, cómo y dónde se materializan, quiénes son afectados y con qué consecuencias para aquellos que viven en barrios tugurizados y/o asentamientos informales y marginalizados. La discusión e...
One of the major uncertainties of our era is to what extent and how anthropogenic climate change ... more One of the major uncertainties of our era is to what extent and how anthropogenic climate change will affect ecosystems and livelihoods. Given the vast concentration of urban poor in low elevation coastal zones and hillsides susceptible to landslides, many cities in the South are considered particularly at risk. In some cities natural hazards such as droughts will reduce the amount of water available, while in other cities an increase in the number of storms or flood events, where intense flows of water enter the city system very rapidly, and an increase in annual rainfall will intensify the need to capture and manage water in a sustainable and safe manner. Various cities will probably have to face both prolonged periods of droughts in one season and more intense rainfall in another. In some cases different scenarios even predict very different trends. What is evident is that many of the plausible effects of climate change impact water availability, which in turn impacts energy prov...
Page 1. Nr. 2/02 New Publication Agenda 21 for Sustainable Construction in Developing Countries §... more Page 1. Nr. 2/02 New Publication Agenda 21 for Sustainable Construction in Developing Countries § ISBN 0-7988-5540-1 Author: Chrisna du Plessis ...
Peru suffers a rapid process of urbanization in 1950, 30% were urban and in 2004 more than 72% Pe... more Peru suffers a rapid process of urbanization in 1950, 30% were urban and in 2004 more than 72% Peruvians live in cities, most of them in the capital, Lima where 30% of all Peruvians live. In Lima, the richest city in the country, the urban services deficit is still high. In 2001, there were only 1.8 m2 green area per inhabitant, 20% of the population had no domestic water connections, 21% had no sewerage connections, 35% no access to transportation and public transportation and 43% no solid waste collection. The Cities for Life Forum (CLF) is a national inter-institutional network which works in 29 cities and by 2005, it has 83 affiliated institutions. The most significant achievement of the CLF is having contributed to the creation and/or implementation of Agenda 21s in 15 of Peru’s 26 largest cities. It is a combination of support for local action involving all local stakeholders and support for inter-city and inter-sector collaboration. The CLF’s experience is valuable for two ma...
The Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) initiative provides a distillation of the IPCC reports i... more The Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) initiative provides a distillation of the IPCC reports into accessible and targeted summaries that can help inform action at city and regional scales. This is a collection of the three volumes of the SUP series combined together.
The second volume in the Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) series, Climate Change in Cities an... more The second volume in the Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) series, Climate Change in Cities and Urban Areas: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, offers a concise and accessible distillation of the IPCC Working Group II Report. Cities are places of high risks from climate change, resulting from the interaction of climate change hazards, the exposure of infrastructure, people and ecosystems, the vulnerability of exposed elements and communities, and the negative or unintended effects of responses to climate change to people and ecosystems. This report assesses the feasibility and effectiveness of different adaptation options but highlights that adaptation has limits and can even lead to maladaptation, triggering unintended effects which increase risk, emissions and lock-ins. It synthesises the latest evidence on the necessary urban-led transformation, as well as evidence on operationalizing the five simultaneous system transitions across land, coastal, ocean and freshwater ecosy...
This chapter discusses both citizen and stakeholder participation as an instrument in urban gover... more This chapter discusses both citizen and stakeholder participation as an instrument in urban governance. Citizens and other non-state actors can be involved in local decision-making in many different ways. Privatization of previously public entities such as municipal water companies, port authorities or educational institutes has created new local actors, adding new challenges to urban governance. Communication technologies both facilitate and complicate interaction between actors in the governance process. Where governance outcomes are contested, ordinary citizens increasingly take recourse to legal action or mobilise on ‘the streets’ to hold their governments to account. This chapter discusses these general trends while highlighting how issues of scale and local context shape participatory practices locally.
Scenario building and related analysis is useful in several fields, ranging from military and bus... more Scenario building and related analysis is useful in several fields, ranging from military and business planning to its more recent applications in addressing global challenges such as climate change or economic crises. This chapter provides an overview of scenario building in urban governance. It introduces a corporate case (Shell) and then uses case studies on water and climate governance from the global South, specifically Lima (Peru), Guarulhos (Brazil), Durban (South Africa) and Dwarka (India) to illustrate the process of scenario building in practice. These case studies highlight the potential and challenges of scenario building as a process and tool in urban governance in fast-growing cities in emerging economies. The analysis reveals that the scenario-building process can be as important as its outcome, because the different perspectives of the participating actors, their understanding of the local context and mutual learning gained on the topic may influence their future plans and course of action. The socio-economic and political contexts of the cities under study play a significant role in shaping water governance issues, now and in the future.
Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos sobre Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres REDER, 2017
En las últimas décadas hemos asistido a una profunda reformulación de cómo entender las condicion... more En las últimas décadas hemos asistido a una profunda reformulación de cómo entender las condiciones de riesgo en el contexto urbano. Sin embargo, aún enfrentamos significativos desafíos para capturar conceptual, metodológica y empíricamente los círculos viciosos de reproducción de riesgos que configuran ‘trampas de riesgo urbano’ frecuentemente invisibilizadas. Entendemos a las trampas de riesgo como el resultado de la reproducción de riesgos cotidianos y de desastres repetitivos y frecuentes de pequeña escala, que afectan en forma desproporcional a los sectores empobrecidos en forma altamente localizada. A partir de cLIMA sin Riesgo - un proyecto de investigación-acción desarrollado por los autores en el contexto de Lima - este artículo explora las condiciones que producen y reproducen estas trampas, cómo y dónde se materializan, quiénes son afectados y con qué consecuencias para aquellos que viven en barrios tugurizados y/o asentamientos informales y marginalizados. La discusión e...
One of the major uncertainties of our era is to what extent and how anthropogenic climate change ... more One of the major uncertainties of our era is to what extent and how anthropogenic climate change will affect ecosystems and livelihoods. Given the vast concentration of urban poor in low elevation coastal zones and hillsides susceptible to landslides, many cities in the South are considered particularly at risk. In some cities natural hazards such as droughts will reduce the amount of water available, while in other cities an increase in the number of storms or flood events, where intense flows of water enter the city system very rapidly, and an increase in annual rainfall will intensify the need to capture and manage water in a sustainable and safe manner. Various cities will probably have to face both prolonged periods of droughts in one season and more intense rainfall in another. In some cases different scenarios even predict very different trends. What is evident is that many of the plausible effects of climate change impact water availability, which in turn impacts energy prov...
Page 1. Nr. 2/02 New Publication Agenda 21 for Sustainable Construction in Developing Countries §... more Page 1. Nr. 2/02 New Publication Agenda 21 for Sustainable Construction in Developing Countries § ISBN 0-7988-5540-1 Author: Chrisna du Plessis ...
Peru suffers a rapid process of urbanization in 1950, 30% were urban and in 2004 more than 72% Pe... more Peru suffers a rapid process of urbanization in 1950, 30% were urban and in 2004 more than 72% Peruvians live in cities, most of them in the capital, Lima where 30% of all Peruvians live. In Lima, the richest city in the country, the urban services deficit is still high. In 2001, there were only 1.8 m2 green area per inhabitant, 20% of the population had no domestic water connections, 21% had no sewerage connections, 35% no access to transportation and public transportation and 43% no solid waste collection. The Cities for Life Forum (CLF) is a national inter-institutional network which works in 29 cities and by 2005, it has 83 affiliated institutions. The most significant achievement of the CLF is having contributed to the creation and/or implementation of Agenda 21s in 15 of Peru’s 26 largest cities. It is a combination of support for local action involving all local stakeholders and support for inter-city and inter-sector collaboration. The CLF’s experience is valuable for two ma...
The Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) initiative provides a distillation of the IPCC reports i... more The Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) initiative provides a distillation of the IPCC reports into accessible and targeted summaries that can help inform action at city and regional scales. This is a collection of the three volumes of the SUP series combined together.
The second volume in the Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) series, Climate Change in Cities an... more The second volume in the Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) series, Climate Change in Cities and Urban Areas: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, offers a concise and accessible distillation of the IPCC Working Group II Report. Cities are places of high risks from climate change, resulting from the interaction of climate change hazards, the exposure of infrastructure, people and ecosystems, the vulnerability of exposed elements and communities, and the negative or unintended effects of responses to climate change to people and ecosystems. This report assesses the feasibility and effectiveness of different adaptation options but highlights that adaptation has limits and can even lead to maladaptation, triggering unintended effects which increase risk, emissions and lock-ins. It synthesises the latest evidence on the necessary urban-led transformation, as well as evidence on operationalizing the five simultaneous system transitions across land, coastal, ocean and freshwater ecosy...
Lima's environmental sustainability is threatened by increasing water scarcity, heavy rain events... more Lima's environmental sustainability is threatened by increasing water scarcity, heavy rain events and limited attention for water vulnerability and climate change scenarios. In this paper we examine how knowledge construction and risk perception on water-related disaster risks and vulnerabilities affects decision-making and implementation in urban governance networks, specifically looking at some of the reasons behind high levels of risk tolerance and the lack of decision-making initiatives in putting adaptation and/or preventive measures in place. New forms of metropolitan governance have constructed spatial knowledge about water-related vulnerabilities using inclusive scenario-building processes. These unpack complexities, uncertainties and spatial inequalities in water governance, making them visible by mapping and spatial representations as strategic instrument for social and policy learning. This article analyzes two case studies, which either already are or can become disasters (scenario-building). The first, concerns the long-term plausible scenario of water scarcity and droughts analyzing population growth rates, water distribution and consumption through the Chance2Sustain research project and presenting spatial representations. The maps were used to define possible spatial intervention priorities to deal with future water vulnerabilities in Lima. The second, refers to short term extreme weather events that already manifest as mudslides and floods and El Ni~ no in Chosica, eastern Lima. We investigate the first at the metropolitan city scale level and the second at the scale of vulnerable communities. The cases illustrate iterative spatial knowledge construction, in which processes of risk prioritization, normalization and tolerance occur, and the resulting [in-]action by a variety of actors so far. The methodology used collective and iterative mapping processes, using technical, organizational and geographical knowledge from a variety of governance, experts and practitioner networks in Lima. The main outcome is the social learning derived from bringing together different kinds of knowledge and integrating several dimensions through spatial representations. This has raised awareness, increased capacities for dealing with uncertainty and contributed to the approved metropolitan Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, but not implemented by the Lima Municipality yet. The main conclusions are two: 1) spatial planning is a quite political process (c.f. Flyvbjerg 1998), in which knowledge is contested or even when acknowledged, does not necessarily steer decision-making processes, either by local communities, authorities and private institutions. And 2) existing models linking knowledge construction to risk framing, risk tolerance and how these influence decision-making processes and actions to prevent disaster may ignore the issues of risk tolerance, through normalization and prioritization at their peril.
Uploads
Papers by Liliana Miranda Sara