Co-Production of Landslide Risk Management Strategies Through Development of Community-Based Infrastructure in Latin American Cities

The project aims to explore the scope for upscaling and transnational transfer of participatory landslide risk-reducing strategies for informal settlements in Latin America. Drawing on lessons from a pilot experience in a single small informal settlement in Medellin, Colombia, this project will roll out and evaluate the use of community-based participatory monitoring and mitigation of landslide risk across the city in Medellin, as well as in another city within a different Latin American country – São Paulo in Brazil.

The first pilot project called #Resilience had three objectives. Firstly, to explore perceptions of landslide risk in informal settlements within the community and among public sector agencies. Secondly, to pilot and test informal settlement community-managed risk monitoring and mitigation techniques. Lastly, to collaboratively identify mechanisms to develop a sustainable process of landslide risk-mitigation strategy-building.

The new project #Upscaling-Resilience will substantially develop understanding of the scope for co-produced landslide risk-mitigation infrastructures by testing the feasibility of upscaling and internationalising this experience. This will be met by firstly, testing the roll-out of community-based landslide risk management in Medellin’s low-income NW sector. Secondly, testing transnational transfer of community-based landslide risk management. And lastly, by drawing lessons on community-based landslide risk management from the Colombian and Brazilian experiences transferable to other Global South cities.

The beneficiaries of this project will be residents in informal settlements at risk of landslides in the Global South. The research team will disseminate policy papers and academic papers, as well as hosting a final dissemination event in the UK.

You can follow the project on Twitter at @MUI_Research or visit the project website.

Principal Investigator: Dr Harry Smith, Heriot-Watt University

Co-Investigators: Dr Gabriela Maluf Medero, Heriot-Watt University; Dr Maria Soledad Garcia Ferrari, Edinburgh College of Art / University of Edinburgh; Professor Francoise Coupe, Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Medellin; Professor Alex Abiko, Universidade de Sao Paulo