Learning from Durban: Resilience, climate action and reconfigured infrastructure in changing social and environmental conditions

The aim of the project is to co-produce and integrate various types of climate change knowledge to inform climate action, and specifically the design and implementation of sanitation policy and practice in the global south and beyond.
Project status
Ongoing
Departments
International

Climate and environmental change are already happening. In some places, the damage associated with these changes is undoing progress towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Droughts and floods, for example, disrupt access to safe sanitation. Scholars and practitioners are seeking to improve the resilience of infrastructure, and often focus on changing technical designs in response to biophysical/natural science. These interventions are important, yet overlook the potential of social science for improving the resilience of infrastructure. This study will develop a transdisciplinary framework for improving the resilience of non-sewered sanitation, drawing from previous, ongoing and new research. The study will take place in Durban, a global south city with a comparatively rich amount of data and progressive policy, enabling the project team to develop synergies across a number of data types. The framework and findings will have widespread relevance for sanitation and sustainability policy and practice in and beyond South Africa.

Research Team: Professor Catherine Sutherland, University of KwaZulu-Natal; Dr Preyan Arumugam, University of KwaZulu-Natal; Professor Mary Lawhon, University of Edinburgh; Dr Hayley Leck, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI)Dr Santiago Septien-Stringel, University of KwaZulu-Natal

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