Intersection between disaster vulnerability and sustainability
This project explores the intersection between settlement sustainability and various environmental and public health risks facing those settlements. It focuses on the physical environment in which low-income human settlements (LIHS) in the GCR are located, looking for example at land underlain by dolomite, prone to flooding, and adjacent to mine residue areas where wind-borne air pollution presents health risks.
A key dimension of poverty and inequality is ‘locational disadvantage’, where poor communities are doubly burdened by low incomes and also by their situation in less than optimal locations. It is well recognised that apartheid planning placed black residents in poorly serviced locations far from work opportunities and social and urban amenities. It is less well-understood how some of these low-income settlements were also placed in areas unsuitable for dense residential development. Since post-apartheid urban development in the GCR – including the expansion of RDP housing and the growth of informal settlements – has largely followed the spatial patterns set historically, the problem has been exacerbated. In those settlements affected by environmental risks, including potential disasters to which poor households have limited resilience, poverty and inequality may be compounded.
This project has policy relevance in that it will help government and communities to understand the varied locational risks facing many LHIS, and therefore in turn the need for better settlement planning and design. The project is also academically important in that it feeds into a growing literature on the complexity of designing, upgrading and managing LIHS in the ‘Global South’, where many conundrums present themselves (for example is it better to remove households located on dangerous ground, or to leave them where they are while spending ‘relocation funds’ on upgrading services and strengthening structures to reduce disaster risk, thus avoiding the disruption of fragile livelihood strategies and social bonds?).
The project started in 2011/12 with investigations into settlements on areas affected by dolomite (with associated sinkhole risk), fluvial (river) flooding, and airborne pollution. 2012/13 will see the following:
- A 2nd phase of mapping and analysis into flood hazards, building on research in 2011/12 on available flood-plain data in the city-region. This component will look specifically at stormwater ponding (pluvial) risk;
- Using the medium of photography and posters, a ‘cataloguing’ of different low-income settlement types on dolomite, coupled with a geotechnical analysis of how vulnerability is affected by settlement design;
- As a follow-up to the GCRO’s first Provocation, an investigation into the current situation with – and proposed solutions to – Acid Mine Drainage in the city-region.
Timeframes
This is a three year project which started in 2011/12, and which will end in 2013/14.
Key partners
Key local university partnerships are with the Wits School of Architecture and Planning, UJ’s Department of Town and Regional Planning, and the Wits School of Chemical and Mechanical Engineering.
Outputs in 2012/13
- Conference paper on flooding in the GCR, presented to ‘FloodRisk2012’ in the Netherlands in Nov 2012;
- A journal article on flood risk and climate change;
- A GCRO research report on the current status quo with regards to managing Acid Mine Drainage risk.
