Building urban resilience through participatory mapping and social engagement
Now, more than ever, due to the Covid19 pandemic and pre-existing social inequalities, especially in developing countries cities, the peripheries of large cities have been hugely affected. Less advantaged social groups are unable to cope with social isolation policies to contain the virus and risk themselves going to work, or looking for a job, in order to afford living. Children have been without a stable education for over a year. All this has brought and will continue to bring negative social, environmental, and economic impacts to cities and to people’s lives, especially in vulnerable and peripheral communities.
While citizens in these places try to survive the increasing effects of climate change and inequality, Covid-19 has added new aggravating factors that pose severe threats to their health and their lives. Strong governance and urban policies related to health are urgently needed. And for that, we need new tools.
Tools that promote social inclusion for sustainable urban planning in the decision-making process.
Tools that actually allow people from everywhere in the city to engage.
Tools that enable citizens to communicate their demands more effectively to the city authorities, so that strategies and actions can be developed to address root causes.
Therefore, among several participatory approaches, the participatory mapping method consists of a powerful tool to stimulate participatory processes among different social actors, including traditionally marginalized social groups, such as the elderly, children, adolescents, women, low-income groups, etc., co-creating knowledge about their place that enable intersectoral dialogues relevant to sustainable development, such as the reduction of inequalities. Participatory mapping allows citizens to know their territory, conscientize, think about solutions and communicate. When citizens can take part in the urban decision processes, especially in climate change or now, with the pandemic challenges that affect us all, this is a strategy to overcome the challenges mentioned above (Barbarousi, 2020). Social participation in cities has become something essential to achieve urban sustainability and social justice. Only through the engagement and protagonism of citizens, it is possible to build a just and resilient city for people.
This definition of urban resilience from 100 Resilient Cities, says that
“Urban Resilience is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience.” Rockefeller Foundation
This can only be achieved when stakeholders are connected to inform how their city that can adapt to increasingly complex challenges.
Participatory mapping aims to represent local knowledge by applying geotechnologies and mapping techniques that facilitate an informed urban planning design, the development of strategies and interventions on urban structure, the decision-making processes, and also support the city´s communication. This is made by geospatial techniques that stimulate dialogue, and thus, increase socio-environmental awareness and consequently, resilience, when the needs and problems faced are mapped, and actions are proposed.
Participatory mapping has its roots on the concept of SoftGIS, a multidisciplinary approach created by researchers in Finland, with the aim of supporting planning and decision-making in the urban context. Through local knowledge and citizens’ perceptions, participatory mapping has the major objective of improving the living conditions of citizens, the promotion of equity and social justice, and access to basic resources. This method is largely applied in urban planning studies and projects, from academia to local government initiatives, to improve life quality in cities.
Several study cases are available, but here I present briefly my post-doctoral research that aimed at the application of participatory mapping to investigate access to basic resources such as water, energy, and food (WEF) in Guarulhos, São Paulo, Brazil. My research had two main steps, one in a vulnerable Community (Novo Recreio) and another one using an online platform for mapping resources access and quality of urban life in the city of Guarulhos. Several insights were captured with citizens' engagement, from new proposals for the Community of Novo Recreio to the whole city. More details of this research available on my website www.comunidadesvivas.com.br and also through the link below, a guide detailing more in-depth the approach described in this blog post.
You can download the participatory mapping guide here (English version).
One of the main contributions of the described method, aiming to overcome the bottleneck of more integrated management for urban resilience, is to engage citizen participation in decision-making processes (Kahila-Tani et al, 2019). In summary, participatory mapping can bring the following specific advantages:
- Data provide guiding insights for urban planners to improve governance and planning,
- Provides multi-level and cross-sectoral dialogue
- Facilitates mapping of citizens’ perceptions, interests and practices
- Supports the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a city level scale
- Provides access to information, more transparency, and reaches a larger number of people involved
- Possibility of integration with urban planning data
- Inclusion of commonly excluded or marginalised groups
- Support in the development of public policies
- Participatory mapping and other participatory approaches produce complementary information. The connection between such different participatory approaches facilitates the achievement from diagnosis to definition of proposals, which are not only restricted to the place studied, since local policies are dependent on state policies, and so on, and the strategies proposed can then generate impact on the whole municipality and region.
Participatory mapping is therefore considered to play a fundamental role in order to increasingly ground citizen participation in the decision-making processes of urban planning in our complex cities. It is an efficient tool to spatially delimit resource flows and resources access, functioning as a powerful diagnose tool, as well as to co-create strategies and solutions for urban socio-environmental problems, leveraging urban resilience building approaches.
Read more here: www.comunidadesvivas.com.br
References
BARBAROUSI, C. Participatory planning during covid-19: strategy in the fight against the pandemic. 2020. <https://www.espon.eu/participatory-planning-during-covid-19-strategy-fight-against-pandemic>.
Kahila-Tani, M. Kytta, m., Geertman, S. Does mapping improve public participation? Exploring the pros and cons of using public participation GIS in urban planning practices. Landscape and Urban Planning, 186, 45–55 p. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2019.02.019, 2019.
