The UN estimates by 2050, 66% of the world’s population will be living in cities. Much of the urban expansion takes place in the sprawling peri-urban fringes occupied by large extensions of the self-built, informal settlements. Poverty, social exclusion, as well as the lack of basic infrastructure/ services, make these settlements vulnerable to events such as climate change and disease epidemics. Addressing the challenges faced at the peri-urban of major cities, particularly in the Global South, is crucial if we are to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and if we are to provide an acceptable quality of life to the 2.5 billion additional people who will be living in cities by 2050.
CGEN’s Sustainable Peri-Urbanization (SPUR) Initiative aims to catalyze interdisciplinary and collaborative research projects focused on tackling issues related to sustainable development in peri-urban settlements. Those challenges range from lack of access to sustainable water & sanitation, food insecurity, energy poverty, and unsafe housing. SPUR seeks to build a cluster of world-class faculties at the University – and on-the-ground partners – who would be at the forefront of the world’s push for sustainable peri-urbanization.
Currently, the primary focus for this research is Mexico City. Mexico City grew from a population of less than 5 million to over 22 million in less than 50 years. This fast growth resulted in many informal settlements on the periphery of the city with limited infrastructure and high poverty rates (Figure 1). As one of the largest megacities in the world, Mexico City represents many challenges for sustainable urban development. These include:
- the complexity of safe and equitable access to key resources such as water, sanitation, and energy.
- over-exploitation of groundwater and the destruction of important ecosystems which serve an important ecological purpose.
- unsafe housing conditions (limited considerations for thermal comfort and fire protection) with poor hygiene and sanitation amenities.
- vulnerability to natural disasters (e.g., landslide, earthquake, flooding) and epidemics.
- unsustainable solid waste management practices.
- lack of support for agricultural activity combined with rising land value, impacting food security for the entire region.
- lack of appropriate transportation infrastructure to facilitate the efficient movement of people and the trade of goods,
- digital exclusion.
Each of these issues on their own presents a considerable technical challenge. Collectively, they constitute an unprecedented problem that requires a coordinated, well-planned, multidisciplinary approach to address, and a different approach to problem-solving.
Mexico City is also home to various initiatives of climate policies/ community-based ecotechnologies and has a vibrant community of environmental activism. There is no doubt that Mexico City’s experience can inform similar initiatives across the world, including those in Canada.
Our mandates under the SPUR initiative include: (1) Generating research collaboration/ academic exchange opportunities for UofT faculties and students, with academic institutions and civil organizations based in Mexico and other Latin American countries; (2) Boosting interdisciplinary/ policy-relevant research and establish dialogues with government agencies and international organizations. And (3) Incorporating perspectives of social/ environmental justice and community engagement in engineering research and education, through collaborative engineering projects and knowledge dissemination activities.
Based on this understanding, the research projects produced under SPUR focus on:
- tackling or mitigating the impacts of climate change
- decentralized infrastructure solutions and community-based eco-technologies
- action-oriented research with peri-urban communities in an ethical and effective manner as it relates to technology stewardship
- interdisciplinary research
Below are some highlights of our ongoing projects:
- Community adoption of ecotechnology and grassroots approach to climate change adaption: A participatory study of rainwater harvesting initiatives in Mexico City. This project aims to explore strategies for community capacity building and community appropriation of technology, while also examining technical innovations, management, and operations models to optimize the effectiveness and sustainability of drinking. Based on this, the team will also undertake a pilot study of solar-powered UV rainwater treatment, as well as measure the impacts of rainwater harvesting on CO2 emissions. This project is awarded UofT School of Cities’ 2022-2023 Urban Challenge Grant.
- Sustainable sanitation and dry toilet design evaluation. This project aims to evaluate different designs of dry toilet in Mexico City’s peri-urban informal settlements. Pablo is currently conducting fieldwork in Mexico City with the TECHO field team.
- Community-based water management systems in peri-urban Mexico City. This project seeks to understand the water security challenges and decentralized water management systems in Mexico City, placing these community-based initiatives into the structural and institutional context (Publication).
- Improve the design of fog collector into a ready-to-assemble design. This project aims to improve the design of Permalution’s current fog collector of easy installation, into a ready-to-assemble design (IKEA-like product) for easier transportation, assembly, and maintenance.
CGEN has engaged with a range of partner organizations that have been undertaking work aligned with SPUR’s mission, which is key to successful global engineering projects. Currently, we are partnered up with the following organizations:
- TECHO-Mexico, a non-profit focusing on social production of habitat and development of community infrastructure in peri-urban fringes.
- Isla Urbana, a social enterprise dedicated to contributing to water sustainability in Mexico through rainwater harvesting.
- Parakata, a social enterprise specialized in development and assessment of ecotechnologies.
- Centro EURE, a non-governmental organization focused on applied research, evaluation and consulting in the fields of regional, urban and metropolitan policy.
- Permalution, a Canadian start-up focusing on innovative technology for climate change solutions and fog water harvesting.