UCLIC Seminar: Co-designing infrastructure: engaging communities in complex, urban decisions

Speaker: Sarah Bell, UCL
UCL Contact: Aline de Borst (Visitors from outside UCL please email in advance).
Date/Time: 24 Apr 19, 15:00 - 16:00
Venue: Room 4.05 66-72 Gower Street

Abstract

Infrastructure resilience is vital for the safety of the public, the strength of the economy, the health of the environment and local quality of life. Community resilience is also recognised as a key factor in determining responses to extreme events and delivering climate adaptation. To date, research and policy have addressed infrastructure resilience and community resilience as distinct domains. Engaging communities with infrastructure has the potential to multiply and strengthen connections across urban systems, and to enable positive behavioural and cultural change. Explicitly framing urban environments as socio-technical systems provides the basis for addressing interconnections to support resilience and adaptation that are otherwise overlooked. It is also the foundation for co-designing and delivering interventions and policies, enhancing the impact and uptake of research. This seminar will present recent and ongoing research from London, UK, on engaging communities with infrastructure, including work related to the water-energy-food nexus, water management and air quality.

Sarah Bell

Sarah Bell is Professor of Environmental Engineering at University College. She is an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Fellow working on bottom-up approaches to infrastructure resilience. She is the Director of the Engineering Exchange, which aims to connect local community groups with researchers in engineering and the built environment. Her most recent book ‘Urban Water Sustainability’ was published in 2018 by Routledge Earthscan.