Infrastructure, Planning, and Uncertainty on Urban Coastlines

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

Coastal cities in the United States are particularly vulnerable to flooding from rising sea levels and extreme weather events. Traditional urban planning and management approaches (land reclamation, sea walls, etc.), and even newer initiatives (restoration science and other initiatives oriented toward making cities resilient) have tended to rely on models that assume adequate provisioning of public financial and infrastructural investment necessary to return coastal cities to a durable and dry equilibrium state. This project explores the diverse approaches urban administrators use to stabilize urban environments, where models forecast persistent uncertainties in public infrastructural planning and increased reliance on stakeholder inputs. The data will be important for American municipalities searching for alternatives in urban infrastructural planning around uncertain futures. Findings will be disseminated to various governmental, non-governmental, and other organizations concerned with evaluating the limits and opportunities associated with water and sewage infrastructure, and coastline management. The project also provides training for undergraduate and graduate students in methods of rigorous, scientific data collection and analysis, and broadens participation through the inclusion of underrepresented students and scholars in scientific research. This project will also build scientific capacity and infrastructure through collaboration and increasing understanding of the causes, consequences, and complexities of human social and cultural variability. Dr. Nikhil Anand of the University of Pennsylvania will explore how stakeholders and scientists in an urban coastline engage quotidian uncertainty in managing livelihoods and maintaining durable infrastructures. The research will take place in an urban community in Mumbai, which proves an ideal laboratory for exploring these questions because of the density of this urban area, the long tradition of coastal management by local stakeholders, and the existence of several major infrastructural projects along this coastline. This creates a rich environment for comparative analysis within the same urban context. The researcher will test the hypothesis that the habitation and management practices employed by these coastal communities inhibit environmental uncertainties. Seventeen months of fieldwork will be conducted through a range of ethnographic data collection and analytical techniques, including participant observation and interviews with stakeholders in the fishing industry, environmental scientists, and municipal officials. The project will make important contributes to debates in anthropology, science and technology studies, and social science more broadly about water and resource management, urban environments, and the production and circulation of environmental knowledge. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.