Water Cycles - United Arab Emirates
09 Dec Water Cycles
How can design and the arts help sustain or restart healthy water cycles? How can community-led and co-creative design present solutions to pressing hydrologic challenges brought about by climate change?
This afternoon symposium brings together thinkers from architecture, social practice and the arts to explore how design-focused and arts-driven practices can shape the understanding and health of water cycles across different geographies. Within the COP28 framing of December 9, 2023 as the Nature, Land Use, and Oceans Day, this event at the Jameel Arts Centre will host speakers from the Netherlands, India, Kuwait, and Bahrain. They will discuss ground-up regenerative approaches to tackling the hydrological impacts of the climate crisis. Each speaker is engaged with (re)designing thought frameworks and pedagogies that support community-led forms of action and to co-create new water imaginaries.
The hydrologic cycle is being rapidly altered by climate change on a global scale. West and South Asia are particularly water-stressed, with unsustainable groundwater-based agriculture coupled with increasing groundwater salinity and year-round temperature irregularities. In turn, the Netherlands, as one of the most densely populated coastal lands, is dealing with changing, and unpredictable precipitation patterns. Salinity intrusion endangers Dutch groundwater security, while subsiding peatlands and sea level rise place pressure on decisions regarding urban planning and infrastructure design.
Treating water as a more than human commons, the presentations and panel discussion are anchored around four key questions:
- How are designers, architects, planners and artists bringing capacities of design research and locally grounded adaptation techniques together to enable water cycle -centric human habitats?
- How can this be done in a way that empowers local communities and civil society who need the most support in regions affected by water-related disasters?
- How can the long-term participation of communities and governance partners be ensured thereby influencing socially responsible governance, policies and connected resources? What kinds of policies and city-plans enable an approach attuned to restoring the hydrologic cycle?
- What are the entry points for citizens and public discourse?
Speakers are: Professor Dr. Carola Hein (Delft University of Technology) and Architect John Hanna (Delft University of Technology); researchers Ain Contractor (IHE Delft Institute for Water Education) and Anjali (Yugma Collective); as well as artist Aziz Motawa (Akkaz Collective).