Addressing climate equity concerns in planning through citizen science

Abstract

“The environmental load of the exponentially growing economy, driven by the consumption of the growing population is leading to distribution conflicts. Evidence suggests that the societies that have least contributed to climate change suffer the most from it due to lacking capacities and capital to act on the hazards and effects of climate change and on the contrary, the ones’ who contribute the most towards climate change have better capacity of dealing with the same, resulting in social inequity and environmental injustice. The research focuses on climate equity that relates to addressing environmental justice and social equity concerns. In order to primarily allocate and achieve equitable distribution of resources amongst communities and further assess the vulnerability that will help identify the communities of concern, there is a need to establish a climate equity assessment and bring in public participation. The focus of the aim is localising of the “SDG 11 [Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable]” as a way to address climate equity in planning by utilization of non-traditional data source i.e. Citizen Science to map vulnerabilities as well as decision making. Four objectives are formulated, that define three phases of the research elaborated to form the methodology. The scope of the research is to mainstream information, knowledge and data sets coproduced through citizen science for mapping of vulnerable communities formed by underlying equities into planning, while strengthening local institutional [formal and informal] capacity to address equity concerns and differential vulnerability. The “Sustainable Development Goals” have the most comprehensive set of indicators relating to climate equity concerns. The SDG India Index developed by NITI Aayog, focuses on implementing the SDGs across the country and measuring the status of the SDGs at the state level. However, localising the SDGs is essential to combat climate change and build resilience. The roadmap for localizing SDGs provided by UN highlights the importance for public participation and democratic accountability as it is a tool to drive the localisation of the SDGs. By mobilizing and integrating citizen science, stakeholder and communities, the essential mapping of vulnerable communities can be achieved, and foster monitoring progress of SDGs. Conventional data sources are insufficient for evaluating the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs; innovative and non-conventional sources of data are required for it. Citizen science is an emerging method of a non-conventional data source, integrated with climate equity to achieve inclusive development in the domain of planning can be explored for better decision making and good planning practices. To address climate equity, a comprehensive set of indicators for local action is required using mixed qualitative (participatory) and quantitative (modelling) methods for mapping vulnerabilities and develop a robust adaptive capacity. For this, a contributory framework of citizen science would be essential for inclusive development. With the focus of equity, society and climate, certain indicators were chosen for the assessment which are physical vulnerability, social vulnerability and status of SDG 11 targets. The vulnerability forms the needs assessment with additional SDG 11 targets to be achieved at the local level. It was developed that achieving the SDG 11 targets essentially related to addressing equity in the cities. Through primary data collection in the form of online and field surveys and secondary data collection; the assessment is conducted in two phases. The selection of the study area is based on the SDG India Index scores and tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation was selected as the study area and the assessment was conducted. The outcome of this research is to suggest a framework for monitoring and implementation essentially translating to localization of SDGs and a citizen science framework with knowledge transfer and collaborative platforms as a way to address climate equity concerns in planning. Furthermore, building capacities of the formal and informal institutions, governance convergence, and provide spatial strategies for adaptation towards the impacts of climate change. Along with the conventional planning process, the assessment would contribute as a layer to address problems and make priority decisions based on the findings of the assessment. This would translate into suggesting strategies including spatial design, resource allocation, and policy measures at the local level for formal and informal institutional capacity building for the selected study area.