Urban waterscapes and the pandemic – changing water practices, technologies and infrastructures in Nairobi

城市水景和流行病——改变内罗毕的用水实践、技术和基础设施

• 批准号: 468099064
• 负责人: Professorin Dr.-Ing. Sophie Schramm
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Fachgebiet International Planning Studies (IPS)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2020-12-31 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/468099064?language=en
• 关键词: Urban; waterscapes; pandemic; changing; water

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the importance of water access as an essential service protecting human health. Frequent handwashing and general hygiene are prerequisites for health and particularly for containing the spread of contagious diseases. However, the fight against infectious diseases and the prevention of human-to-human transmission of the novel virus may be hampered by uneven geographies of water access. More particularly, people living in deprived areas of rapidly growing cities risk being more vulnerable to the effects of the global pandemic. The current pandemic has presented a dilemma for water providers as well as residents in water-deprived urban areas as they need to find ways to meet new hygiene standards and requirements despite lacking access to water infrastructure. Thus, urban actors in water-deprived settlements across the globe adapt their water-related practices in manifold heterogeneous ways to new requirements of health and hygiene. While some studies of urban Africa have already discussed different responses to increased water demand during the pandemic, the intricate ways in which urban ‘waterscapes’ have changed during the pandemic are yet to be investigated. The term ‘waterscape’ directs attention to the “contested geographies of water” where urban water flows are mediated by networked infrastructure systems as well as everyday practices and technologies and thereby reflect uneven power relations.Focusing on Nairobi, Kenya’s capital with historically uneven and highly contested geographies of water, we mobilize the concept of waterscapes in order to understand 1) how Nairobi’s waterscapes – the infrastructure system as well as everyday practices and technologies – have changed during the pandemic; 2) how these waterscape changes relate to new requirements of health and hygiene, and 3) in how far they reflect creativity in adapting to new requirements and/or re-produce urban fragmentation. After a city-wide overview over changes of the sociotechnical water infrastructure system of Nairobi during the pandemic, we will focus our field study on water-related practices in two specific areas in Nairobi: Eastleigh and Kibera. Eastleigh is a middle-lower income area with a long history as a hub for the (Kenyan-)Somali community and businesses. Piped water supply in Eastleigh cannot keep up with rapid densification through multi-story housing. Kibera is one of the oldest slums of Nairobi. Despite regular attempts to upgrade Kibera, it is dominated by low-rise, extremely dense housing mostly without individual access to water and sanitation. We will apply a mixed-method approach with an emphasis on qualitative research to reveal context-dependent characteristics and a deep understanding of the mechanisms, relationships and motives underlying current changes of everyday water practices in water-deprived areas of Nairobi.

Covid-19 大流行凸显了供水作为保护人类健康的基本服务的重要性。经常洗手和一般卫生是健康的先决条件，尤其是遏制传染病传播的先决条件。防止这种新型病毒在人与人之间传播可能会受到供水地域不均匀的阻碍，更具体地说，生活在快速发展的城市的贫困地区的人们更容易受到当前全球大流行的影响。给供水者以及缺水城市地区的居民带来了困境，因为尽管缺乏供水基础设施，他们仍需要找到满足新的卫生标准和要求的方法，因此，全球缺水地区的城市参与者都在适应。尽管非洲城市的一些研究已经讨论了大流行期间对水需求增加的不同反应，但城市“水景”在大流行期间发生了复杂的变化。尚待调查。 “水景”一词将注意力引向“有争议的水地理”，其中城市水流由网络基础设施系统以及日常实践和技术调节，从而反映了不平衡的权力关系。重点关注肯尼亚首都内罗毕，该国历史上不平衡且竞争激烈为了了解水的地理分布，我们运用水景的概念来了解：1）内罗毕的水景——基础设施系统以及日常实践和技术——在大流行期间发生了怎样的变化；2）这些变化如何发生。水景观的变化与健康和卫生的新要求有关，3) 在对内罗毕社会技术水基础设施系统的变化进行全市概览之后，它们在多大程度上反映了适应新要求和/或重新产生城市碎片化的创造力。疫情期间，我们将重点关注内罗毕两个特定地区与水相关的做法：伊斯特利和基贝拉，伊斯特利是一个中低收入地区，长期以来一直是水资源中心。 （肯尼亚-）索马里社区和企业的管道供水无法跟上多层住房的快速密集化，尽管经常尝试升级基贝拉，但它仍以低层住宅为主。 ，极其密集的住房，大多数人无法获得水和卫生设施。我们将采用混合方法，重点是定性研究，以揭示与环境相关的特征以及对当前变化背后的机制、关系和动机的深入理解。内罗毕缺水地区的日常用水实践。