This research project proposes to develop a water, energy and food nexusing approach that increases resilience capabilities in the Cape Town Metropolitan region. The water-energy-food nexus has emerged as a framework for integrated resource management. To date, however, the practical adoption of nexus approaches into governance practices and policies has lagged behind policy ambitions. The contention of this proposal is that to increase the scientific and societal value of nexus approaches, an expanded view on nexusing processes is required.

Therefore, this project will critically explore the water-energy-food nexus through three main points of departure: the first is to understand the multi-dimensional interaction of water, energy and food systems. The second is to assess how the water-energy-food nexus materialises in selected socio-spatial contexts in Cape Town. Thirdly, the aim is to
understand the wicked governance challenges of mitigating, coping with, preparing for, and adapting to urban resource crises. Finally, the project will develop multi-scale procedural guidelines and policy briefs to inform nexusing practices. To achieve these objectives, the research adopts a complex systems approach which systematically addresses the multi-dimensional nature of the water-energy-food nexus. Through a multi-disciplinary approach and in close collaboration with societal partners, WEF nexusing will be explored as a broader process-oriented approach to howresources do, and can, interact and be governed across siloed domains.

This is a crucially important endeavour in the city of Cape Town which faces a triple exposure to interrelated water, energy and food crises. Through this expanded perspective, and emerging from the urgent need for concerted urban action, this broader view of nexusing will be framed through the conceptual lens of urban resilience. The research will assess the vulnerabilities and resilience of complex system interactions to develop recommendations for coordinating resilience strategies that work complementary to existing governance arrangements.

• dr. Shaun Smith
• prof. mr. Marleen van Rijswick
• prof. mr. Anoeska Buijze
• prof. dr. Maarten Hajer
• Nicola Harvey
• dr. Shaun Smith

Like in many cities in the Global South, urban dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa experience severe sustainability challenges in their electricity systems which conventional responses cannot fix. Despite governmental ambitions to universalize access to electricity networks, energy users and (co-)providers have developed a diversity of collective and individual solutions at the edge of, in the interstices of, or simply in place of universal electricity networks and beyond conventional models in energy supply and use. Applying concepts of postcolonial debates to urban sustainability studies, this project assumes that the heterogeneous demand and supply options represent an emerging but understudied form of energy transitions. The key objective is to identify pragmatic pathways to sustainable energy systems in African cities by exploring how to better coordinate different use and service provision channels. More specifically, the objectives are 1) to develop a typology of the heterogeneous technological solutions and practices in the (co-)provision, use and governance of energy services; 2) to understand the co-existence, interplay and hybridity of these constellations; 3) to co-create a participatory tool for their sustainability assessment; and 4) to co-design governance guidelines that systematically address the heterogeneity of energy supply and use. Based on empirical studies in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Maputo (Mozambique), the project will develop and disseminate tools and guidelines applicable to other urban contexts in the Global South. The project achieves these objectives through transdisciplinary partnerships between researchers in the Netherlands, Tanzania and Mozambique and a broad range of local, national and international stakeholders.

• prof. dr. Kei Otsuki
• Mathias Koepke MSc

Cities and urban regions are key sites and vantage points of societal transitions to circular economies, healthy living, resilience and inclusiveness. One of the key mediators of such transitions are technical infrastructures—socio-technical systems in the provision of energy, water, wastewater, waste, mobility and information and communication services. However, those systems are highly path dependent and are interlaced with the built environments of cities, urban practices of production and use and embedded in a complex web of political interests and epistemic cultures. Our infrastructure choices today set the default for many decades to come. Changing urban infrastructures thus imposes exceptionally high requirements in terms of the transformative knowledge for decision makers. Our ambition with this hub is to develop a platform for new transdisciplinary collaborations on urban sustainability transitions through the lens of urban infrastructures. We will explore and test innovative techniques and practices of urban ‘futuring’, experimentation, co-provision and governance in cities around the world and develop sustainability indicators and assessment tools to understand, evaluate and promote pathways to urban sustainability. The hub will bring together the substantive knowledge of leading researchers at Utrecht University and will work closely together with stakeholders in novel ways to co-create knowledge in ‘city learning labs’ and transdisciplinary workshops, that is both policy relevant and intellectually ambitious.

• prof. dr. ir. B. (Bert) Brunekreef
• prof. dr. Harriet Bulkeley
• dr. ir. J. Colen Ladeia Torrens MSc
• prof. dr. Peter Driessen
• dr. Martijn van den Hurk
• prof. dr. Albert Meijer
• dr. Peter Pelzer
• dr. Shaun Smith
• dr. Vanessa Timmer
• prof. dr. ir. R.C.H. (Roel) Vermeulen
• prof. dr. Annelies Zoomers

The Research Training Group analyses critical infrastructures in cities – the networked systems that supply urban energy, water, wastewater, communications, and transportation services. Those systems have become the nervous systems of modern cities, and they can trigger dramatic crises if they fail. In recent years, the growing vulnerability of modern urban societies through their infrastructural networks has been a controversial topic. That controversy is due not only to multiple external threats such as natural disasters, terrorist and cyber attacks, but also to the growing complexity and increasing interdependencies of infrastructure systems.

The basic assumption of the Research Training Group is that critical infrastructures are highly context-dependent both in temporal and spatial terms, and that they also manifest multiple spatial and temporal relations. The group’s aim is to understand and to explain these complex systems in their spatiality and temporality, and its research thus takes place in three specific areas. First, we will identify the critical aspects of constructing technical infrastructures in light of their historical and spatial contexts, and we will uncover those infrastructures’ social and political aspects in addition to their technical and functional needs. Second, we assume that complex spatial and temporal arrangements are particularly visible in infrastructural dysfunction. We will investigate failures and function crises of urban infrastructures, including the spatially and temporally complex conditions of those infrastructures’ vulnerability and resilience. Third, we will ask how prevention of and preparedness for urban infrastructure failures are, or can be, organized.

While traditional infrastructure research and policy studies have been organized along individual infrastructure domains and disciplinary lines, the Research Training Group argues that critical infrastructures are understood best through multisectoral research approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration among humanities, social science, and engineering scholars. The Research Training Group addresses the great need for interdisciplinarity in infrastructure research on three levels: first, conceptually, by centring on five key interlinked concepts (criticality, vulnerability, resilience, preparedness, and prevention); second, analytically, by focusing on the spatiotemporal context-dependency and relationality of critical infrastructures; and third, by investigating networked infrastructures in cities as a common research object. In addition to providing training in interdisciplinary cooperation, the Research Training Group aims to promote internationality through collaboration with four leading European research centres and to intensify contacts to professional practice.

For more information see the website of the Research Training Group.