Objectives

• Understanding vulnerabilities in urban slums and informal settlements through an exploration of the impacts of climate change manifesting as inhabitants’ lived experiences.
• Exploring community-based adaptation (and maladaptation) strategies.
• Evaluating the role of past experiences with disasters in their current disaster preparedness and response.

 General Activities

• Conducting 500+ household surveys and 50+ in-depth interviews from two climate-impacted urban slums.
• Organizing community-based yard meetings among older residential members to collect their wisdom from personal experiences.
• Using NVivo and SPSS software to analyze both qualitative and quantitative data, which will expose community adaptation patterns together with systemic adaptation limitations.
• Hosting Stakeholder workshops/meetings to verify research results and create policy engagement while distributing findings to participants.
• Developing high-impact deliverables consists of a research report that combines policy briefs with academic papers and social media articles for multi-level community outreach.

Expected Results

• Providing a comprehensive understanding of how climate change affects the daily lives, livelihoods, and well-being of urban slum and informal settlement dwellers, offering insights into their specific vulnerabilities, and contributing to broader discussions on urbanization, climate change, and disaster resilience.
• Cataloging both successful and maladaptive strategies implemented by slum and informal settlement dwellers, creating a knowledge base for more effective and inclusive urban planning and policy interventions.
• Conducting a comparative analysis of factors that contribute to resilience or vulnerability across different urban slums and informal settlement contexts, offering valuable lessons for other cities and contexts facing similar challenges.

This project has received funding from the American National Red Cross