Towards Healthy Brazil: Sustainable Urban Nexus (Water-Energy-Sanitation) in the Tietê River Basin

• Grant number: 19/17507-7
• Support type: Research Grants - Organization of Scientific Meeting
• Duration: July 19, 2021 - July 23, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning
• Cooperation agreement: British Council ; CONFAP ; Newton Fund, with FAPESP as a partner institution in Brazil
• Principal researcher: Norma Felicidade Lopes da Silva Valencio
• Grantee: Norma Felicidade Lopes da Silva Valencio
• Home Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Infrastructural systems (infrasystems) are entangled with social, technical and ecological systems at smaller and larger scales. How they are planned, implemented, managed, maintained and used has impact on sustainability outcomes. The transformation ofnational infrastructures, although usually implemented with the aim to improve humanwell-being, may carry adverse implications for human health, social relations andenvironmental sustainability. Yet, there is a lack of systematic and integrated evidenceon the sustainability outcomes of transitions in infrasystems.The workshop will highlight the need for sustainable infrasystems in dense urbanenvironments (SDG12); reducing the likelihood of water-borne disease spread (SDG3)enhancing the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all(SDG6) ensuring access to affordable, reliable sustainable and modern energy (SDG7)building resilient infrastructure (SDG9) and resilient cities (SDG11).Workshop contributions will be concerned with the UK and Brazil experiences ofinfrasystem transitions and their sustainability outcomes across different infrasystems(such as service-networked or sewage-based sanitation), in different environments (e.g.,urban, peri-urban, rural).Transdisciplinary activities will involve non-academic stakeholders (e.g. policy-makers,government and others within the public, private and third sectors). They will bedesigned using complexity theories as an approach to build an interdisciplinaryfoundation to enhance our understanding of infrasystems as related human-ecosystems.Workshop outcomes will have the potential to benefit research communities with interestin infrasystem transitions, in rapidly urbanising Brazil and cross-cutting themes. They willfacilitate informed decision making in the near future and, in the long term, improve the lives of millions of people who rely on the provision of and access to sustainable urban infrasystems. (AU)