The announcement in 2019 about the transfer of the Indonesian capital from Jakarta to Borneo, in the province of East Kalimantan, set off alarms among the scientific community. The location had been identified as an area of potential tsunami risk. In early 2019 a research team from Heriot-Watt University, led by Dr Uisdean Nicholson, started […]
Tag: smart cities
Partnerships for smart cities
Professor Harry Smith was invited to the Seventh World Urban Forum in Medellin, Colombia in 2014. There he established contacts with Universidad Nacional de Colombia that later gave rise to three important projects: Mitigation of landslide risks in informal settlements in Medellin Landslide risk management strategies through the development of community-based infrastructure in Latin American […]
Resilience or Resistance? Negotiated mitigation of landslide risks
Communities in informal settlements around Medellin or São Paulo live at constant risk of losing their homes to landslide. Built on steep slopes, with limited infrastructure, a severe rainstorm can cause devastation to these communities. The research team worked to empower local communities to assess their own risks and take mitigating action to make their […]