Transformative Climate Action Using Participatory Data Driven Decision-Making Platforms (T-CAP)

Project Name :   Transformative Climate Action Using Participatory Data Driven Decision Making Platforms (T-CAP)

Adaptation to Climate Change
July-September | 2024

Description

V-PULL Drives Urban Climate Action in Visakhapatnam through Community Engagement

In a significant step towards bolstering climate resilience in Visakhapatnam, T-CAP project’s Visakhapatnam-Prajamukhi Urban Living Lab (V-PULL) recently conducted multiple impactful initiatives in Visakhapatnam. V-PULL brought together community members, student volunteers, and experts to tackle one of the city's most pressing challenges—urban flooding, with a use case in Ward 41, Gnanapuram.

A two-day workshop conducted on August 12th and 13th equipped volunteers with techniques like Observational Mapping and Geotagging. The volunteers, supported by the team then set out to survey flood-prone areas across Gedda Veedhi, Post Office Colony, and JNNURM Colony in Visakhapatnam, creating a detailed, geotagged map of key vulnerabilities. As a follow-up, on August 30th, V-PULL facilitated a Community Engagement Exercise featuring a participatory Social Cartography session. Residents of Gnanapuram joined forces with the volunteers to document their personal and community experiences with flooding. A perception survey revealed common concerns regarding clogged drains, waste disposal, and lack of green spaces, which exacerbate flood risks.

In addition to problem identification, participants also collectively brainstormed solutions—ranging from improving stormwater management to regular de-silting efforts and raising community awareness.

The solutions discussed lay the groundwork for pursuing co-created, community-driven flood preparedness strategies and the activities empower the volunteers with methods to capture factors relevant to any use case V-PULL might take up going forward.

As a complementary activity to inform V-PULL’s processes and methods, a two-day foresight thinking workshop was organized with women from marginalized communities in Visakhapatnam on 21st and 22nd August. Sessions spanned discussions on impacts and risk drivers in the context of urban heat, to co-create potential solutions. Enthusiastic participation and the spectrum of solutions discussed served as a testament to the value addition of co-creative participatory processes and highlighted communities as solution-bearers. It further demonstrated the aspiration as well as potential of communities and their marginalized sections to make informed decisions that can foster sustainability and climate justice. 

These initiatives highlight T-CAP’s commitment to advance participatory climate action and position ULL as a hub for collaboration and innovation, empowering citizens to actively shape the future of their city.