What is the Water and Fire project trying to achieve

Water and Fire is a collaborative, interdisciplinary project which worked with local knowledge to better understand community and individual responses to climate-change induced crises in the Cape Flats area of South Africa. Funded by the UKRI and GCRF, it involved a partnership between the University of Stirling, the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation, the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape.

The project aims to sympathetically engage with the knowledge, ideas and experiences of the residents of townships that are projected to be most adversely affected by climate-related difficulties. The research directly addressed the disaster risk challenges of 3 environmental hazards of water and fire in marginalised SA communities by testing methods of complementary democratic and creative engagement to advocate community-driven solutions and resilience actions to reduce disasters, thereby closing knowledge gaps.

From this information, the project synthesised these ideas into a series of ‘Best Bets’ which aim to prevent and manage climate induced disaster. These ‘Best Bets’ were determined through a community driven, democratic process that was supplemented by technical expertise and scientific knowledge to which township locals have otherwise limited access. On this site, you can find information on the research process, project methods and outcomes.