SEI at IFLA world congress 2023

The rapid urbanization experienced in developing countries is largely linked to negative impacts to both the environment and health of their city residents. However, there exist minimal information on these impacts’ direct effects on wellbeing, particularly in the growing secondary cities, which can be used as a planning tool to support decision making. Additionally, planning and design of open spaces as part of urban developments, usually, exclude the target communities’ (users) input and engagements. Citizen Science (CS) approach is emerging as a responsive participatory tool to better address the specific-contextual environmental challenges of the local communities in research processes. This paper therefore investigated the effectiveness of CS in landscape planning for open spaces in Nakuru City. It focused on four locations surrounding the Nakuru’s Central Business District (CBD), including Kaptembwo, Shabab, London and Section 58. The paper highlights application of co-created citizen science, where Nakuru residents had the opportunity to identify priority environmental risks of concern and mapped the green spaces within their neighbourhoods. Later, collectively with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) researchers, the community went through a participatory mapping and visioning activity, where they designed their future outdoor open spaces. The common environmental challenges were established as heat, flooding, solid waste management, noise and air pollution and water quality. Similarly, distinct and common outdoor spaces identified included a mix of roadsides and road reserves, church compounds and marketplaces, with some being vegetated, while others were not, and were commonly used for political gatherings, meetings, relaxing, sport and church crusades. To achieve their visions for their neighbourhood, participants felt greater stakeholder involvement was required in the creation and implementation of policies, including the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community leaders and the residents. The findings validated the efficacy of CS approach for improving well-being of Nakuru’s residents, raising awareness, while presenting successes and challenges that may be encountered while running similar projects. This will be useful for landscape and urban planners, city managers and policymakers in improving urban open spaces’ availability, access, quality, and distribution towards improving liveability in these cities. Further, it will play a paramount role in the realization and achievement of SDG 3 and the New Urban Agenda for SDG 11, focusing on making cities safer, more resilient, and sustainable.

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