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Peri-cene

exploring the peri-urban eco-anthropocene

 

As the human population increases, so does the pressure for urbanization…. Around the world, metropolitan regions are sprawling past their effective borders and into the sub-optimal peri-urban areas. The planet has entered the ‘Peri-cene’ phase – a new global human-environment epoch shaped by peri-urbanization.

Around the world peri-urban settlements suffer the impacts of climate-driven weather extremes –  cyclones in South East Asia, wildfires in Australia, riverine flooding in China. On the positive side, there are many examples of peri-urban resilience, via novice solutions or “adaptive pathways”, with transformational agro-ecology, natural flood management or eco-tourism.   With peri-urban land areas around the world now doubling every 24 years, there is an urgent need to steer the peri-urban towards resilience and sustainability. But this raises challenges both for science and for policy, in how to deal with hyper complex problems and fast moving opportunities.

While the main project ran from 2019-2022 (with disruption from the COVID-19) – there are many spin-offs and parallel activities on this very topical theme.  Here you see an interim site including – 

Peri-cene – news & events

Peri-cene – findings & themes

Peri-cene – resources & links 

 

About the project:  

Peri-cene provided the first ever global assessment of peri-urbanisation, with its climate impacts, risks and vulnerabilities.  We worked with stakeholders in policy dialogues, to explore the nature of this complex problem, and possible ways forward. We hosted the co-creation of ‘adaptive pathways’ in a Policy Lab of 18 city-regions from around the world. We provided a new level of peri-urban mapping with an interactive – P-CAT tool. And we looked in some detail at contrasting Case studies: from the global south in Chennai (India), and Manchester Region (UK).

For the overall findings, see the Synthesis Reports –

Peri-cene – Summary for Policy Makers

Peri-cene – Synthesis A – Overview

Peri-cene – Synthesis B – Library of Cases

These & other deliverables are all in Project resources .

Banner image:  Rémi Kaupp CC-BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

 

Partners & sponsors:  

The research partners included:

  • University of Manchester (Manchester Urban Institute), UK
  • KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
  • Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Indo-German Centre for Sustainability), India

The project sponsors are gratefully acknowledged: 

The research team included:

University of Manchester

KTH Stockholm

Indo-German Centre for Sustainability (IGCS), IIT Madras, India

The University of Manchester