Unfolding flood management in a leaking city. Mapping place-making and place-taking on the territory of Dakar's urban drainage services.

Van den Bruel, Evelien
(2024) RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2024 - Thick mapping for socio-ecological transitioning — Location: London (27.August.2024)

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(en) Throughout time, urban landscapes have been shaped by ever-renewing water infrastructures that facilitate the daily lives of their inhabitants. Watercourses are manipulated in response to changing societal needs. With this transformation, wastewater and stormwater drainage services are put under pressure. They urge finding a response to environmental challenges like flooding, drought, and pollution. In the past decades, flooding events have become increasingly prominent in sub-Saharan areas. The extent of flood victims and material damage in Senegal spreads like ink stains over different urban areas during the winter season. The growing urbanization in Dakar, along with the lack of urban planning and flood prevention, climate change, and the increase in major urban infrastructure, are considered the most rooted causes. The scope of this paper is to discuss the mapping practice of two 'reactions' to institutionalized water drainage management: place-making and place-taking. Using fieldwork outcomes, the aim is to explore how water bodies gain or lose their place in the city and how this impacts the citizens’ attitudes towards these water bodies. In addition, the work seeks to characterize co-production in place-making reactions and nature-based solutions in place-taking reactions. The mapping departs from fieldwork observations and explores different scales on which the flooding strategies can be projected and critically described. Different cases in the Dakar region were selected based on the involvement of citizens and the inter-scalar actions towards flooding issues. Through these tracing practices, the paper aims to analyze the historical evolution of the two types of action as they reveal the connection between human beings and nature. Historical research on the spatial and environmental development of Dakar discloses significant changes in the natural water system. A buildup of thicker map analyses on flooding issues and flood prevention strategies in the past—named palimpsests—can give more insights about their flexibility in any future scenarios. The research seeks to better understand in which way the spatial configurations of the city influence the changes in wastewater and stormwater drainage services. A reflection on the territory can be done while mapping the spatial impact of these changes on the respective territory. Meanwhile, the assets and limits of using thick mapping as a tool to visualize these changes through time are set out to reflect on the way they facilitate knowledge exchange.
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Van den Bruel, E. (2024). Unfolding flood management in a leaking city. Mapping place-making and place-taking on the territory of Dakar’s urban drainage services. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2024 - Thick mapping for socio-ecological transitioning, London.