Living the slope: the social role of topography on place-based hydrological strategies in the urban territory of the valley of Selembao, Kinshasa
(2022) 15th Conference of the International Forum on Urbanism — Location: Bordeaux (29.June.2022)
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- Abstract
- Nowadays African megacities are under constant pressure of hydrogeological risks due to fast paced urbanization combined to climate change effects. This paper focuses on the description of the water geographies of a sub-watershed of the Congo River nested in the dispersal urbanization of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, within the administrative borders of the Selembao municipality. Despite his central position, the valley is weakly connected to the public utilities and is sustained by an off-grid supply system, based on the participation of several actors through various arrangements. The research grounds in the hypothesis that the realization of new cartographies about water management entities and water-related spatial structures entails the integration of otherwise isolated and fragmented interventions (place-based tactics) and governance levels (both ancestral -chef coutumiers- and relatively recent -municipal or district authorities). Following a three-month period of exploration on-site, the paper firstly focuses on the description of the existing rain water draining and the spatial dimensions of its infrastructure. Through the recognition of the three main spatial elements (the plot, the road and the collector) a brief description of this multiscale system is presented in this paper, showing the multiplicity of stakeholders involved in co-producing this public service. Referring to the notion of hydrosocial territory, this paper constitutes a starting point for a new narrative of the socio-spatial dynamics of this territory, starting from the water perspective.
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