The members of the inter- and transdisciplinary funding priority »Sustainable Development of Urban Regions« publish their research results in various types of publication, that are appropriate for the respective research and implementation. In addition, the funding priority itself issues different formats of publication in which the international researchers of SURE publish their results.

A chronologically ordered selection of SURE related publications can be found here. If you are interested in a comprehensive list, please visit the individual websites of the SURE collaborative projects!

Towards a Sustainable and Water Sensitive Sam Neua Town, Laos / Baseline Study and Strategy Development

Gutterer, B., Hodgson, A., Wilk-Pham, A., Khamphilayvong, B., Hoxha, X., Hebbeker, F., Hocking, R., 2023.

BORDA e.V.

This study aims to help national and local stakeholders in Laos build a qualitative and quantitative understanding of "water" within urban development dynamics of Sam Neua town by providing information on current water resources, water use patterns, water-related risks, and existing and emerging challenges. Therefore, it gives support to localise SDGs in Sam Neua. It contextualizes existing and upcoming challenges to governance structures and management systems for urban water resources and water-related public services in the context of socio-economic development challenges, current and emerging public and private sector investment regimes, and key drivers, such as climate change. This provides a scientifically sound basis for informed decision-making with regard to the realization of the vision of a “green, clean, and beautiful Sam Neua” in the field of the management of urban waters.

The following is an overview of the key findings and derived from this, of strategic intervention areas for water-sensitive development of Sam Neua town.

Smart technology supporting traditional and bioclimatic building functions in reducing cooling energy demand in Cambodia.

Karagianni, C., Schwede, D., Han, V., Taing, K., 2022.

Digital Insights: Future of Cities. 92-103.

Cambodia has been experiencing significant urbanisation, economic and population growth over the last decade with projections showing that this trend will continue until 2035 and beyond.1 Moreover, buildings are responsible for one third of the total final energy consumption in Phnom Penh and with increasing housing needs, no intervention will inevitably lead to an exponential increase both in energy consumption especially for cooling, and in related emissions. Furthermore, despite the low penetration rate of air-conditioning (AC) in the country, according to the International Energy Agency, AC sales have doubled between 2015-2018...

Sustainable Building Arenas: Constructing a Governance Framework for a Sustainability Transition in Cambodia's Urban Built Environment

Jayaweera, R., Nop, S., Karagianni, C., Waibel, W., Schwede, D., 2022

Earth and Environmental Science 1078

Transition governance approaches for the building sector have been discussed for more than a decade. Very little work has however moved beyond the socio-political contexts of
the Global North to scrutinize the spatial-institutional challenges of sustainability transitions in the Global South, or more illiberal contexts. Consequently, this paper introduces a transition governance framework, a Sustainable Building Arena (SBA), that addresses the contextual particularities of the urban building regime and its de/stabilizing factors in the case of Cambodia to inform transformational change.

The design of the SBA draws on the literature on urban transition management, transition management in the Global South, as well as transdisciplinary transition management arenas, and extends these concepts to Cambodia’s urban built environment. It furthermore builds upon the results of an extensive analysis of the sociotechnical system and an evaluation of residential buildings in Phnom Penh, including indoor environmental conditions. The SBA is conceptualized as an informal institution and as a
protected and co-creative space at the science-policy-business-civil society interface. It allows sustainability-minded but often marginalized actors to co-produce and pluralize knowledge – including the co-development of problem framings, visions and transition strategies – and facilitates cooperation, as well as the creation of alternative discourse coalitions and networks of social capital. Overall, the paper argues that such scientifically grounded and participatory processes, that are attentive to and designed for the particular spatial-institutional context, can indeed support the development of actionable knowledge, the empowerment of marginalized actors and support collective action for transformative change in the built environment sectors in contexts outside the Western liberal norm of transition studies

Informal Settlement Resilience Upgrading-Approaches and Applications from a Cross-Country Perspective in Three Selected Metropolitan Regions of Southeast Asia

Du, J., Greiving, S., Yap, D. L. T., 2022.

Sustainability 14 (15)

Managing climate change is synonymous to managing cities and their growth. To shoulder the challenge of climate change adaptation, informal settlement upgrading in the global south has amounted to the importance of being attuned with the growth of its city and region at large. Changing the paradigm of on-site upgrading to being community-driven and city-led with domestic funding unlocks potentials for community resilience building, especially in countries that strive for inclusive growth.

This research looks into informal settlement development dynamics and its resilience stance in conjunction of the metropolitan growth in three Southeast Asian countries. Greater Manila Area, Bangkok Metropolitan Region and Hanoi Capital Region serve as the backdrop for this investigation. The research mainly addresses informal settlement upgrading roles, mechanism and approaches for resilience building in these three metropolises, meanwhile also unveiling their city-regional development needs. The methodological approach of this study is highly participatory, demonstrating a hybrid of multi-spectrum stakeholder workshops, online surveys (due to COVID), expert interviews, project interim reports and correspondence with the local expert team in the three countries, etc. The paper attempts at providing a cross-country appraisal of the central strategies of informal settlement upgrading, related institutional constellations and upgrading applications along with the three metropolises’ urban development. This attempt accentuates the pressing needs of mitigating multi-facet vulnerability of informal communities, who are the most adversely affected by climate change and rampant urbanization. Further, this research will also reveal the mindset change of how decision-makers and the public contemplate upgrading objectives, e.g., recasting secure tenure instruments.

Disaster Preparedness and Resilience at Household Level in Yangon, Myanmar

Heinkel, S.-B., Thiebes, B., Zin Mar Than, Toe Aung, Tin Tin Kyi, Win Lei Mar, Saw Sandar Oo, Miller, C., Willkomm, M., Win Maung, Zin New Myint, Khin Khin Soe, Spohner, R., Kraas, F. , 2022.

Natural Hazards 112

Publikation MYrisk Disaster Preparedness

Resilience has become important in disaster preparedness and response. Unfortunately, little is known about resilience at the household level. This study presents the results of a survey into individual and household level preparedness to disaster events in Yangon, Myanmar, which is prone to natural disasters such as tropical cyclones, fooding, and earth‑quakes. The study aimed to understand societal resilience and to provide information that could be used to develop a holistic framework. In four different Yangon townships, 440 households were interviewed.

The results of the survey indicate how risk preparedness could be improved by specifc measures related to the following fve factors: (1) increasing the general public’s knowledge of first aid and its role in preparedness; (2) improving mobile phone infrastructure and capacity building in its usage so that it can be used for communication during disasters, along with building up a redundant communication structure; (3) better use and organisation of volunteer potential; (4) more specifc involvement of religious and public buildings for disaster response; and (5) developing specifc measures for improving preparedness in urban areas, where the population often has reduced capacities for coping with food supply insufciencies due to the high and immediate availability of food, shops and goods in regular times. The fndings of this survey have led to specifc recommendations for Yangon. The identifed measures represent a frst step in developing a more general framework. Future research could investigate the transferability of these measures to other areas and thus their suitability as a basis for a framework.

Transdisciplinary Synthesis Research – Challenges and Approaches of Impact-Oriented Urban and Spatial Research

Slawski, A., Schwartze, F., Dietrich, K. M., 2022.

pnd rethinking planning

With the rapid urbanisation in Africa and East and Southeast Asia, the question arises how we can find adequate concepts for sustainability-oriented cities. In this context, urban and spatial research is more and more confronted with questions on how its results contribute to urban transformation and how the effects of transdisciplinary research projects can be measured. Since 2019, the BMBF has been funding ten projects in Southeast Asia and China under the umbrella of the SURE funding priority to provide impetus for the long-term implementation of sustainable urban development strategies. Part of the funding priority is the transdisciplinary Facilitation and Synthesis Research Project, which establishes a methodological approach to highlight the impact of urban research in the context of rapid urbanisation. For this purpose, an impact-oriented monitoring is proposed, which includes a reference framework whose theoretical and methodological conceptions are discussed in this article.