The degrowth transition of infrastructures in the urbanised periphery. Mapping processes and uncovering socio-economic impacts in Southern Europe

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According to the UN, 2.5 billion people will join the world's urban population by 2050, and, as per Europe's own demographic projection, 83.7% of its population will live in urban areas by then. However, most will not settle in consolidated, high-density, and compact cities, but rather in the urbanised periphery or suburbs. In this increasing suburbanised world, infrastructures are stuck in a threefold crisis scenario. First, financial, given the difficulties to maintain and repair existing infrastructures, as well as to meet the expected new demand. Second, social, as the lack of access or access to poor quality basic services will hinder social cohesion, equality, and inclusion (UN, 2017). Third, environmental, as current consumption patterns are causing the qualitative and quantitative deterioration of resources, further aggravating the climate cirisis. This infrastructure crises will only become more acute, as it is estimated that, to accommodate the urban population expected by 2050, 60% of urban infrastructure remains to be built (UNEP, 2013). And it is particularly in the urbanised periphery where the demand for infrastructures is greater and, therefore, where the above-described crises will be experienced more severely (Filion, Keil & Pulver, 2019).The urgency of this task has recently been incorporated into the top of the European agenda, as part of the 2018 IPCC report and the 2019 European Green Deal. These point to, on the one hand, the importance of decoupling economic growth from infrastructures' energy demand, and on the other hand, the need for infrastructures to adopt more carbon neutral technologies, such as decentralised and non-networked forms of provision.In light of this suburban infrastructure crisis and European policy initiatives, it is a fundamental piece of work to study first, how the crisis is experienced on an everyday basis by residents and other stakeholders involved in the provision and production of infrastructures; and second, understanding the local and multiple initiatives they are taking to transform the system. These insights can inform future regional and local policy, as well as contribute to academic debates.Therefore the aim of the Fellowship is (a) to uncover the socio-technical underpinning of water and sanitation in the urbanised periphery; (b) to identify the bottom-up and top-down processes of transformation across models of supply; and (c) to assess the unequal socio-economic impacts these might have across communities. The Fellowship articulates this through six areas of action. The first is to develope two solo-authored peer-reviewed publications and a policy-facing report. These publications will engage with interdisciplinary discussions in urban studies, water studies and just sustainability transitions. The second, is to carry out further limited research into the transformations of water infrastructures (and their socio-economic impacts) in a second city in Spain, to compliment my earlier PhD fieldwork and bring to the fore underlying structures. Additional fieldwork will deploy the methodology designed for my PhD. The third is to visit an international institution in Spain that has both access to data and experience in assessing the impacts of sustainability transformations in South Europe. The fourth action is to disseminate my findings and to extend my professional networks both in Spain and the UK. I will do so through forums at KCL (Urban Futures and King's Water groups, Plumbing Poverty lab); the GRATS in Barcelona; and two international conferences. The fifth is to consolidate my role as the AESOP YA Ambassador for South Europe and to extend my professional network through the production of three podcasts that will bring together representatives working on the field in this peripheral region. The sixth is to develop a funding proposal for a subsequent postdoc to expand the work on sustainability transitions across peripheral regions in Europe.