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Critical Infrastructures for Sustainability

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
  • Convenor: Dr Mara Nogueira
  • Assessment: a 1500-word essay (40%) and 3000-word fieldtrip report (60%)

Module description

Urban infrastructures such as rivers, flood defences, sewage systems and housing networks are foundational to contemporary debates on sustainability, resilience and social justice.

In this module we examine critical infrastructures for sustainability through a combination of lectures and place-based case studies. You will critically engage with infrastructures as socio-technical, political and ecological systems, paying particular attention to how they shape uneven patterns of vulnerability, access and power, and how they are central both to the production of environmental risk and to strategies for sustainability and climate adaptation.

If you are studying on campus, London and the River Thames will serve as a key empirical anchor. Through a series of in-situ field trips, you will be invited to reflect on the river’s role in London’s commercial and industrial development, as well as on the contemporary ecological challenges it embodies. If you are studying online you will work with case studies drawn from your own city and country to design and undertake a locally grounded field trip with the support of the module tutors. Bringing these experiences together in the classroom will enable systematic comparison across different urban, political and environmental contexts.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • understand the key social and environmental challenges facing contemporary cities across the world
  • understand how sustainable solutions in different urban contexts interrelate with social inequalities and wider urban dynamics
  • understand the ways in which the River Thames, as well as other key urban features, present challenges and opportunities for a more sustainable urban future
  • understand the role of critical urban infrastructures for implementing urban sustainability in different geographies
  • demonstrate practical knowledge about policies, projects and initiatives related to critical infrastructures (including those linked to the River Thames) that impact socio-environmental sustainability
  • understand the challenges involved in implementing key sustainability concepts and models in practice
  • demonstrate a range of study skills including: critical thinking, data collection and writing a field report.